About two thousand students and teachers marched Sunday in Algiers to demand the departure of ruling figures linked to the ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and affirm their rejection of the presidential election on July 4 to elect his successor.
Since the beginning of February 22, a new popular movement in Algeria, students had made the habit of demonstrating every week on Tuesday. They made an exception on Sunday for the National Student Day, which in Algeria marks the anniversary of the rallying in 1956 of students to the fighters of the National Liberation Front (FLN), which was fighting for the independence of the country. country. "No elections, mafia gangs," chanted demonstrators gathered in front of the Great Post Office, building considered the epicenter of the dispute.
They then tried, in vain, to force the many ropes of policemen to join the headquarters of the National People's Congress (NPC). The police used their batons to repulse the students trying to cross the cordon. "Shame on you policemen," the students chanted. Significant police reinforcements, with helmets and shields, were deployed in the streets leading to the NPC.
Always mobilized despite Ramadan
On the 14th day of Ramadan - a month of fasting during which Muslims forgo eating, drinking and smoking between sunrise and sunset - and despite the heat, the motivation of students in Algiers seems intact. "We are for a civilian state and not a military state," shouted the students, mostly draped in the green and white national flag, hit by the red star and crescent.
Since the resignation of President Bouteflika on April 2, the army has returned to the center of the political spectrum and his chief of staff, General Ahmed Gaid Salah, faithful for 15 years to the deposed president, is de facto the new strongman of the country. The departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika has not calmed the protesters, who claim that of the entire "system" inherited from the former head of state and refuse the organization on July 4 of a presidential election to elect his successor.