Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Ed JONES / AFP 6:10 p.m., January 20, 2024

Several hundred demonstrators marched in Toulouse on Saturday against the immigration law, on the eve of a major day of mobilization on Sunday against this text, adopted forceps by Parliament on December 19, causing an open crisis within the presidential majority.

Several hundred demonstrators, between 3,000 and 4,000 according to the organizers, marched in Toulouse on Saturday against the immigration law to demand its withdrawal and a “welcome migration policy” in France.

The demonstration comes on the eve of a major day of mobilization on Sunday against the law, the adoption of which in December caused an open crisis within the presidential majority.

“It’s unbearable to attack the weakest,” said Marianne Delacourt, in freezing but sunny weather in Toulouse.

Coming to demand the repeal of the law and "denounce the national preference, which is anti-Republican", the 58-year-old library curator, wearing a multi-colored scarf around her neck, confided to having been "furious and sad" when the law was passed.

“A fascist state” 

Pablo, a 34-year-old craftsman, who did not wish to give his last name, came to denounce “the direction that the country is taking”.

“This is not how I see democracy and society,” he continued, warning against the possibility that France is heading towards “a fascist state”.

At the end of the demonstration, under the plane trees of the esplanade bordering the Toulouse botanical garden, the placards denounce a law on immigration which carries "state racism".

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“It is in the fear of others that our humanity dies,” proclaims another sign.

David Robelin, 48, from the CGT INRAE, chats with other unionists before everyone goes home.

“Immigration is an asset,” he said, regretting a “useless, unjust law, which takes us where? And towards what? We are not going to close in on ourselves!”

“We will still have to fight for the rights of everyone,” he sighed.

“Fight together, because we all need each other.”

Adopted forceps by Parliament on December 19, the text restricts the payment of social benefits for foreigners, establishes migratory quotas, calls into question the automaticity of land law and reestablishes an “offense of illegal residence”.

The Constitutional Council will rule on this controversial law on January 25.