The Paris police prefect Didier Lallement banned rallies organized on Saturday June 6 against police violence on the Champ de Mars esplanade, after having proscribed other actions planned elsewhere in the capital due to the health crisis.
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" Calls to demonstrate at 5:00 p.m. on the Esplanade du Champ de Mars in Paris, on Saturday June 6, 2020, were launched on social networks on the subject of 'police violence', without any prior declaration to the Police Prefecture (PP), wrote the prefect in a press release.
" These gatherings, which can rally many people, are not authorized by the decree of May 31, 2020 relating to the state of health emergency, which prohibits any gathering, in the public space, of more than ten people ", continues the press release.
Families of victims of police violence gathered in a group invited to " walk on the Champ-de-Mars, respecting barrier gestures, to take a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower " with the hashtags #LaisseNousRespirer, #JusticePourToutesLesVictimes and #No justice, no peace. The organizers call for " amplifying the international movement of solidarity against the impunity of the police", while rallies multiply after the death in the United States of George Floyd, a 46 year old black man asphyxiated by a police officer.
The prefect of police had already prohibited Friday morning two rallies scheduled for Saturday from 3:00 p.m. in front of the United States embassy in homage to George Floyd, and which were maintained by their organizers.
Calls to demonstrate Saturday against "police violence" were also launched in several cities in France, such as Bordeaux, Nantes, Limoges, Poitiers, Marseille or Lille, despite the ban on gatherings of more than ten people for cause health crisis. Friday evening, new demonstrations took place in Strasbourg, Clermont-Ferrand, Caen and Rouen.
Tuesday, a demonstration prohibited by the prefect of police gathered in Paris at least 20,000 people at the call of the family support committee of Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in 2016 after an arrest by gendarmes.
Read also: New rallies against police violence in several French cities