This Monday morning, the police counted 13,000 “yellow vests” spread over 358 sites, including oil depots. Protesters are now calling to block Paris.
“We are also on course! Part of the “yellow vests” decided Monday to continue blocking operations for a third day mainly targeting highways but also oil depots , while the government is inflexible against the growl.
The mobilisation “is obviously not as big as Saturday,” noted CNews Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez.
358 blocked sites
Some 13,000 people were gathered Monday morning on 358 sites , according to the police, far from the 290,000 demonstrators counted Saturday on more than 2,000 sites by the ministry. A total of 315 people were arrested and 183 held in police custody over the weekend, which left one person dead and 511 wounded, 17 of whom were serious.
Right and left have criticised a Prime Minister considered inflexible after his interview on France 2, the day before, during which Edward Philippe assured he would hold “the cap” even if he said he heard the “anger” and the “Suffering” of the protesters.
Oil depots about to be unlocked
“We also stay the course and it will last! “, Launches Kevin Dujardin, on a dam in Calais. “I earn 500 euros, how do you want me to live with that? With what I earn, I can only afford one meal a day, “says coworker Jean-Luc, 57.
In addition to tolls, gas stations and highways, the “yellow vests” targeted Monday several oil depots, including Port-la-Nouvelle (Aude), Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhone), Frontignan (Herault) , Portes-lès-Valence (Drôme) and Valenciennes (North), whose sites were about to be unlocked, according to the police.
“I’m travel 90 km every day and my wife does not work. We live with my only salary. We spend 150 euros of gas a month, it becomes unbearable, “said Fabien, near the deposit of Fos.
In Vern-sur-Seiche, near Rennes, no truck could access the depot whose access was disrupted by a dozen “yellow vests”.
A demonstration in Paris on November 24?
At the initiative of this protean movement and without identified leader we find members of the civil society who called on the social networks for actions against the rise in the price of fuels.
The grounds for grievance were then expanded to a more comprehensive denunciation of the government’s taxation policy and the decline in purchasing power.
Two calls to demonstrate “on foot, horseback or by car” to “block” Paris Saturday, November 24 were Monday widely relayed on Facebook. One emanates from Frank Buhler, one of the initiators of the movement and responsible in the Tarn-et-Garonne of Debout France by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. The other comes from Eric Drouet, Melun (Seine-et-Marne), whose page titled ” Act 2 All France in Paris “, calls to gather Saturday on the Place de la Concorde.
#24Novembbre #Paris #GiletsJaunes Blocage total de Paris opération escargot géante ! Relayez massivement sur les groupes Facebook. Pour contourner la censure qui me frappe ! https://t.co/D5XRuDV6Pi
— Frank Buhler (@fbu_82) 18 November 2018
Blocking of tolls, bridges, ports
Police and gendarmes were working to disperse the filter dams and snail operations that persisted in most parts of France.
At the toll of Villefranche-sur-Saône-Limas, on the A6 in the direction of Lyon-Paris, the dam was lightened.
In Bordeaux, the Aquitaine bridge, blocked since this weekend, was evacuated in calm, AFP found. On the A10, the Virsac toll was released.
In Boulogne-sur-Mer, protesters blocking the port were dislodged, according to an AFP correspondent.
Elsewhere, roads were still disrupted, particularly in Seine-Maritime and in the Sarthe between Le Mans and Orleans, where a snail tractor operation was underway, according to an AFP photographer.
In the Côtes d’Armor, the protesters received the reinforcement “fairground, fishermen and truck drivers”, according to a “yellow vest”.
” Totalitarianism “
Laurent Nuñez reminded that the police forces had to “intervene whenever structuring axes are blocked or that there is violence”, while several incidents have again enamelled the night.
In Calais, an English driver and an Australian truck driver were taken into custody after touching protesters by forcing roadblocks.
In Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), a truck driver was arrested by the gendarmes after injuring a “yellow vest”, transported to the hospital. In Livron-sur-Drôme (Drôme), a motorist was arrested after shooting in the air with a firearm and hit a protester, transported to the hospital, according to the police. His vehicle was then burned.
The secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger denounced “a form of totalitarianism” associated, according to him, certain behaviors when one is “obliged” to be “in agreement with those who manifest to be able to pass”.
