- At the call of the Adama Traoré Committee, a rally took place this Saturday on the Place de la République in Paris to denounce racism and police violence in France.
- Photos circulated massively on Twitter and gave rise to debates between Internet users, some wanting to show that few people participated, others wanting to prove the contrary.
- However, these pictures of the Place de la République were taken at different times of the day and from different angles of view.
- An online tool makes it easy to estimate the number of people who can meet in one place.
A new rally against police violence was organized in Paris on Saturday at the call of the Adama Traoré Committee, named after the young black man who died in July 2016 after his arrest by gendarmes in the Paris region. By order of the prefect of police, the demonstration could not circulate and therefore turned into a large static rally on the Place de la République. Photos have been widely circulated on networks to show the place from different angles. With equally different views on the success of this event.
Thus, a twitto reports a “huge flop for the demonstration # AdamaTraoré! Barely a few hundred people! more TV cameras than protesters! "
Internet users quipped after the publication of this photograph: "Is it raining in Paris or else?" "," What an idea also to organize a demonstration on a Saturday! "," And when you watch the news channels, you have the impression that there are thousands of them ".
Conversely, some wanted to prove that the demonstrators were extremely numerous. One of them even counts more than 140,700 people from the surface of the Place de la République:
On Twitter, the publications did not succeed in getting everyone to agree and the debate settled on the angles of view of the pictures, their time, and the lack of objectivity of their authors. Examples: “We can clearly see at the end of the video that the space is not filled! Stop lying. There were between 15,000 and 25,000 [people] but not more "," Are more numerous at this time "," Ah sure! When you take a photo at 10 am… You had to go back to your balcony at 2 pm! "," Change the shot of this photo…. "
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The figures given by the Paris Prefecture of Police estimate that more than 15,000 people gathered this Saturday on the Place de la République. The start of the event was scheduled for 2:30 pm Le Figaro , who followed the event in real time, said on his website at 1:39 pm: “Dozens of people are already present at Place de la République. "Same thing on the side of our colleagues from the Parisian , with a photo taken at the scene at 1:50 p.m., and indicating that" one hour before the start of the parade,the demonstrators were already gathering in Place de la République. Between 400 and 500 people were already there. "
The photo in the first tweet, which claims to denounce a sparse demonstration, was taken on the day of the demonstration since we recognize the two red and yellow trucks present that day. It was published at 2:20 p.m. Less than an hour later, the demonstrators were in close ranks in the square, as shown live by BFMTV at 3:13 p.m., for example:
Another video, which has been widely circulated on Twitter, confirms the massive presence of demonstrators in the square. Taken at 3.15 p.m., it was published on the account of Eiichi Chijiiwa, who confirms that it was the author at 20 Minutes :
Place de la Republique at 3.15pm #JusticePourAdama pic.twitter.com/ECFNcCeSE3
- 千 々 岩 英 一 (@EiichiChijiiwa) June 13, 2020A simple tool to calculate the number of people in a place
Concerning the second tweet estimating the total number of demonstrators on the square, we can refer to a tool created by Anthony Catel, which allows to make an estimate from a surface: "I set it up there is three years during the demonstration at Trocadéro, when François Fillon had announced 300,000 people to attend his speech ", explains the developer to 20 Minutes , defending himself from any political goal. "It's so that people can do the math themselves. This is often the most difficult data to estimate. "
And for the Place de la République, the tool estimates that 115,500 people are the maximum number of people who can stick to it at the rate of four people per square meter and not 140,708 as the author of the tweet affirms, and largely including space for a total area of 28,892 m2. The presence of four people per square meter “seems a bit overestimated,” points out Anthony Catel. Indeed, this figure represents a metro on the brink of asphixia.
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