REPORTAGE
This is the anniversary weekend of the first demonstration of "yellow vests". One year after the beginning of this extraordinary mobilization, several processions are announced in Paris, Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux or Toulouse. The pink city was one of the strongholds of the movement, which walked the streets every Saturday with its share of violence, forcing most traders to close shop and inevitably causing cash flow problems that are still felt today.
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"It resulted in a dismissal: there were three, there are only two," says Lucas, optician Toulouse who accumulated a little more losses with each new act of "yellow vests". If at the beginning of the movement, the young man had two points of sale in the "Pink City", he entrusts to Europe 1 that he "is selling the second". A difficult situation that has another consequence: "it's been three months that we do not pay." "In a year, we took a big step forward, and two back," he summarizes. And Lucas is not the only one to find himself in difficulty since, in all, 850 businesses in Toulouse called on the special crisis unit created by the CCI.
"58 companies assigned to the commercial court in October"
Some have benefited from a staggering, others from partial unemployment, but we reach the end of the possibilities of support judge at the microphone of Europe 1 Jean-Marc Martinez, the president of the federation of traders, artisans and professionals from Toulouse. "There is in the stagings a moratorium for tax or social debts, but some companies have not been able to cope and automatically, institutions assign," he says. According to him, only for the month of October, "58 companies" were assigned to the commercial court. "And we are likely to have a significant wave in the coming months," he breathes.
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While the "yellow vests" Toulouse want to celebrate "a year of struggle" and intend to take the roundabouts, "as in the beginning", traders, they, on the other hand, hope that the movement will not restart. One of them even confiding that he will not be able to cope with a second Christmas as bad.