Opponents of the vaccine pass beat the pavement in several cities in France on Saturday, reviving large-scale mobilizations.
“Macron, we shit!”: A few days after the shattering declarations of French President Emmanuel Macron, decided to “piss off” the unvaccinated, the latter and opponents of the vaccine pass have beaten the pavement in several cities of France, resuming with large-scale mobilizations. The Interior Ministry announced 105,200 participants across France, four times more than the 25,500 of the previous mobilization on December 18. In Paris, three processions gathered 18,000 people, and they were 87,200 in the streets in the rest of the country, according to the Interior Ministry. Ten police officers were injured and 34 people arrested.
To read : Pécresse castigates Macron after his controversial remarks
The most important Parisian demonstration brought together thousands of people at the call of the “Patriots” of the far-right presidential candidate Florian Philippot, regaining the level of the mobilizations of this summer, when the health pass was announced. “Macron, your pass we do not want”, “Do not touch the children” chanted the demonstrators, many of whom were wearing a French flag, in the middle of a few royalist fleur-de-lis. “If the law passes, we will no longer be able to go to school, we will no longer be able to work,” said a young man of 17 close to the ideas of Florian Philippot, who does not want to “inject himself with a current vaccine. experimentation “.
A 57-year-old librarian, declaring herself rather “green” and on the far left, protested against “the pass which becomes a disguised vaccination obligation”, while vaccines produce, according to her, “side effects”. The Parisian demonstration took on the appearance of a political meeting, several far-right personalities coming to give their support: via video message, Marion Maréchal, the niece of the candidate of the National Assembly for the presidential election Marine Le Pen, the very conservative Jean-Frédéric Poisson, support of Eric Zemmour (another far-right presidential candidate), or the former adviser to former US President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon. A police source described the gathering as “tense”. Just like the one held on Boulevard de l’Hôpital (in the south-east of Paris), at the initiative of “yellow vests”, this social movement which shook France in 2018 and 2019, which has also regained levels of mobilization similar to those at the start of summer.
“Vaccine of respect”
The words of Emmanuel Macron, who said this week wanting to “piss off” the unvaccinated, sparked a political storm in the midst of the National Assembly’s examination of the bill transforming the health pass into a vaccination pass, adopted in pain Thursday. The text must pass before the Senate next week.
In Lyon (east), a small crowd of demonstrators of all ages and little masked gathered in a good-natured atmosphere in the center. Slogans denouncing “social apartheid” and boos against President Macron punctuated the demonstration. In Bordeaux (south-west), between 500 and 1,000 people, according to the police, and 9,000 according to the organizers, demonstrated despite the rain under the cries of “Macron on you pissed off”. “When will a vaccine of respect?”, “Confidence broken”, could we read on the signs. A Bordeaux protester, unvaccinated against Covid-19 “but not anti-vaccine”, said marching “for the first time in her life” because the president’s words “broke the camel’s back”.
Clashes between demonstrators and the police were reported in Montpellier (south, 3,700 people) and Toulouse (southwest, 2,200 people), according to the authorities. The mobilization peak of opponents of the restrictions was reached on August 7, with 237,000 demonstrators across France. In total, 79% of the French population have received an injection and 77.1% have a complete vaccination schedule. More than 28.2 million people have received a booster dose.
The pressure remains strong on French hospitals on Saturday, with more than 3,800 Covid-19 patients followed in critical care (+243 in 24 hours), according to the French public health agency. The pace of Covid contamination is not slowing down, with 303,669 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours. The disease has killed at least 125,349 people since the start of the epidemic in the spring of 2020. 143 new deaths were recorded on Saturday.
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