Anti-vaccines, conspiracy theorists and heirs to the 'yellow vests': these are the freedom convoys that take the protest to Brussels

The freedom convoy demonstration, as such, did not take place this Monday in Brussels.

Different groups have swarmed from one side of the city to the other since early in the morning, on foot, in search of reunion with their colleagues.

The largest group, in mid-afternoon, perhaps gathered a hundred people in front of the European Parliament;

at noon another hundred gathered in a park next to the community institutions.

But it has been far from the theoretical blockade of the EU capital to which they aspired, emulating the movement born in Canada to fight against the measures imposed by the pandemic.

There have not even been vehicles: the demonstrators have left them on the outskirts to avoid the controls, after the prohibition notice from the Belgian authorities.

One of the meeting points, in theory, is the Schuman roundabout, the epicenter of the European institutions, where blue flags with stars fly.

There, around 10:30 am, four friends are waiting next to a police tank, one of those that disperse protests with jets of water.

They met in 2018, in the demonstrations of the yellow vests that shook France against the rise in a rate on diesel, according to what they say.

They carry so many protests behind their backs that they have lost count.

They have come from Marseille to Brussels, the four of them in a caravan, with two dogs, and in their opinion the convoy is very similar to the movement of the vests: "It's enough already," they maintain.

“At first it was an economic movement.

With the pandemic it has gone to another level: political and health.

France has become a dictatorship.”

The four of them are a small sample of a heterogeneous movement that brings together people of all kinds: anti-vaccines in general, people from the agrarian sector, heirs of the yellow vest movement, lovers of conspiracy theories... The four have their way of seeing the world, which they reel off as they wander through the great avenues of the European quarter, in search of fellow sufferers.

For example: “It is Dr. Anthony Fauci who has manufactured the covid,” explains Daniel Guirado, 70, a former employee of an aluminum factory, now closed, who wears a tracksuit and a hat.

He claims to have seen evidence in email exchanges published by Wikileaks.

According to his unverified version, Fauci, head of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an expert on HIV,

would have created the coronavirus and then taken it to Wuhan (China) with the ruse of the 2019 Military World Games held in that city.

From there begins the story that we all know, and the consequent restrictions whose objective, or one of them, according to these four protesters, is to control the population.

The four continue their pilgrimage, confused between the building of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament.

The area is shielded by police: the last demonstration against the restrictions of the pandemic brought together 50,000 people and ended in clashes with the agents and public buildings attacked.

Guirado is accompanied by his wife Agnès Guirado, 63, a retired nurse;

Alain Gouin, 62 years old, responsible for maintenance in a hospital;

and another Alain, who prefers not to give his last name, 55 years old, a supermarket stocker.

Only Gouin is vaccinated.

It cost him, but he agreed after weeks suspended from employment and salary: he is required to continue working at the medical center.

"Everything is connected"

During the walk they go through countless issues: alleged apocalypses read on the

, that time they were gassed at a demonstration in Montpellier, what the attack on the Twin Towers hides, the manipulation of PCR tests... they speak as if there was a plan provided.

"There is a plan," replies the Alain without a surname.

"It started in 1956 with the first meeting of the Bilderberg club."

In this unverified version of the world, the goal of this club is to "eliminate humans from Earth."

He adds: “Have you read the Bible?

There is a passage where he says that good will turn to evil and evil to good.

We are at that moment."

And he also notes: "Everything is connected."

From time to time they meet other demonstrators—a girl from Lille, another from Dunkirk;

two from Nice who have passed through Paris and show videos of their exploits.

They still don't know where the big meeting will take place, so they decide to go eat.

A Commission employee recommends the best

in the area, famous for having sold a potato cone to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

There they meet other members of the convoy, they encourage each other.

They sit on a bench with the cones, take some Leffe out of their backpack and serve the beer in disposable cups.

Then they relieve themselves in portable booths.

And they continue aimlessly.

Alain says that he is protesting because there is a risk that a way of life in freedom will disappear.

He wants to prevent his children from "being submissive."

He is divorced, has a 17-year-old daughter.

“Why do they forbid you to do things if you don't get vaccinated?” he protests.

"They can't force you to do something you don't want."

They have just received a tip: the protesters are going to meet in a square in the center, in half an hour.

They go there on foot.

But one of them, exhausted, will end up returning to the caravan;

someone else will go with him to give him a hand.

And Alain Gouin, meanwhile, continues with the explanation of the global plan (not verified): “The objective is to reduce the world population so that it remains at 10% of what there is today;

leave it at 750 million people.”

This, he assures him, would happen by 2030. There would also be a government led by the UN, and the rest would be slave states.

When asked where they find proof of everything he claims, he replies: “We've been at this for three years.

We have real inside sources.”

His goal, he says, is for the lies to be exposed, so that the truth comes out "and people wake up."

To give force to his arguments, he underlines, for example, that the recently deceased Nobel laureate in medicine Luc Montagnier, famous for his research on HIV, affirmed that the coronavirus was artificially created.

This is verifiable: “It is not natural, it is the work of a professional, a molecular biologist, a sequence watchmaker.

To what end?

in 2020

.

Following these statements, the scientific community repudiated the French researcher, who is highly critical of vaccines.

In the indicated place, Sainte Catherine square, there are not many either: a few dozen people.

They begin to be aware that there are different groups scattered in different parts of the city.

Something must have gone wrong.

“Divide and you will conquer”, ruminates Agnès Guirado.

“They have managed to keep us from getting together.”

" media

, collaborators of "a diabolical plan", which have contributed, according to accusations without evidence, to "instill terror" and that "lie after lie has allowed the submissive people to lose their heads”.

There is applause – brief – and soon the word spreads that the protest continues in front of the European Parliament.

The two remaining Marseillais twist their faces: that's where they come from;

there is another half hour walk back, and uphill.

They will arrive few and tired.

The day will conclude without a demonstration of the convoy of freedom, properly speaking, taking place in Brussels.

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