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France mobilised thousands of police, armoured personnel carriers and water cannon trucks in Paris on Friday to keep out convoys of motorists converging on the capital for a protest against COVID-19 restrictions.
Checkpoints were set up at toll points on major entry roads while riot-control barriers were erected across the city centre ahead of rallies that the protesters aim to hold over the weekend.
Inspired by horn-blaring “Freedom Convoy” demonstrations in Canada, the motorists – from numerous cities across France – were expected to gather outside Paris during Friday and seek to defy a police order not to enter the city.
“We’ve been going around in circles for three years,” said pensioner Jean-Marie Azais, part of a “Convoie de Liberte” headed to the capital from the southwest, in reference to France’s anti-COVID strategy.
“We saw the Canadians and said to ourselves, ‘It’s awesome, what they’re doing.’ In eight days, boom, something was sparked.”
As the evening rush hour got under way, police began checking drivers’ documents at various entry points into the city centre. More than 7,000 officers will be mobilised over the next 72 hours.
Convoy members exchanged information via social media on how best to slip into the city, avoiding a police presence that included heavy-lifting equipment to dismantle any makeshift roadblocks.
>> Inspired by Ottawa protests, French motorists join ‘Freedom Convoy’ bound for Paris
“We have always safeguarded the right to protest … but we need harmony and we need a lot of collective goodwill,” President Emmanuel Macron told newspaper Ouest France, while urging calm.
His prime minister, Jean Castex, was more blunt. Citizens had the right to protest but not gridlock the capital, he said.
The Canadian demonstrations, which have paralysed parts of the capital…
Source : france24
