They have paralyzed Ottawa for eleven days and intend to stay there.

The few hundred trucks of the "Freedom Convoy" ("freedom convoy") which have been blocking access to the main roads of the Canadian capital since January 29, in the name of the fight against health measures have pushed the local authorities to institute a state of emergency on Sunday 6 February.

This movement, started to protest against the vaccination obligation imposed on truckers crossing the border with the United States and which has turned into a general questioning of the policy of the government of Justin Trudeau, captivates the antivax of other countries.

The shadow of the Yellow Vests

In the United States, former President Donald Trump, star commentators of the ultraconservative Fox New channel Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, and controversial figures such as Tesla boss Elon Musk, have given their support to the "Freedom Convoy". .

In several other countries, such as Australia and Germany, conservative and far-right politicians have called for exporting the Canadian movement.

Likewise in France, where social networks are buzzing with calls to form a "Freedom Convoy" which would try to occupy Paris the weekend of February 11 to 13.

Some Facebook pages have more than 250,000 subscribers and groups on Telegram messaging have brought together tens of thousands of apprentice "Conveyors" motivated to denounce the health measures of the French government, says Le Monde on its site.

In France, the Canadian mobilization brings back the memory of the Yellow Vests, maintained by some of the organizers of this attempt to create a "Freedom Convoy" on French soil.

This is the case of the very active activist Rémi Monde (a nickname), a former member of the “Nuit Debout” social movement and opposed to anti-Covid vaccines, who multiplies on Facebook calls for “all yellow vests” to come and swell the ranks of the "Convoy".

This parallel with the demonstrations of the Yellow Vests of 2018-2019 has also been made by certain media in France and abroad. 

It must be said that the comparison is tempting.

In both cases, these are demonstrators who occupy the main roads: the roundabouts for the yellow vests, the streets of Ottawa for the Canadian truckers.

The two movements were born from a specific demand – the withdrawal of the fuel tax in France, the cancellation of the vaccination obligation for Canadian truckers – before broadening to a general questioning of government policy. .

Truckers and their supporters organize themselves, like the Yellow Vests at the time, almost exclusively on social networks, and the movements, in both cases, crystallize popular discontent, both on the left and on the right of the political spectrum.

At least in appearance.

QAnon above all

Because for some Canadian observers, this movement is "above all a matter of QAnonists" and has a much narrower base than that of the Yellow Vests.

"The main organizers of the 'Freedom Convoy' come from the most extremist political fringe," said Daniel Beland, political sociologist and director of the McGill Institute for Canadian Studies, interviewed by France 24. 

Canada Unity, the group behind this movement, was founded by James Bauder, a conspiracy theorist who publicly supported the "QAnonist" theses on the existence of a conspiracy of Satanist politicians ruling the United States, even the world.

He is also steeped in conspiracy theories around the Covid-19 pandemic, which he calls the “biggest scam in history”.

Some of the Canadian demonstrators also wear "QAnonist" T-shirts and wave the Confederate flag of the United States, distinctive signs generally associated with fans of Donald Trump rather than Canadian truckers.

"This is a perfect example of the convergence between conspiracy-theorized extremists from the United States and 'alternative medicine' enthusiasts who reject Covid-19 vaccines," writes Christopher Curtis, a Canadian journalist author of the Canadian newsletter The Rover. 

The Canadian "Freedom Convoy" has thus received the support of both Canadian singer Amélie Paul, who describes herself as a "vegan rocker" and antivax, as well as American white supremacist movements who believe that Bill Gates wants to inject humans with the 5G thanks to vaccines against Covid-19.

Patrick King, one of the self-declared spokespersons of the "Freedom Convoy", has thus in the past warned against "the great replacement of the white race by 'Ishmael' and 'Mahmoud'", recalls the Canadian Anti -Hate Network, an organization fighting racial hatred.

It is therefore a movement that rests on foundations much more rooted in the extreme right than that of the Yellow Vests.

For some of the Canadian commentators, the delusions of the "QAnonists" served as a trigger for Canadian extremists who were waiting for an opportunity to express their anger against the government of Justin Trudeau.

However, it is not only this type of profile in the ranks of the "Freedom Convoy".

The movement has also attracted "a fairly significant minority of people who want above all to express their frustration with the health and economic situation, without having any political commitment", assures France 24 Daniel Beland, of the Institute of McGill Canadian Studies.

"We all have friends who go on the 'freedom convoy' because they're just fed up with the pandemic," said Christopher Curtis.

For him, this movement risks leading to the "radicalization by frustration" of these demonstrators who will find themselves alongside much more extremist elements, likely to convert them to their conspiratorial or supremacist causes.

Or both. 

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR