While it is difficult to estimate the exact participation of the yellow vests remaining in the provinces for the January 7 day of action, many small demonstrations have taken place in the region and some intend to continue efforts to resume movement. On the eve of a major battle looming over pension reform. A small return to mobilization with Le Poing.
The yellow vests have defined this Saturday 7 January as a day of mobilization. in addition to Parisian demonstrationon which Le Poing will return in more detail shortly, and which brought together more than three thousand people from all over France, many other more modest gatherings took place in the regions.
In Montpellier, the prefecture counted about 150 people for an hour and a half demonstration. The deputy France Insoumise Nathalie Oziol, who tried to speak on the Place de la Comédie, was booed by some demonstrators, shouting “Fight for the people! Mélenchon is sold!or “We don’t care about politicians”. A controversy launched by a regular at the Montpellier demonstrations of the yellow vests or against the health pass, affiliated with the Pole of the Communist Rebirth in France (PRCF).
The yellow vests of Agde in the Hérault found themselves at the usual roundabout. There were about twenty of them Millauand the same number a Nimes. The independent will have identified a hundred demonstrators Carcassonne.
A hundred yellow vests are collected Angerwhere a giant flocked yellow vest with the writing “Stop Macron and his world” it was removed from the gates of the Jardin des Plantes by the police. In Pau, however, the protesters opted for the opening of the local toll booths. Two appointments have been offered to yellow vests in the Avignon region. The first on a roundabout. The second in the city center, where the demonstrators had to split into small groups to escape a trap set by the police. Progress had about twenty yellow vests early afternoon in Bellay. On Bordeaux a hundred demonstrators marched in the city center. About fifteen yellow vests occupied a roundabout Nancy. 60 people gathered in Nice. France 3 Regions evokes claims against the pension reform, the high cost of living and the intensive use of article 49.3 by the macronist majority, where the independent newspaper Mouais speaks of a mobilization against the anti-Covid vaccine. The shipment counts about fifty demonstrators in Tarbes The mobilization was more important in Vannes where, according to “The Telegram”, “Around 200 people demonstrated.” Similar figures in the Grand Est, where the regional newspaper “Alsace” evoked “about 150 demonstrators in Strasbourg and Colmar, 200 in Mulhouse”. Three hundred yellow vests were mobilised Toulouseand about twenty to Montauban. About forty jackets have also run out Gerzat, very close to Clermont Ferrand, at the roundabout near the A67 toll booth. Mobilization comparable to Le Mans. Fifty GJs were pounding the pavement Room and in Perpignan, for about ten Albertville.
Other rallies took place in Alençon, Andrézieux, Annecy, Annonay, Augny (near Metz), Barentin, Belfort, Bergerac, Besançon, Cahors, Cannes, Choisey, Cognac, Colomiers, Davézieux, Dijon, Essay-les-Nancy, Etampes , Figeac , Fontainebleau, Gisors, Grenoble, Kingersheim, La Roche sur Yon, La Réunion, Lille, Lommes, Lons le Saunier, Marseille, Montabon, Montélimar, Montluçon, Niort, Le Puy en Velay, Saint-Avold, Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Geneviève des Bois, Toulon, Trignac, Ussel, Villefranche de Lauragais, Villefranche sur Saône, Villeneuve sur Lot, Voujeaucourt and even Wassellonne.
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, 4,700 people marched in France for the 58 actions listed. However, exact mobilization figures remain difficult to estimate. Collective The yellow number, which proposed a count of yellow vest demonstrations, but also against the pension reform proposed in 2019, the global security law, or even the health pass, is currently no longer in force. And the Viminale’s methods of counting, in addition to an obvious problem of partisanship, are not exactly suitable for mobilizations such as those of the yellow vests: the police take note of the number of participants in a given moment, however, on a busy roundabout for an entire part of the day, people come and go, ten people can meet there at any given moment, out of a hundred people who will have passed through it during the mobilization. The Montpellier political science researcher Jean-Yves Dormagen and the geographer Geoffrey Pion therefore proposed another long-term method, not at all suitable for a quick result in the occasional days of mobilization, which reported three millions of participants in yellow vest movements in 2018-2019.
However, this January 7 mobilization is not a tidal wave, although the movement remains popular in public opinion. “A Slow Awakening of the Provinces”wants to believe the Muslim Yellow Vests collective, which is one of those, with for example the Yellow Vests of Caen or the Alsace Révoltée collective, who already from Saturday 14 January are asking to continue on the path of this return of the fluorescent chasubles.
Yellow vest Eric Drouet, who has been absent from the movement for some time, has announced that he is relaunching the battle thanks to a hopefully explosive start to the year. He is already calling to massively join the Facebook group Angry Franceand to support the battle that is taking place against the pension reform.
At the end of the Paris demonstration, yellow vests from different regions of France, including Montpellier, were able to spend the evening together and discuss the consequences of the movement.
It is rare to see a social movement recover after falling under the same label and with the same method. Although Hirak’s Algerian movement will have surprised more than one by its ability to rise from its ashes, sometimes permanently and with a sense of grand spectacle, often at the funeral or trial of some of its participants. Be that as it may, the yellow vests, for many first-time protesters before 2018, represent a gateway to socializing circles hitherto little influenced by the social movement, and may come to irrigate the social struggles that will come from their streets.
As the first mobilizations against the pension reform begin to emerge, strongly denied by the GJs, and the union front appears exceptionally united, what will be the reactions of the unions to the investment by the yellow vests? “Why should there be yellow vests on one side, red ones on the other? Everyone must agree to mobilize together” said Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the CGT, to 90 minutes of BFMTV this Wednesday, January 4 Even though his trade union center had known how to be very reluctant at the beginning of the yellow vest movement, insisting on the presence of the extreme right and condemning the violence.
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