Between 650 and 3,000 people demonstrated on Saturday against the extreme right in Perpignan, where the congress of the National Gathering had just opened, a year after the election for mayor of this city of Louis Aliot (RN).
Waving Catalan, CGT or NPA flags, the demonstrators, coming from several departments in the region, marched behind a banner proposing to fight "
together against the extreme right
", at the call of associations, unions or left parties.
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“
I refuse to let the whole of France look at us as if Perpignan were the center of the National Front. Perpignan is not the National Gathering, it is an open, welcoming city,
”explains Claire Serrurier, a 50-year-old Perpignan national education official, in the midst of Catalan flags, the CGT or the NPA. A feeling shared by Philippe Deblauwe, also aged 50: “
It annoys me to know that my city serves as a springboard for these ideas. We must therefore come and express our opposition and also come and think together on how to propose something else
”.
“
We must not leave the ground to the National Assembly. The far right comes out of the elections weakened but we must continue the fight,
”said Florent Marsal, 22, former PS candidate in the cantonal elections. For Sonia Marzo, 70, “
we are getting closer to what took shape in the 1930s, in the same climate. The government is playing on the fear of the far right. However, we have a violent state that puts everything in place for them,
”she said. It is necessary "
that the youth mobilize to the maximum. Not just the youth, the whole of society, because once these ideas are in power, we will only have our eyes to cry on,
”declares anti-fascist activist Raphaël Arnault, 26, for his part.
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The demonstration, supervised by a CGT security service and many police officers, took place in the streets to the west of the city, outside the usual route, opposite the neighborhood where is held, Saturday and Sunday, the RN congress.