Demonstrators including the Global Security Law, Saturday December 12 in Paris.

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Thibault Camus / AP / SIPA

Thousands of people marched on Saturday for the third consecutive week in France, without major incidents, to denounce the very controversial bill "Global security", in their eyes "liberticide", and the government bill on separatism.

Launched at the initiative of a collective of unions, associations or left-wing political movements, this new day of mobilization took place under a very strong police presence, especially in Paris, to avoid the repetition of the violent incidents of the previous ones. gatherings.

In the capital, many units of CRS and mobile gendarmes closely supervised the thousands of demonstrators - 10,000 according to the organizers - who marched from the Place du Châtelet to that of the Republic and carried out more than a hundred arrests, according to the Interior Ministry.

This large wave of arrests created tensions in the parade but no major incidents were reported there late in the afternoon.

In Lyon, where the prefecture has identified some 2,000 demonstrators, the police used tear gas to respond to projectiles.

Just like in Lille, where a few tear gas canisters were fired to disperse the procession at the end.

"Stop liberticidal laws, stop Islamophobia"

Gathered behind a banner proclaiming "stop the liberticidal laws, stop Islamophobia", the Parisian demonstrators denounced the laws as police violence by regularly repeating the slogan "everyone hates the police".

“We cannot stay at home in the face of what is currently happening in the country, and which is serious.

The government […] reduces our freedoms text after text, ”Christophe, a 47-year-old professor of philosophy of art, told AFP.

Adopted by the deputies, the proposed comprehensive security law has for weeks aroused sharp criticism from the left, journalists and NGOs defending freedoms, in particular its article 24 which penalizes the malicious dissemination of images of security forces. order.

The text is accused of undermining the freedoms of the press, of expression and of demonstrating and establishing "tools of mass surveillance".

These criticisms were reinforced by the filmed beating of music producer Michel Zecler by police officers on November 21.

"We are moving towards too many restrictions, in general"

Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of people have marched to demand its removal.

This Saturday again, they were around 1,800 in Montpellier, between 1,000 and 1,500 in Strasbourg, nearly 500 in Lille, 1,200 in Toulouse and a thousand in Marseille.

"I am not only protesting against the comprehensive security law", explained a 23-year-old student from Montpellier, Coline Marguet, "we are going towards too many restrictions, in general".

"It is a law infringing on freedoms and we can already see it: the controls are systematic to reach the rally, the flags become weapons and are confiscated, we are stuck on arrival," lamented Laurent Feisthauer of the CGT section of the Bas-Rhin, "we are in an authoritarian drift".

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