It is a first since the end of World War II. Left parties and, since the 1980s, the National Rally (ex-FN) will not parade on May 1. This deep-rooted tradition is undermined this year by the health crisis and the constraints of confinement.
The famous popular processions, both festive and demanding, celebrating Labor Day will not stretch, this Friday, in Parisian arteries and provincial towns. As for the statue of Joan of Arc, which stands at the Place des Pyramides in the heart of the capital, it will not be flowered by Lepéniste militants.
Saucepans for the rebels, electronic thrush for the PCF
Faced with the impossibility of pounding the pavement, the political parties have decided to mobilize on the Web and social networks. Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, rebellious France, particularly experienced thanks to the last very “digital” presidential campaign by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has called for “demonstrations on the Internet to offer solutions, so that a crisis like this never again that we are going through does not happen again. "
A key word: "Never again." For this May 1st, the Insoumis will organize at noon a "casserolade" (the concert of casseroles, a protest tradition born in France in the mid-19th century) to denounce the government's improvisation in the management of the Covid-19 crisis. "We also invite to participate in an online demo with the hashtag # 1erMai by filming or photographing his casserolade and by broadcasting it on social networks," said the rebellious France.
For its part, the French Communist Party has just posted a visual entitled "Masked but not muzzled". "We will not be able to demonstrate for May 1 but we will say what we have to say, and in all tones," says Fabien Roussel. For the party in Place du Colonel-Fabien, the sale of the sprig of lily of the valley, too, is a tradition that does not fade. "As we will not be able to do this year, we suggest that people go and buy, on the PC site, a sprig of electronic thrush and offer it to a person of their choice," says Roussel. The boss of the Communists admits, however, that confinement weighs on him particularly and that he cannot be satisfied with the virtual: "I can no longer stay locked up, we politicians, we need to meet people if we don't dry out." "
This Friday, the deputy from the North will directly offer a touch of thrush to the nursing staff of La Pitié-Salpêtrière, before repeating the same gesture with the surface staff of the hospital located in his constituency.
Jean-Marie Le Pen will flower the statue of Joan of Arc
No question either for the National Rally to miss this meeting as symbolic as political. "A web show - made up of reports, interventions and remote round tables - will be broadcast on Facebook and YouTube pages of Marine Le Pen between 11 am and noon," said the party. It will conclude with an intervention by the president, who has planned to lay a wreath at the foot of the statue of Joan of Arc, place Saint-Augustin (Paris VIIIe).
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Neither will his father depart from tradition. Almost 92 years old, the FN co-founder will be picking some flowers from his gardens in Rueil-Malmaison and Montretout (Hauts-de-Seine) to flower the statue of the Maid, place des Pyramides (Paris I), as every year. "A May 1st without Jeanne d'Arc, it is not possible", justified his entourage, without specifying the reason he would invoke on his travel certificate.
