Gas, shocks and serious incidents in a march in Paris against compulsory vaccination

The Delta variant of coronavirus stretches in France with 21,493 new cases in 24 hours. But hundreds of protesters marched on Saturday against vaccination and compulsory health passport in Paris and throughout France.

Those who do not have a health passport in France cannot go to work or must request a vacation until the end of their Covid-19 vaccination cycle. Two months of absence from work results in dismissal.

You cannot board the train, plane or go to restaurants, cinemas, theaters, buses and public bodies without the certificate.

The cause of the passport and vaccination revived the yellow vests, protagonists of this opposition, by a country that has always been a vaccine denier.

The group had left the Place de la Bastille and managed to cross the barriers and reach the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, their symbolic goal. There weren’t enough policemen to stop them.

The most beautiful avenue in the world ended up being covered with a cloud of tear gas and clashes between demonstrators and police.

Fury of the far right

On the elegant Parisian square of the Trocadero and against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower, with French flags, the demonstrators of the former National Front began the march, renamed “the Patriots” in Paris, while the Senate debated the law of health passport. .

They had to examine 215 amendments to this controversial project, which the government of Emmanuel Macron imposed and which the demonstrators deem “dictatorial” and “which undermines individual freedoms”.

The Senate decided to cancel the health passport for minors, which was to be applied from the end of August for boys between 12 and 17 years old.

They have also banned requiring it in shopping malls and oppose sanctioning workers who violate the vaccine.

“No to apartheid”, “Liberty, Liberty, Macron resignation” chanted the demonstrators. “No to apartheid and the health dictatorship,” demanded their posters in the march.

Camilla synthesized her anger on a poster with a pink border: “I cannot be reduced to a QR code,” she said.

Two police officers on motorcycles were attacked on the outskirts of Place de la Bastille by demonstrators. Tear gas and stones as an exchange.

The demonstrators broke up the procession and headed for the avenue des Champs-Élysées. There were incidents and tear gas between the demonstrators and the gendarmes. They were stars in the yellow vests.

Corn the markets have multiplied in Paris and in the rest of France. One went from Place de la Bastille to Porte de Champerret, another from Place André Malraux to Invalides and Trocadéro, organized by Florian Philipot, the former National Front and now with his Patriots party.

At least 160,000 demonstrators were counted across the country, according to the authorities, and 11,000 in Paris.

Marche in other cities

In Marseille, journalists were expelled from the demonstration and beaten up by the public. The same aggression was repeated in Montpellier. The police did not act.

There were also marches in Nantes, Strasbourg, Annecy, Belfort, Nantes, Bensacon, Colmar, Marseille and Toulouse, Aix en Provence, Nice, Dunkirk, Perpignan, Lanester.

In Isère, the yellow vests had united to fight against the health passport. They denounce “a totalitarian state”. They call for resistance and to defend freedom.

In Lyon, Place Bellecour, there were serious tear gas riots by the police against well organized demonstrators in black.

In Strasbourg, at least 4,000 people marched. “Yellow vests, feminists, trade unionists, angry citizens, environmentalists. No state, no country, no boss. It’s time to wake up, ”one of the posters of the march read.

In Lille, they marched shouting “liberty, liberty”. “My health is private.” “No sheep, no guinea pigs. We support the health workers,” they sang. Hospital staff should be vaccinated.

The new resistance

The “resistance” is on the march with a return of the yellow vests in the streets of Paris. It is made up of them, the conspirators, the libertarians, the political extremists and the deniers.

One of the leaders is “Nurse Claire”, who in a seven-minute video that has been viewed millions of times proclaims that the epidemic does not exist and that the vaccine is a lie. The yellow vests support her.

Police were surprised last week at the scale of the marches when they began.

So far, 47% of French people are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Six times more since Macron gave a speech in the country and announced the mandatory nature of the health passport.

The government is alarmed by the growth of the epidemic, especially in the Mediterranean and on the west coast and has imposed new restrictions.

Jean François Delfraissy, scientific adviser to the government, said he hoped “a new variant over the next winter “and they believe it will not return to normal” until mid-2023 “.

Patrick Pelloux, president of the association of emergency physicians of France, declared that “the vaccine prevents people from dying” and accused “the extreme right of leading this campaign”.

Paris, correspondent

CB