On Saturday, 2,000 people gathered at Place de la République in Paris during a march in memory of Adama Traoré, despite the ban on this gathering by the prefecture. In question: the risk of overflows after the riots of recent days, which followed the death of Nahel, 17, killed by a policeman in Nanterre after a refusal to comply.
Among the demonstrators were those close to Adama Traoré, in particular his sister Assa Traoré, as well as a dozen elected officials, such as the president of the La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, but also the deputies LFI Eric Coquerel and Louis Boyard or even Sandrine Rousseau, member of the Europe Écologie-Les Verts group. Guest of the Grand Rendez-Vous d’Europe 1 / CNews / Les Echos this Sunday, the president of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly, Aurore Bergé, criticized the presence of elected officials in this gathering, considering that it is akin to the provocation”.
“In the group that I chair, we renamed La France Insoumise, incendiary France”
According to Aurore Bergé, the deputies of France Insoumise “voluntarily went to illegal demonstrations to try to make people believe that we would live here in France, in an authoritarian country”. Before adding: “we do not live in an authoritarian country, we live in a country where obviously the President of the Republic and his decisions can be freely challenged, that’s called democracy, but where it is out of the question that ‘we are simply undermining public order, security.”
“In the group that I chair, we renamed La France Insoumise, incendiary France,” she adds. “When you go to a prohibited illegal demonstration, obviously, you come into contradiction with the republican values which should be those of the elected officials.”
“Unacceptable and intolerable”
Referring to images where Eric Coquerel advances in the midst of demonstrators who chant messages criticizing the police, Aurore Bergé considers that “it is not normal that we can have elected officials who do not flinch when we have slogans ‘The police kill, everyone hates the police.’ This is not the first time, unfortunately, that this kind of thing has happened and it is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable to come with your tricolor scarf and to accredit it . The minute you hear that kind of talk, you obviously have to leave this protest. But he shouldn’t even have been there.”
The member for Yvelines also regrets the presence of the rebellious group in the National Assembly. “I don’t think it’s lucky for our democracy to have 88 far-right deputies and to have 74 far-left deputies. For the far-left deputies, for a year, we have unfortunately been brought to comment on behavior in the hemicycle and outside the hemicycle”, concludes Aurore Bergé.