The alert received on the screens of mobile phones served as a starting signal. At 6:49 p.m., once the news of the rejection of the motion of censure was shared, the Parisian demonstrators massed in Place Vauban, a few streets from the National Assembly, all started to rumble together. They had until then had their eyes riveted on the debates at the neighboring Palais-Bourbon. High school students or seasoned activists, they gauged the performances of the speakers and bet on the expected counts of the day’s vote. Until, suddenly, this group turns into a nervous procession and sets off towards an unknown destination.
On the asphalt of 7e district, these few hundred protesters against the pension reform chant the slogans repeated in the major union demonstrations in recent weeks, then over the unauthorized rallies which have animated the streets of Paris in recent evenings. The appointment of the day had been shared discreetly, on Telegram and Signal messengers.
The Parisian demonstrators did not walk very far. All around Place Vauban and the alleys serving it in a star shape, CRS roadblocks prevent leaving this perimeter under high surveillance. Faced with this technique of trap, abounded in jets of smoke, the crowd belches, gives voice even more, as if caged behind the flashing lights.
Stuck behind an alignment of CRS, Antoine, a young professor of economics and social sciences in a high school in Seine-et-Marne, intended to join his comrades as soon as he finished his day of monitoring the baccalaureate exams. He who had been caught and then searched in the body by the police near the Tuileries two days earlier castigates the repression of undeclared gatherings. “The government has been blind and deaf to peaceful movements and mass protests, it is in total denial of democracy,” estimates the teacher, present since the first day of mobilization in the processions. “The 49.3 does not change anything: we have to be present in the street, for the coup, and in the long term. »
A “young and mobile” movement
When around 8:30 p.m., the CRS roadblocks let the demonstrators out, eyes were still glued to the telephones. Head to Gare Saint-Lazare, where rumor has it it’s happening ” something “. Getting on line 13, this new meeting point is only 9 minutes away. The evening takes another turn: that of a nervous game of cat and mouse in the streets of Paris. Saint-François-Xavier station, groups of young people enter singing “Macron is waging war on us” et “We’re here, we’re here, even if Macron doesn’t want it…”followed by “Louis XVI, Louis XVI we beheaded him, Macron, Macron, we’re going to start again”…
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