“All to Repu!
“This Sunday, April 24, just after 8 p.m. and the announcement of the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, winner of the second round of the presidential election (with in the capital, more than 85% against nearly 15% in Marine Le Pen ), the call was launched on social networks.
Nearly 300 young people, mostly anti-fascists, environmentalists, including many students, converged on Place de la République (11th).
In the evening, a few incidents took place between the demonstrators and the police.
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“We are taking over a government in power for five years because of a democratic flaw,” laments Abel, 23, a musician, who calls himself “antifa”.
And to denounce, among other things, the “scandal of the Climate Convention”.
“We are here to say that we do not want him (Macron), adds Julie, an art student, piercing on her nose, can of beer in her hand.
We just want to talk.
A little further on, a small group, sitting cross-legged on the ground, talks about the Nuit Debout movement.
Near the statue of Marianne, a group sings "L'internationale".
At the other end of the square, young people are shouting “Police everywhere!
Justice nowhere!
".
Tear gas fired to disperse protesters
This Sunday evening, the Place de la République put on its great days, walls of CRS trucks, sirens and blue forest of flashing lights.
All the streets were blocked by an impressive police force, mobile gendarmes and motorcyclists of the BRAV-M, a motorized brigade.
The cafes in the square have closed "out of caution".
Some tear gas was launched around 10 p.m. in an attempt to disperse demonstrators.
A garbage can was set on fire.
The firefighters intervened.
Young people landed with spray paint and tagged the base of the statue of the Republic, in the heart of the square, with “antifa” and “the world is burning”.
A few days earlier, the statue, several meters high, had been topped with a large white sheet.
“Extinction Rebellion put it on,” says Abel, citing the nonviolent international environmental social movement that tries to pressure governments.
“It started around 9 p.m., rewinds Jean-Rachid.
The Parisian quadra was quietly installed on the terrace of the Flâneur, boulevard du Temple, at the corner of the square, sipping a beer.
The agitation has gone up a notch.
Police were going in all directions in trucks and motorcycles.
Then, all of a sudden, I saw mobile gendarmes running after a dozen young girls and boys.
They grabbed five of them, arrested them and handcuffed them.”
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A little earlier in the evening, a first group of demonstrators had been dislodged under the canopy of Les Halles and rue de Rivoli (Ier).
By midnight, calm had returned, the demonstrators were directed to the subway.