If Emmanuel Macron was more easily than expected re-elected President of the Republic, several demonstrations broke out on Sunday evening.
Several hundred demonstrators, mainly young “anti-fascists” and “anti-capitalists”, protested Sunday evening against the re-election of Emmanuel Macron in a few cities in France, marked by incidents in Rennes as well as in Paris, noted journalists from the AFP. Shortly after the announcement of the victory of the outgoing president over Marine Le Pen, they were several hundred – 250 according to the prefecture – to gather in the center of Rennes, despite a large deployment of the police.
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They unfurled a banner proclaiming “What we won’t get from the ballot box, we will get it from the streets” before leaving in procession to cries of “Macron is making war on us and his police too” or “Down the state, the cops and the fachos”. Demonstrators set fire to several garbage cans, forcing firefighters to intervene three times, according to the prefecture which had banned the demonstration. The police fired tear gas near the canal that crosses Rennes.
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“We want to demonstrate to show that we don’t want Le Pen at all, but we don’t want Macron either,” 21-year-old student Nora told AFP. “We have to organize ourselves to find a counter-power”. Thomas Lefeuvre, a 19-year-old history student, still voted for Macron, “to block the far right”.
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“This second round does not correspond to what we want for the future of young people,” he said. “The people who are here this evening are legitimately angry and want to express it. Seven demonstrators were arrested and one of them was placed in police custody, according to a report from the prefecture at the end of In the center of Paris, 250 to 300 “antifa” demonstrators demonstrated to cries of “Macron get out”, at times clashing with the charging police.
The Republic statue has been tagged “The world is burning”.
Leaving from the Halles, they chanted “Marine Le Pen, it’s disgusting” and “Manu Macron, it’s disgusting”, or “Macron, get out!”, even on the Place de la République, framed by a large police force .
Simon, a 23-year-old Parisian, who did not wish to give his name, said he was “worried about the climate”: “we will not reach adulthood!”, He launched in a colorful way. “Read the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). That’s why I’m here tonight.”
On the way, bicycles, scooters and garbage cans were overturned and a few projectiles were thrown at law enforcement trucks. The Republic statue has been tagged “The world is burning”.
In the center of Nantes, a procession of around 400 to 500 people marched behind a banner proclaiming “Need for revolution”. In Toulouse, some 500 people also took part in a demonstration whose slogan was “Neither Macron nor Le Pen, revolution”. “Enough, enough of this society, which hunts down undocumented immigrants and fucks Zemmour on TV”, they sang.
Jironi Piques advanced alone, Occitan flag in his hands: “We left for five years of liberalism, with a Parisian oligarchy which did a lot of harm to the country”, told AFP this territorial employee, supporter of Jean Lassalle, did not vote in the second round.
In Caen, around 200 people according to the prefecture, mainly from the revolutionary and libertarian movement, demonstrated to contest the ballot. A few trash cans were burned and a protester arrested.
In Strasbourg, a hundred people marched without incident through the almost deserted streets of the city behind a banner which read: “Workers, unemployed, young people, retirees, we deserve better than that, with or without papers”.