Almost everywhere, the processions are frankly thinner and the demonstrators more resigned. For this seventh day of mobilization, the Ministry of the Interior has 368,000 demonstrators throughout France, including 48,000 in Paris and even if the CGT affirms that they were 300,000 in the capital and more than a million in all the country, it is the lowest peak since the beginning of the mobilization, on January 19.
In Marseille, the inter-union announces 80,000 demonstrators (where it had estimated the participants in the March 7 parade at 245,000), when the police prefecture has 7,000 on its side (against 30,000 four days ago) . Identical situation in Toulouse, where the procession gathered 10,000 people according to the prefecture, 45,000 according to the organizers, the lowest figures since the beginning of the year in the pink city. Ditto in Saint-Etienne (2,350 to 8,000 demonstrators) and Strasbourg (1,300 to 5,000), but also in medium-sized towns like Tarbes (2,500 to 6,000). In this general decline, there are only a few cities like Nice to show slightly higher scores than on February 16 (2,300 to 8,000 people).
On the other hand, tensions are higher, especially in the capital. From the start of the Parisian parade, at 3 p.m., the throwing of projectiles against the police is numerous, some trash cans are set on fire, windows stoned. An hour after its departure, the procession was also temporarily stopped at Place de la Bastille so that the police “dislocate the block” made of “several hundred radical demonstrators” which threatens the CRS, according to the Paris police headquarters.
“Throwing of projectiles by radical elements”
Once the demonstration left, new incidents took place on avenue Daumesnil, with again the throwing of cobblestones at the police and a few garbage cans set on fire in an attempt to erect a barricade. The CGT was also a victim “throwing projectiles by radical elements”according to the police headquarters, which announced at 5 p.m. that 26 people were arrested, in particular for carrying prohibited weapons and participating in a group to commit violence or degradation, said the prefecture.
In the processions, however, the demonstrators are more pessimistic about the outcome of their movement. Until then, Corinne Niellini, 44, a supervisor in the territorial public service, who came with her husband Frédéric and their daughter Romane, did not strike. “A day of strike for two is 300 euros less”, she summarizes. The couple came to demonstrate for “mass”against the reform, even if, in his eyes, the outcome of the movement seems all drawn up, with an approved bill, in force if necessary. “These actions do not seem able to move above, unfortunatelydeplores her husband, Frédéric, a supervisor at the RATP, 45 years old. But we have to be there, at least to challenge this permanent contempt for people, workers, opposition groups, therefore the people. » Both are still brooding over the last presidential election and their default support for the incumbent president. “But he learned nothing from it. When I see this world, this anger, I am so afraid that it will inflate the extremes”anticipates Corinne.
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