While new rallies are scheduled for Saturday 12th January, organisers are reluctant to maintain the epicentre in Paris or move to Bourges, “center of France”.
The imminent launch of the great national debate does not change anything: Yellow Vests are preparing new rallies Saturday, January 12 across France, and seem to want to focus between Paris, theatre of violence last Saturday, and an unusual place, Bourges .
Two months after the first mobilisation, the movement is still protean and the figures of its “historic channel” do not have the same strategy for their ninth Saturday of demonstrations.
The road driver Eric Drouet shows his intention to return to Paris. The meeting place, announced in La Défense on Facebook – with 3000 participants and 15 000 people interested Thursday – should be unveiled at the last moment, as on other Saturdays.
“A city a little less known to the police”
For their part, the auto- entrepreneur Priscillia Ludosky and Breton Maxime Nicolle chose Bourges (Cher) as the epicenter of the mobilization. This prefecture of the center of France is “at a distance equivalent of the big cities”, and is “a city a little less known of the police force to avoid that there is ‘nassage’ (encirclement, Ed) of fact, that the tension goes up, “explained the interim to Konbini. On Thursday, 2,400 participants said they wanted to go on Facebook and 12,000 people were interested.
Other rallies are announced in several cities: Bordeaux, Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille, Nantes, Rennes … The protesters also expect a resumption of blockages and some call to withdraw their money from banks, without causing concern sector.
After a drop in the mobilisation during the holidays, the Yellow Vests managed their bet for their act 8, January 5: with 50,000 demonstrators throughout France, according to the government, the dispute rebounded and showed its resistance to wear .
Above all, the violence in Paris has polarised minds, including the intrusion into the ministry of government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux, and images of former boxer Christophe Dettinger striking gendarmes .
The detention on remand of the latter, the pot of support organised in his favour, and the one launched to support the police force, have fed several passes in the field of values, while many deputies of the majority receive anonymous threats, and that relations between the media and the movement deteriorate.
80,000 police and gendarmes
After the impulsive wishes of Emmanuel Macron, the executive appears uncompromising on the “republican order” and prepares a new law “anticasseurs”, with a file in the image of the antihooligans claimed by police unions. For Saturday, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced a “considerable” security device: with 80,000 police and gendarmes, including 5,000 in Paris, he will regain his level of mid-December.
In this context, the great national debate, promised by the government as the way out of the crisis, seems to skate, before its kickoff.
The resignation of Chantal Jouanno, who was to organise it, after the controversy over his gross monthly salary of 14,666 euros , puts the executive under pressure, while Emmanuel Macron must move Tuesday in the Eure to launch the consultation . Especially as between open themes and red lines set in advance, the opposition and some yellow jackets already openly doubt its usefulness.
“The method proposed by the government for its great debate is a locomotive of the nineteenth century,” said Christophe Chalençon, figure of the movement in the Vaucluse. With the movement “Vests yellow, the movement”, born this week, he intends to launch an online platform to collect claims.
Side demonstrators, we oscillate between determination and concern at the stagnation of the crisis.
“We expect a reaction from the state with the implementation of the RIC (citizens’ initiative referendum) and with very concrete measures of purchasing power,” Alex told AFP, organizer of events in Valencia (Drôme ). “If there are the two together, the movement is over. ”
In his city, “there were about 3000 people last Saturday and there was no national media to say that it went well,” he regrets. But “they have to react quickly. There are people who are tired of being pacifist and it will be more and more difficult to manage. “
