For the fourth consecutive Saturday, demonstrations are scheduled for this Saturday, August 7, in more than 150 cities in France, after the definitive validation of the extension of the health pass by the Constitutional Council.
Despite the summer holidays, the processions have been gaining importance since the introduction, on July 21, of the pass (total vaccination, negative Covid-19 test or recovery certificate) in certain places of leisure and culture. They gathered more than 204,000 people on July 31, against 161,000 a week earlier, according to the Interior Ministry.
“We expect the same number of protesters worldwide,” predicts a police source. The protesters’ hope to see the extension of this pass censored, as of August 9 – to cafes, restaurants, airplanes, trains, long-distance coaches, fairs, seminars and trade shows – however died on Thursday with the decision. of the Constitutional Council. which essentially validated the bill published on Friday in the Official Gazette.
Starting Thursday night, a few hundred protesters gathered in front of the Palais-Royal in Paris, not far from the Constitutional Council, waving signs that read “shame pass,” “total boycott,” or “refuse to be a guinea pig”.
For this Saturday, four marches are planned in the capital where the police station is waiting for 10,000 protesters and expects a particularly large attendance at the demonstration scheduled for 11 in the morning at the Pont de Neuilly metro station (Hauts-de-Seine ), for an early departure. after noon towards the center of Paris. “It is the riskiest event, especially the outings in wild processions. We will pay special attention to it, “a police source told AFP, who also mentions a particular” surveillance “around the Champs-Élysées.
Like last week, the crowd should be particularly strong in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, especially in Toulon, Montpellier and Nice. In Marseille, a demonstration, declared only in part, will begin at 2 pm from the Old Port to the call of the LDS union and the firefighters. No less than a dozen events are planned in Hauts-de-France, Aube and Ardennes, especially in Lille, Abbeville, Reims or Dunkirk.
In Saint-Brieuc, the protest is divided into two meetings, one called by organizations and parties of the left (Attac, Confédération paysanne, EELV, France Insoumise) and the local “yellow vests”. The other demonstration is organized by the Florian Philippot movement and other radical right-wing formations such as Debout la France or François Asselineau’s Union Populaire Républicain.
In Toulouse, the protesters will protest not only against the health pass but also against the reform of unemployment insurance and pensions.
