Protesters, many of them unmasked, are dissatisfied with the vaccination warrant of health workers and the health permit to enter public places.
Paris police fired tear gas and made arrests as they tried to disperse protesters. many of them skeptical about vaccines, the so-called “anti-cowboys”“, Which went all over France because of the new coronavirus restrictions.
Some of the protests began on Wednesday morning in Paris when the annual military parade of the traditional Bastille Day parade, overseen by President Emmanuel Macron, took place along the Champs Elysees.
Protests continued Wednesday night, with protesters captured in video clips posted on social media, who also directed fireworks at police.
Protesters, many of them unmasked, are unhappy with the decision announced Monday to force health workers to get vaccinated and for people to show a health card to enter most public places. Those who are not vaccinated should show a negative test result.
The announcement prompted a record number of French people to book appointments for COVID-19 coups.
“This is in the name of freedom” was the message of some of the protesters.
In an area of the French capital, police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.
The declared route was not respected, police prefecture said in a tweet, lamenting the “projectile launch” and the lighting of fires by protesters.
Across Paris, some 2,250 people protested, while other demonstrations took place in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nantes and elsewhere. French authorities put the total number of protesters at 19,000.
“Health segregation”
The Interior Ministry said there were 53 different protests across France.
Protesters sang “Down with the dictatorship,” “Down with the health pass.”
One of them, Yann Fontaine, a 29-year-old notarial secretary from the Berry region in central France, said he had come to protest in Paris arguing that the health pass amounted to “segregation.”
“Macron plays with fears, he is revolutionary. I know people who will now be vaccinated just so they can take their children to the movies, not to protect others from serious forms of COVID, ”he said.
Police closed the anti-Emmanuel Macron protest in Paris. Protesters are angry that the president has announced COVID “passports” for entry to restaurants, shopping malls, bars and other businesses. pic.twitter.com/gTFPzc5eSv
– Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 14, 2021
“There is no obligation to vaccinate, that is the maximum incentive,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said at the time.
“I have a hard time understanding, in a country where 11 vaccines are already mandatory … that this could be seen as a dictatorship,” he said, adding that after a year of studying vaccines “time to doubt it has already happened “.
The rules will be relaxed for teens who have only been able to get hit since mid-June: “Making summer hell is beyond doubt,” Attal said.
According to an Elabe opinion poll published on Tuesday, a large majority of French people approve of the new security measures.
Approximately 35.5 million people – just over half of the French population – have received at least one dose of vaccine so far.
At the beginning of the pandemic, France had some of the highest levels of vaccine skepticism in the developed world.
In December 2020, a poll conducted by the Odoxa voting group and the newspaper Le Figaro, showed that only 42 percent of the French population wanted to be vaccinated. By April of this year, it had risen to 70 percent, while about 14 percent remained vehemently opposed to vaccines.
