The rain has just stopped and the gray sky lets a few golden rays filter through when, shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 12, the crowd begins to flock to the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris. They came in small groups, with family or friends, some with a dog on a leash, one lady even carried her cat on her shoulder, like a day’s walk on an autumn Sunday. They are in their thirties, forties, fifties, sometimes older. Few young people, however, in this gathering against anti-Semitism.
What is immediately striking is the silence, the calm. From Napoleon’s tomb to the Alexandre III bridge, the crowds arriving on foot or pouring out of crowded metro stations are nothing but rustling and whispering.
Some demonstrators hold French flags in their hands, but no Israeli flag, almost no banners, no slogans, applause from time to time as if to congratulate themselves on having come. A lady took out her hand “Don’t touch my friend” from the 1980s, Corsican and Belgian flags streak the sky, a group of Kabyle activists dance their emblem… “We stand in solidarity with the Jews”explains a little dark-haired lady with glasses.
The war between Israel and Hamas will not be discussed throughout the procession: only the fight against anti-Semitism brings together these citizens whose political or religious affiliation nothing can suggest, apart from the yarmulkes worn by a few -uns. As if the participants were keen to show that dignity should be more important than ever, the rare disruptive outbursts were immediately condemned.
When a handful of demonstrators chant “Anti-Semitic Mélenchon, anti-Semitic Mélenchon! »they are immediately and firmly called to order by anonymous voices: “Shh, shh, no arguments. » Identical scene when another group tries to throw: “No fascists in my neighborhood, no neighborhoods for fascists. »
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The crowd swells, swells the ranks of the first to arrive, there will soon be 105,000 in Paris, according to the police. And 182,000 throughout France, spread across more than seventy cities (7,500 people in Marseille, 5,000 in Strasbourg, 3,700 in Grenoble, 3,500 in Bordeaux, 3,000 in Nice and Lyon, 2,000 in Nantes or La Rochelle).
In Paris, Laure, an actress, blonde and elegant, arrives alone at the Invalides: “I would have preferred to be accompanied but it’s not easy when you’re on the left, at the moment, to ask your friends if they’re coming to march against anti-Semitism,” she sighs. The presence of the National Rally (RN) did not make him hesitate: “I won’t look at them. » However, they are not far away.
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