Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2021
Several thousands of people, in at least three gatherings, demonstrated Saturday afternoon in Paris against vaccination, dictatorship or the health pass, noted journalists of the AFP. Rallies took place in other cities in France.
The first procession, composed of a few thousand people, started from the Palais-Royal (1st district) before crossing the Seine with cries of Freedom, No to the sanitary dictatorship or Macron resign. At the head of the procession, where French flags were in full bloom, were the former number 2 of the National Front Florian Philippot, the covidosceptic ex-LREM deputy Martine Wonner, the singer Francis Lalanne or the former yellow vests ambassador Jacline Mouraud. Some leaflets hijacking the yellow star with the words health pass were visible. Before the demonstration, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, president of Debout la France, held a press conference at the Constitutional Council. He denounced an unprecedented abuse of power and a health coup, after the announcements of Emmanuel Macron. With the health pass in daily life, it is according to him the beginning of a spiral towards a dictatorship.
At the same time, about 1,500 people demonstrated in the streets of the south of the capital, in a disparate procession, preceded by a police cordon. Finally, a few dozen people took part in another unauthorized rally in Place de la République. Demonstrations took place in many other cities in France. Some 400 people marched in the morning in Quimper, 1,200 in Perpignan, 1,700 in Clermont-Ferrand, 2,300 in Valence (Drôme). In Dijon, the police used tear gas and the tramway traffic was briefly interrupted by demonstrators chanting Freedom! Freedom!. Parades were announced in other cities in the afternoon, such as Montpellier and Lyon.