They don’t give up! Three days after the victory of the National Rally in the European elections in France, new demonstrations against the far right took place on Wednesday evening in several cities, including Lille, Toulouse and Lyon, bringing together a total of more than 11,700 people, including many young people, according to a police source.
“Everyone hates Bardella,” chanted the crowd in the center of Lyon, where nearly 4,500 people demonstrated against the National Rally (RN), according to the prefecture. “We really need to mobilize all the abstainers,” declares Thomas Brun, 25, who says he is inclined to get more politically involved, at LFI, after the RN’s score in the European elections.
“I came with the aim of showing young people that their opinion counts,” assures Zoé, 18, who voted for the first time on Sunday. According to the prefecture, demonstrators broke two doors of a police station and emptied a fire extinguisher inside.
“Young people are not disinterested in politics”
In Toulouse, several hundred people took to the streets, even though the prefecture had banned all demonstrations. “RN = SouFrance”, “The Popular Front against Hitler”, “Down with R-Hate” or “France Pétain Lead”, could be read on signs. “It is important to show that we do not agree with the extreme right and that young people are not disinterested in politics,” explains Ninon, 21 years old.
The prefecture had banned this undeclared demonstration, considering in particular that the impossibility of identifying the organizers did not make it possible to “avoid the participation of elements likely to disrupt it”.
“It’s bad that it’s banned, but I don’t want to take any risks with the police,” says Insal, 19, before leaving the crowd. Later in the evening, after having ordered the last demonstrators to disperse, the police fired tear gas, while trash fires were lit, noted a journalist and an AFP photographer.
“I’ve never seen that here”
In Lille, some 700 anti-RN demonstrators, many of them young, joined the weekly procession of undocumented immigrants, chanting among other things “Bardella get out of it, the Assembly is not yours!” “.
Jef and Caroline, 48 and 40 years old respectively, plan to demonstrate again on Saturday. “If we have to come every day, we will,” says Caroline, who demonstrated for the first time in 2002 against the presence of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election. “Everything cannot be based on youth. It’s important not to consider that because we have our everyday comforts, we have better things to do,” she adds.
In Gignac, a commune in Hérault of nearly 6,000 inhabitants where the RN came in first with 38% of the votes, a rally against the far right brought together some 200 people. “I’ve never seen that here,” says the baker, curious to see so much excitement on the Esplanade square. Brandishing a sign stamped “Absurdistan”, Olivier Lehmann, a professional puppeteer, came to seek “information to know how to speak to RN voters and make them understand that Bardella is a marketing product”.
In Alençon, in Orne, the demonstration brought together around a hundred people. “We all kind of have the same opinion in our group of friends at high school,” says Charlotte, 17, adding: “We are all united against the far right.”