On Saturday, thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass who came in convoys from all over France converged on Paris. A halt, the time to try to demonstrate quickly around the Place de l’Etoile and the Arc de Triomphe. On Sunday, part of these convoys set off towards Brussels, the objective of the demonstrators.
According to a police source, there were around a hundred motorhomes in the Bois de Boulogne on Sunday morning, 220 vehicles in Seine-et-Marne and 120 in Val-d’Oise. -pass was to take the road around 10 a.m. to reach the Belgian capital where a large rally is planned for Monday.
In a tweet, the police headquarters added “maintain its device this Sunday” to prevent protesters blocking the capital. Some 7,500 members of the police have been mobilized by the Paris police headquarters from Friday to Monday.
At the beginning of the afternoon on Saturday, more than a hundred vehicles had managed to reach the Champs-Élysées, which were gradually evacuated by the police with tear gas. A handful of diehards, however, remained late into the night from Saturday to Sunday in the Champs-Élysées district and in the Bois de Boulogne, forcing, according to the PP, to intervene to “verbalize and disperse” the last participants in this demonstration banned by the prefect of police, Didier Lallement.
Internal administrative investigation
In all, the police carried out 97 arrests and 513 verbalizations, according to an overall report communicated by the PP. According to the prosecution, at 6 a.m., 81 people were in police custody, including Jérôme Rodrigues, one of the faces of the yellow vests movement, and active support of the anti-pass convoys. Arrested near the Elysée, he was taken into custody for “Organization of a prohibited demonstration and participation in a group formed with a view to committing violence”, according to this source.
In addition, the Paris police prefect on Sunday requested an internal administrative investigation following the broadcast on social networks of a video, also broadcast in the 8 p.m. newspaper of TF1, showing a policeman getting out of his screen-printed car. , weapon in hand. He was chasing a white car whose occupants displayed tricolor flags and claimed to be anti-pass convoys. The video shows the policeman pointing his gun at the driver. “A video is currently circulating on social networks following a police intervention on the Champs-Elysées. the prefect orders an internal administrative investigation,” tweeted the police headquarters.
Update at 2 p.m. with the corrigendum from AFP on the video in question.