Joëlle Prétot has only one word to describe the scene that captured her: “Maddening. » On Friday March 22, in the afternoon, this UNSA activist prepared to reach the square located in front of Montbéliard station (Doubs), where a rally was organized against the arrival of Jordan Bardella. Before joining the demonstrators, she passes near La Roselière, the room in which the leader of the National Rally (RN) in the European elections is holding a meeting that evening.
A queue of several hundred meters snakes in front of the entrance. “I thought, ‘What is this rush?’ », says the septuagenarian, retired for ten years but still so quick to don the chasuble in the colors of her union. Still stunned, she claims to have not “never seen that”after almost half a century of commitment.
There were crowds to listen to the far-right leader on March 22. Around 2,000 people, maybe even a little more, in a packed venue. Many young people, as well as people from Besançon, Alsace, the Territoire de Belfort and other areas of the Grand-Est.
Many fronts
Of the “local people” had also moved: Mme Prétot claims to have recognized ” some “. On the other hand, those who had responded to the call from several employee organizations, left-wing parties and associations to denounce the presence of the president of the RN could be counted on the fingers of one hand: between 100 and 200, after participants. “What surprised and disappointed me was not so much the crowd at the Bardella meeting, because I had anticipated it. It is rather the failure of the counter-demonstration that we tried to lead”confides François Lapprand, FSU representative and teacher.
In Montbéliard, as at the national level, several unions have made the fight against far-right ideas a central theme in their positions. But taking action is accompanied by major bouts of depression. “The activists were not all there [le 22 mars] », recognizes Jérôme Boussard, head of the CGT at the Stellantis site in Sochaux-Belchamp. The fault, in part, lies in “stewardship” which was not optimal in preparing for the mobilization.
And then the competition was tough: at the start of the evening, the Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard, an institution in the region, faced the Châteauroux team at the Bonal stadium. To make matters worse, the CFDT was absent from the procession, even though its hostility to the values advocated by Marine Le Pen’s party is unequivocal.
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