Le Figaro Lyon
A record event in terms of mobilization but also damage.
After three months and ten days of action against the pension reform, the procession of May 1 brought together 45,000 people according to the unions in Lyon, 17,000 according to the police, but was largely disturbed by a fringe fed by thugs in the lead. of procession.
Some 2,000 hostile individuals, according to the prefecture, half from the black bloc, attacked from the first meters of the procession the police, shop windows and street furniture, making the progress of the procession very laborious .
Alas, many "classic" demonstrators, who came with their families in particular, left the rally over the hours.
The appointment was given at 10 a.m. but the head of the procession did not start until 30 minutes later to allow time for the many demonstrators to reach the procession.
AS / Le Figaro
They were however numerous to garnish the flow going up against the current in the direction of the place Jean-Jaurès to reach the tail of the procession at the end of the morning, toddlers on the back and bicycle in hand, for lack of public transport.
Already having to avoid the first exchanges of projectiles and tear gas at the head of the procession where several hundred people dressed in black were gathered.
Among the latter - sometimes masked -, some are helmeted and equipped with tools ranging from fireworks mortars to icebreakers.
“We too will go through in force”,
they chant in reference to the use of article 49.3 of the constitution to validate the government's pension reform project.
Some take shelter under umbrellas to avoid being filmed by drones authorized in an unprecedented way to capture images of the demonstration by prefectural decree, which buzz at several tens of meters in height.
Read alsoMay Day protests: why the use of drones is causing legal debate
"There are children and the elderly," demonstrators call out to the police as the first rounds of tear gas rain down in response to the damage to windows by thugs.
AS / Le Figaro
Burned cars, looted stores, disgusted protesters
Far behind, around the inter-union and the CGT truck which booed the pension reform, the opposition to government policy is firm.
And translated into placards.
“We don't give up”
, sing the demonstrators, in the presence of local elected officials on the left, who believe in the withdrawal of the reform.
Saucepans resound to the windows where they are sometimes brandished and widely applauded by the street.
“A nice big demonstration
!
And during a long weekend, not on a May Day which falls on a Wednesday
, ”rejoices Nicolas Simiot, deputy secretary general UNSA Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, when last year the procession numbered only 5,000 people.
The good humor of the union procession, where Solidaire experimented with a “family square” to shelter from violence, gave way to weariness after hours of standing still.
AS / Le Figaro
But between stops, broken windows and violent clashes, it already takes an hour and a half for the procession to travel the 900 meters to Place Jean-Macé where many demonstrators are waiting to join the procession.
They will see individuals tumble down equipped to break the windows, cameras and cash dispensers of bank branches.
In the aftermath, the first garbage fires are lit on Avenue Jean Jaurès while an elderly demonstrator harshly attacks younger people who break.
"You have nothing to do here
," he yells without yielding to the physical threats of his cadets.
"Let the madmen go ahead"
After the opening and looting of a Naturalia store, the hostile leading group split under tear gas through the alleys of La Guillotière, emerging at Place Gabriel Péri for violent clashes with the police while a another party opened a Carrefour city and then a BNP Paribas branch.
The firefighters intervene under the cheers to put out the fires of vehicles in particular, while garbage cans of papers are taken out of the halls of buildings to be burned.
But many demonstrators have already left the procession, which stagnates and keeps away from the thugs.
The inter-union also deplored the degradations.
"We asked to branch off to let the madmen go ahead and be able to move forward, but the prefecture refused"
,
“We do not divert like that a procession of 17,000 people and the police device which goes with even more with the clashes which took place”
, retort the services of the State.
Banking and insurance agencies were particularly targeted by the thugs.
AS / Le Figaro
Five hours after the morning departure, the procession, reduced, finally leads to the Guillotière bridge where new clashes, and firing of fireworks mortars are worth a salvo of tear gas in which two demonstrators are injured in the head.
"The black blocks protect themselves by sticking the CGT procession"
, warns the prefecture.
And wipe tear gas.
"The doctrine of maintaining order does not distinguish us from the thugs"
, deplores Nicolas Simiot.
“There are children, old people”,
challenged in the same vein demonstrators under the gas of the avenue Jean-Jaurès a little earlier.
After the use of the water-thrower truck at the entrance to rue de la Barre, identified as a place of confrontation for several weeks, the Monoprix in Place Bellecour will also be opened and looted, with 33 arrests. , for a total of 40. Eight more took place in the evening in the Pentes de la Croix Rousse, where the police were targeted by
"tense fire from fireworks mortars"
and
"throws of incendiary projectiles"
according to the prefecture.
“Many activists who came with their families did not manage to get through and left,” according to Nicolas Simiot, deputy secretary general UNSA Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
AS / Le Figaro
The prefect of the Rhône, Fabienne Buccio, paid tribute to the police, 55 of whom were bruised and 19 injured, including one seriously in the hand.
State services who welcomed the use of the drone, which would have made it possible to detect the movement of radical elements wishing to attack the town hall of the 7th and to challenge them.
In the district, where the employees of the metropolis cleaning the damage succeeded the thugs, the stigmata will remain for several days.
The mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet renewed his call for the creation of a compensation fund for traders.
Condemning the violence, he asked the government to withdraw the reform.
