Effect of Covid-19, lack of momentum in mobilization or too heterogeneous slogans?

The rallies against the proposed "Global Security" law, fought since November by defenders of public freedoms and journalists' unions, did not fill up on Saturday.

Across France, demonstrations against the so-called "Global Security" bill brought together 32,770 people, according to figures given by the Interior Ministry on Saturday evening.

It is far from the influx of the most important day of mobilization, November 28, which had gathered 500,000 people in the country according to the coordination, 133,000 according to the government.

"The mobilization is complicated with the Covid but for all that, many believe that it is a law of liberticide", assured AFP Dominique Besson-Milord, departmental secretary of the CGT, in Rennes, where 800 people gathered, according to the prefecture.

"We know that after a while, there are fewer people", for his part analyzed Paul Garrigues, co-president of the League of Human Rights (LDH) of Dijon, in the middle of a few hundred of demonstrators.

"This is the tenth event, and people are not giving up, it is already that", wanted to retain Jean Latasse, activist of Amnesty International in Strasbourg, where 300 people were present according to the police.

"The most important thing is to confirm our presence. Even if we are not many, we must show that we are there," added Frédéric, who demonstrated in Lille with 800 people, according to the prefecture.

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A "convergence of struggles"?

In the viewfinder of the demonstrators, the text on "Global security" presented this fall, and in particular its article 24 which penalizes the malicious dissemination of images of members of the police.

A measure defended by the government for which it aims to protect police officers who are victims of calls to hatred and murder on social networks, but which would prevent, according to its detractors from filming the police in intervention and documenting the violence policewomen.

The collective "# StopLoiSafeGlobale" was launched by journalists' unions and the Human Rights League.

He is supported by representatives of the world of culture, put to the test by the Covid pandemic, and by theaters followers of techno "free parties", who consider themselves targeted by an abusive police repression after the Lieuron rave ( Ille-et-Vilaine) at New Year.

But in Bordeaux, the merger of two separate gatherings, the one against Global Security and the more important one for free parties, left some participants perplexed, who wondered alongside whom exactly they were demonstrating.

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Clashes at Place de la République in Paris

In the capital, where "yellow vests" from Place de la Nation joined the movement on Place de la République, the demonstrators numbered around 5,000, according to the Interior Ministry.

At around 5 p.m., one hour before the curfew imposed by the Covid, clashes broke out between about fifty young people, mainly from the ultra-left movement, and the police, while the organizers had announced the dispersal.

After throwing projectiles, the police used water cannons.

The square was finally evacuated around 5:30 p.m.

Twenty-eight people were arrested in Paris, according to the ministry.

The collective "# StopLoiS SécuritéGlobale" also targets articles 21 and 22 of the bill, on the use of pedestrian cameras and drones by the police.

He is also opposed to the "new national plan for maintaining order" (SNMO), regularly invoked by the police to limit media coverage of the demonstrations.

"It's a whole, it's a desire to control the images," said Vincent Lanier, secretary general of the National Union of Journalists (SNJ).

"We are on a continuation of the mobilization until March when the text is passed before the Senate", he added.