Here’s my report of today’s anti vaccine passport demo in Montpellier, France
In February 2003 I participated in (and helped organize) one of the biggest political demonstrations in Montpellier history, when, officially, around 10,000 people marched in the streets against the buildup for the USA/UK invasion and occupation of Iraq. Today, I participated in a march which was, in my opinion, equally large, but which, according to the local newspaper, was half the number: 5,500.
Whatever the actual count it was a huge demonstration.
Keep in mind that the February 2003 demo was in line with the centralized state policy of French President Chirac, who officially was opposing the USA/UK maneuvering in the United Nations. This time the people were vocally opposed to their president, chanting again and again ‘Macron Démission’ (resign). Or ‘Macron en Prison!’.
Keep in mind that in 2003 there was a huge coalition of political and civic groups actively organizing, with a weekly coalition meeting, including political parties. This time, there were no organizing groups, no political and civic groups, no unions, no political parties encouraging members to participate. On the contrary, the ‘usual suspects’ the teacher’s unions, the transport unions, the ‘left’ political parties, are actively supporting Macron’s oppressive policies.
Keep in mind that two years of weekly Gilets Jaunes demonstrations, starting in November 2018, had never reached anything close to this massive number of participants.
Today’s demonstration is evidence of a true grass roots movement, which is growing because of word of mouth and social media communication.
Before going to the main square in Montpellier, where the demonstration began, I checked out, with a friend, how the police were arranging themselves today and in what number. A few days ago, at the July 14 march, there were no riot police, and only one car of city police.
During the height of the Gilets Jaunes demonstrations you could find twenty or more police vans full of national police or gendarmes parked at the Préfecture. Metal barriers blocked the entrance to all streets that accessed the huge building, the HQ of the central government in our ‘département’, and down near Comédie, were parked twenty more vans, in the big pedestrian Esplanade park.
But today, yes the riot police were present, but not in great numbers, and no streets were blocked. There were maybe a total of five vans and twenty riot police at the Préfecture and another three vans and ten or so riot police down at the train station, and zero around Comédie.
This is significant, I’m sure, but I don’t know quite how to interpret it. Not so long ago, every Saturday, during the Gilets Jaunes demos, the Prefecture and Comédie and the old streets of the city center were true battle zones, with tear gas hovering in great clouds, with the police faced off against demonstrators in the big public square like a football match. The feared ‘BAC’, the plainclothes police, would target somebody and twenty huge men in jeans would single out and take down a demonstrator. There was a lot of destruction of public property and banking machines. Nothing like that happened today. There was no BAC. No police violence that I saw or heard of. And nobody seemed remotely interested in fighting the police or breaking anything. There was no black bloc/antifa, who often were the ones fighting the police and who, I’m sure, were quite well infiltrated with agents provocateurs.
There was nothing like that today.
These demonstrators were not wearing any special clothing. They seemed, to me, to represent France at its most diverse.
The march began at Comédie, went up the Rue de la Loge and walked by the Préfecture, and after passing under the victory arch dedicated to Louis XIV we turned left and continued down the huge Boulevard de Jeu de Paume. Here you could get a real idea of the size of this river of people. Turning and looking back, and looking forward, as we came down the sloping boulevard, I could see neither the head nor the tail of the streaming multitudes. I remember being in the same place, on the street, back in 2003, and this seemed to me to be MORE people than that famous march 18 years ago.
So we went back to Comédie and then down to the train station and massed around a bit, and that was it for me and for most other demonstrators.
Will this change government policy ? Will this cause Macron to back off his attempt to impose a vaccine passport ? We cannot know yet, but we CAN know there is a massive resistance in France to Macron’s policies. Massive. This march sprang up naturally, from the heart of the people, in the middle of July when French people are focusing on their vacation, without organized support, less than one week since Macron’s speech announcing his oppressive policies.
The media of course is already calling this an ‘anti-vaxx’ march. No, it was NOT an anti-vaccine march. It was a loud long shout against the ‘passe sanitaire’, the vaccine passport, whose aim is to divide the French people into the two groups, those with privileges and those without. Whose aim is to control, and surveil, the population. Whose aim is……we don’t REALLY know, do we ?
However today’s march is a sign, to me that the French people will not accept, will not tolerate, the ‘passe sanitaire’, a vaccine passport. It will not be a viable policy. Less than a week after Macron’s speech there is already too much resistance. And it will only grow stronger from here.
