Back on the asphalt, towards the epicenter of the demonstrations of the yellow vests, three years ago. Thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass who came in convoys from all over France set off again on Saturday in the hope of entering the capital despite the ban on demonstrations. After camping at the gates of Paris on Friday evening, some of the participants – 3,000 vehicles for 5,000 demonstrators in all according to the police – joined the ring road on Saturday morning. At the start of the afternoon, more than a hundred of them, who had joined the Champs-Elysées, were dispersed by the police.
The rally had started a few hours earlier. While about twenty people were waiting for the convoy at the top of the avenue, you could see French flags and placards “respect our humanity”. In the discussions, we denounce the plot of “money that buys everything” : “Pfizer, Bolloré, banks and our freedoms”. Maxime and Fabien, two stonemasons aged 26 and 27 left Valenciennes early Saturday morning via the nationals. No control. Since 9 a.m., they have been waiting on the avenue: “We come to defend our freedoms. We are tired of not being able to do anything because we are not injected. We do it for our children. We don’t come to break, just to claim”.
Fabien had the Covid, delta version. He says he has had few symptoms, but acknowledges that “it depends on each one”. Three years ago, he could not join the yellow vests but he “supported the movement”. Several police trucks finally disembark, sirens wailing. They proceed to control the small group which disperses in the crowd of tourists. At 1:30 p.m., several dozen vehicles burst into Place de l’Etoile. They honk, wave tricolor flags but are very quickly immobilized by the police. A protester shouts into a megaphone: “You thought the yellow vests were dead, we’re still here!”. On the sidewalks, some passers-by applaud. “They succeeded, they did it”, rejoices one of them. Further down the avenue, another line of vehicles is contained by a police cordon.
Around 2 p.m., the CRS charge, and shout to all the cars, coming from the North, Normandy and Ile-de-France, to “turn around”, under the boos of the demonstrators. Tow trucks are waiting at the top of the avenue. Some run and leave the scene, under tear gas. Some protesters wanted to stay there overnight, but were deterred by tickets and cranes being deployed. Some clashes between the police and demonstrators recall the Saturdays of the yellow vests. At 3:15 p.m., 14 people had been arrested by the police and 337 people fined for “participation in an unauthorized demonstration”, according to the Paris police headquarters.
Filter dam
At the main gates of Paris, demonstrators were also arrested in clusters and dozens of cars were checked by the police all morning. At the exit of the ring road, a filter barrier was set up at Porte d’Orléans, with around twenty mobile gendarmes.
Waving a tricolor flag, a demonstrator asks a policeman: “So we sing ‘The police with us’ or ‘Everybody hates the police’ today?”. Quiet, the policeman answers him: “Already we are going to take advantage of the good weather.” Porte de Saint-Cloud, three police officers observe the traffic from a bridge and two motorcycles stand ready to intervene. At each bridge above the ring road, yellow vests were hung. The police cars are waiting near the ramps but around noon, everything was calm: sandwich time.
Armored vehicles emerged
At the start of the morning, the police headquarters had announced that it had already made 95 arrests and intercepted around fifty vehicles. In total, more than 7,000 police are waiting for the demonstrators on the ground. Gendarmerie armored vehicles have also been deployed in the capital, a first since the demonstrations of yellow vests at the end of 2018.
The ban on gathering convoys was upheld by the Paris administrative court, which rejected two appeals. The Prime Minister, Jean Castex, has promised to be inflexible in the face of the movement. “If they block traffic or if they try to block the capital, you have to be very firm”he insisted on France 2 on Friday evening.
In an interview published Friday by West France, Emmanuel Macron spoke for the first time on this subject. The President of the Republic called “in the greatest calm”, even if he admits that “the claims of each other are always legitimate”. “But we need harmony, a lot of collective benevolence,” he points out.
Some motorists, like those of the convoy which stopped on Friday in a parking lot on the outskirts of Chartres, left at 5 a.m., at low speed, towards the Paris ring road. According to their messages, they want to become “a mass of vehicles impossible to contain by the security forces unless the latter themselves block the main axes of the capital”.
Some participants hoped to swell the ranks of the processions against the vaccine pass organized each week, in particular a demonstration authorized on Saturday in front of the Ministry of Health. Others then plan to join Brussels for a “European convergence” scheduled for Monday. The Belgian authorities have also banned access to the capital.
Update at 3 p.m. with elements of reporting on the Champs-Elysées.