In the “freedom convoys”, the same ideological fractures as among the anti passes and yellow vests


In Cédric’s van, which has come from the Vendée, three comrades who have been dating since the “yellow vests” vociferate against the “rotten” and “crooked” policies and assure that they will not vote. Everyone prefers to keep their family name quiet.

The 42-year-old ballroom musician dropped politics “from Holland”, despite a “family far-left sensibility” and an interest in all subjects relating to “global finance”. His co-pilot, Cyril, 36, voted “green” when he was 18. But then he “broke with the system of representativeness” and lives in alternative communities.

In the back, Kevin, a worker in a fish factory, is in the background. “At the beginning of the yellow vests, saying that I voted for Le Pen would sometimes have caused problems”, ends up saying the one who displays a blue-white-red armband crossed out with the word “resistant” in golden letters. Silence in the cabin. “Now we have overcome all that, we know that we think differently but we have common objectives that make us exceed”, resumes Cédric.

The three men, who are looking for a coffee to take away because they don’t have what they call a “Nazitarian pass”, allowing them to sit in an establishment, reflect on what made them “overcome the divisions”. “The idea that the real fascists are there, in government, sitting on our freedoms”, launches Cédric, grandson of the resistant.

Extremes attract

These ideological tensions had also marked and often divided the movement of “yellow vests” from 2018, giving rise to spectacular fights between far-left and far-right activists in certain processions.

The anti-pass movement is today crossed by these same fracture lines, as evidenced by the multiplicity of weekly parades in the capital, between different movements that refuse to march together.

Émilie, 27, nursing assistant in nursing home, vaccinated “backwards” to avoid going to do “interim work at the factory”, in the convoy from Rennes. “These demonstrations opened my eyes to France, to all these different anger,” she says, admitting “moments when I forgot myself, like the day I found myself in Philippot’s procession with people I can’t like”.

The leader of the Patriots, Florian Philippot, organizes a weekly anti-pass parade in the capital. Other candidates for the presidential election have lent their support to this movement, including Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour (extreme right) or the radical left party La France insoumise (LFI).

“Rillettes party” on the roundabout

The organizers have in return adopted a suspicious attitude vis-à-vis any attempt at electoral recovery and insist that they are “apolitical, partisan, non-religious”. The moderators of “Convoy France” keep an eye on things. On the couriers used to coordinate the advance of the vehicles, all politicized messages are filtered, the chats closed if they do not respect the rule.

In Le Mans, on the “roundabout of the picnic”, a “rillettes party” is organized for the reunion of two convoys. A pro-Zemmour Le Mans activist came with his leaflets, approaching the conveyors with an engaging “what do you think of the presidential election? »

– “We’re not going to get along”, interrupts Phil, a retired postal worker, Breton flag in hand.



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