The “freedom convoys” wreak havoc on the Champs-Élysées
Audio 01:23
The demonstrators joined the capital by car, van or motorhome.
AP - Adrienne Surprising
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Some of the thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass, whose convoys were heading for Paris, managed to reach the Champs-Élysées on Saturday, quickly triggering the intervention of the police to disperse them.
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They came to shout their fed up with the vaccination past, to claim “a freedom” of which they consider themselves dispossessed today.
By car, motorhome or van, thousands of demonstrators formed into "freedom convoys" on the model of the
mobilization which is currently paralyzing the Canadian capital
Ottawa have converged in recent days at reduced speed from all over France to Paris.
This Saturday, some of them managed to reach the Champs-Élysées.
Around 2 p.m., more than a hundred vehicles had joined the avenue.
The situation then became tense: the Place de l'Etoile then the Champs-Élysées artery were gradually evacuated by the police with tear gas.
Nearly 7,200 police and gendarmes have been deployed in the capital, according to the prefecture, which indicated that it had arrested 44 people at 5.30 p.m.
Among them, Jérôme Rodrigues.
This figure of the Yellow Vests was arrested near the Elysée Palace as the organizer of a demonstration banned by the Paris police chief, according to a police source quoted by Agence France-Presse.
A convoy of 300 vehicles was stopped on the A4 motorway, coming from the east of Paris, and the police were fining vehicles according to the police headquarters, as they had done earlier in the day at Porte de Saint Cloud.
“
The right to demonstrate and to have an opinion are a constitutionally guaranteed right in our Republic and in our democracy.
The right to block others or to prevent coming and going is not
, ”said Prime Minister Jean Castex.
The ban on gathering convoys was upheld on Friday evening by the Paris administrative court, which rejected two appeals.
►
To listen also: France: "We indeed live in a period where freedoms are restricted"
“
We are all collectively tired of what we have been going through for two years
,” President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with
Ouest-France
on Friday .
“
This fatigue is expressed in several ways: by disarray in some, depression in others.
We see a very strong mental suffering, among our young and old.
And sometimes, this fatigue also translates into anger.
I hear it and respect it
”.
“
But,
he added,
I call for the greatest calm
”.
Two months before the presidential election, the government says it plans to lift the vaccination pass by the end of March or the beginning of April and intends to abolish the obligation to wear a mask as of February 28 in places where the pass is required.
(
With
AFP)
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