A few days before the entry into force of the vaccination pass, these are strong symbolic demonstrations.
All over France, and in Paris, opponents of health measures, the health pass, the vaccine pass, or more generally the vaccine against Covid-19, gathered this Saturday to parade together.
And the demonstrators claiming "freedom" and castigating "Apartheid" imposed according to them by the government between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
54,000 people demonstrated last Saturday.
Four parades in Paris
In Paris, where four demonstrations had been declared, yellow vests marched in the morning between the Square d'Anvers and the Place de la Nation, relayed in the afternoon by the movement Les Patriotes de Florian Philippot, which brought together a crowd of all ages, including parents with their children. The procession of several hundred people, mostly unmasked, set off around 3 p.m. from Place de Barcelona (16th century) towards the 7th arrondissement.
In the procession, the demonstrators carried placards "Freedom", "Truth" or "No to Apartheid", French flags or displaying the Cross of Lorraine.
“Vaccination pass, total resistance!
or "Macron, we t'em ...", chanted the demonstrators.
“I would rather die at the gates of freedom than die in the hells of servitude,” proclaimed one sign, while another depicted a syringe piercing Marianne.
An animator chanted “Resistance!
Resistance!
or even “Freedom!”
Freedom !
»
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Among the demonstrators, Sophie, a 44-year-old lawyer and Franck, a 56-year-old computer consultant, explained to AFP that they were both vaccinated, but not their daughter, because they oppose the vaccination of children and teenagers.
They explained that they were "anti-vaccination passes but not for Philippot".
For Franck, "the discourse of the authorities is incoherent and varies over time, depending on the contingencies", and "we no longer know how to distinguish the true from the false".
Sophie for her part regrets that “when the virus is the least virulent, we put in place the vaccination pass, when we could play the natural collective immunity”.
Elsewhere in France
The demonstrators are mobilized everywhere in France.
Already, Saturday morning, 700 people had gathered in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), according to the prefecture.
In the big cities of France, 1,300 people demonstrate in Toulouse according to the newspaper La Dépêche.
Tear gas was thrown by the police, the newspaper also specifies.
In Lyon (Rhône), according to Le Progrès, there are 700 demonstrators marching.
There would be 600 in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) and 920 in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), according to the Latest news from Alsace.
The vaccine pass will be deployed Monday in France.
It will then be necessary to be able to justify for the over 16s a vaccination status to access leisure activities, restaurants and bars, fairs or interregional public transport.
A negative test will no longer suffice, except to access health facilities and services.