The demonstrators who came to block Paris to protest against the vaccine pass were at the gates of the city on Saturday morning, while the police are mobilized to prevent any blockage.
After having camped at the gates of Paris, thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass who came in convoys from all over France took to the road again on Saturday, determined to demonstrate in the capital, despite the authorities’ ban and a strong police mobilization to prevent any city blockade. Motorists who had stopped the night before in a parking lot near Chartres, 90 kilometers from Paris, left at dawn, at low speed.
They intend to become “a mass of vehicles impossible to contain by the police”, according to their messages consulted by AFP, because “in fact, to several thousand vehicles capable of being stationary as well as moving , a few dozen tow trucks wouldn’t be able to do much”. The protesters refuse the vaccine pass which reserves access to people immunized against Covid-19 to a good number of places open to the public (restaurants, cinemas, etc.) but they also defend social demands, on purchasing power and the cost of energy. Nearly 7,200 police and gendarmes have been deployed in the capital to enforce the bans on vehicle convoys, according to the authorities. Gendarmerie armored vehicles were also mobilized, a first since the demonstrations of the social protest movement of “yellow vests” born in the fall of 2018.
The city’s police prefect, Didier Lallement, said he had created “temporary pounds which (…) will allow, with several dozen towing vehicles, to put an end to any blockage”. Prime Minister Jean Castex has promised to be inflexible: “If they block traffic or if they try to block the capital, you have to be very firm,” he said on Friday. Gathering of opponents of President Emmanuel Macron and “yellow vests”, the movement was formed on the model of the mobilization which paralyzes the Canadian capital Ottawa.
The hundreds of cars, motorhomes and vans leaving from Lille, Vimy (North), Strasbourg (East), or Châteaubourg (West) stopped Friday evening on the outskirts of Paris, without entering according to a police source. Fatigue and nervousness were palpable in the procession from Brittany (West), which had stopped in a parking lot on the outskirts of Chartres, surrounded by gendarmes, according to an AFP journalist.
“European Convergence”
“We are all collectively tired by what we have been going through for two years. This fatigue is expressed in several ways: by disarray in some, depression in others. We see a very strong mental suffering (… ). And sometimes, this fatigue also translates into anger. I hear it and respect it, “said President Macron in an interview with the regional daily Ouest-France. “But I call for the greatest calm,” he added. Two months before the presidential election in France, the government says it plans to lift the vaccination pass by the end of March or the beginning of April. The mask will no longer be compulsory in closed places subject to the pass from February 28, with the exception of transport.
The police estimated Friday at 3,300 the number of vehicles involved in the various convoys. It is an action “on a phenomenal scale”, told AFP a coordinator of the movement. The ban on gathering convoys was upheld on Friday by the courts, which rejected two appeals. “It’s a betrayal. The foundations of the decree (of prohibition) are not respectful of the law, of the freedom to demonstrate”, reacted to AFP the anti-vaccine activist and “yellow vest” Sophie Tissier. “The right to demonstrate and to have an opinion are a constitutionally guaranteed right (…). The right to block others or to prevent coming and going is not,” replied the head of government. .
Some participants hope to swell the ranks of the processions against the vaccine pass organized each week on Saturday. But “it’s important not to disturb other users, to keep the population on our side, as in Canada”, underlined Robin, from a parking lot in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, near Strasbourg. Others intend to join Brussels for a “European convergence” scheduled for Monday. The Belgian authorities have banned access to the capital. On Friday, others were also spreading calls to occupy roundabouts, as during the Yellow Vests movement.
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