by Le Saker Francophone for The Saker Blog
Labor Day
7,400 police officers and gendarmes have been mobilized, including 22 CRS companies and about thirty squadrons of mobile gendarmes. Didier Lallement, the new prefect of the capital, intends to act firmly and orders the police to "go to contact".
164,000 people took to the streets on Wednesday, May 1, including 28,000 in the capital, according to the latest assessment by the Home Ministry. The CGT, the main worker union, refers to more than 310,000 "employees, unemployed and retired" gathered to celebrate Labour Day.
At 6pm, there were 330 people arrested by the police and 17,706 preventive controls in Paris, according to the police prefecture. 220 people were taken into custody.
In Paris, as soon as 1 p.m., even before the procession starts, the police officers started using tear gas to raise the tension. The police violence reached a new high.
"The demonstration had not yet begun that the first traps were set up, the first sequences of gassings. There are still dozens and dozens of astonished testimonies of this delirious outburst of blows. Those who demonstrated for the first time with this movement are amazed. Those who are used to union processions have never seen this".
The police spend its time breaking the long procession, cornering small groups to gas and beat them. One of this sequence happened in front of hospital La Salpétrière's entrance gate.
On May 1, the government demonstrated its ability as a manipulator. An intox on the attack on the Salpétrière hospital. Castaner, and the plutocratic media following him, publicly stated that "the hospital of La Pitié-salpêtrière was under attack by the "Gilets Jaunes" and saved by the intervention of the police". In reality, CRSs encircled demonstrators, cornered them in the entrance of the hospital so that, under the effect of tear gas, they were just looking for shelter inside the hospital. Nurses confirm that not much has happened. Absolutely no attack. Even the newspaper Libération, then other mainstream media following, were forced to refute Castaner's comments. Some people have however been arrested for "organized gang attacks". Castaner is beginning to be seriously questioned, even in the mainstream press. The case turns into a public scandal. Macron did not react.
Here is the collective statement of the 34 people arrested during the Salpetrière incident. A live testimony.
Gérard Filoche, a former trade unionist who attended Labor Day demonstrations for dozens of years, - YouTube that "he has never seen such police repression".
Video showing that the psychological impact of a crowd can push the police back. The same kind of scene but here it is the anger that energizes the demonstrators.
Journalists continue to be targeted by the CRS. Here, it is a journalist from RIA Novosti who is beaten up by police officers. According to the Reporters Without Borders association, nearly 90 journalists have been victims of police violence since the beginning of the Gj movement.
In the midst of the May 1st mobilisation, between 200 and 300 yellow vests tried to break into the Besançon police station, Franceinfo Tv announces. Here again, this "info" will prove to be a strong exaggeration of the governement media to discredit the movement, a fake news.
In Toulouse, the demonstrators symbolically seized the town hall to hang 3 banners proclaiming the Gj mottos. "social justice", "take power" and "climate justice".
According the Home Ministry, 24 demonstrators were injured in Paris, and 14 members of the police force.
For act 25, on May 4th, there were only 60,000 demonstrators in France. 3 days after the violent Labour Day it shows that The Gilets Jaunes needed some rest. But they plan to come back in force for the next Saturdays.
The striking fact of this act 25 is the absence of "SWAT police". They were replaced by gendarmes who refrained from any violence. So act 25 was quite calm, compare to the previous ones, except for some clashes in La Roche sur Yon and Toulouse.
Police violence
It became a routine and it increased until the apotheosis of May 1st, with the obvious aim of discouraging the demonstrators. The risk, however, is that it will enrage the most valiant and totally undermine the few legitimacy left of this government. But Macron and Castaner's panic is too strong for them to realize it.
Moreover, even the media under orders are obliged, in order to maintain some semblance of credibility, to talk about police violence and humiliation against the population.
Overgassing is now systematic.
A CRS 𝕏 throws a paving stone at the demonstrators.
In 1 MAI : POLICIERS FRAPPENT ET SEQUESTRENT DES GILETS JAUNES1 MAI : POLICIERS FRAPPENT ET SEQUESTRENT DES GILETS JAUNES we see police officers violently pushing and then locking several people, including an elderly woman, in a Parisian tobacco shop.
In Marseille, a young woman filed a complaint for attempted homicide on April 30. She was first wounded by an LBD shot, then bludgeoned and hit on the ground, to the point that her skull was crushed.
Comment from a Gj: "A second scandal exists, after the one of the lie about the Salpétrière, and must be revealed. This is the systematic cornering and gassing at the end of the demonstrations. Systematic, i.e. repetitive from demonstration to demonstration, i.e. on the orders of the highest authorities. The practice dates back at least to the period of the "Labour Law". It tends to spread, intensify and be practiced all the more with impunity as the media remain shamefully silent."
The title of this 60-page report from the Gironde Observatory of Public Freedoms says it all. "A policy of intimidation." A 60-page document that deciphers, for the period from 17 November 2018 to 16 February 2019, the practices of the then Prefect of Gironde, Didier Lallement (who became the Prefect of Paris) set up during the demonstrations of "yellow vests", high school students, ecologists and unemployed people.
Unlike expeditious justice for the Gj, more than 220 investigations are ongoing following reports of alleged police violence, but no verdict has yet been rendered because these "judicial investigations (...) take a little time", said Christophe Castaner. There is a good chance that most policemen will be found not guilty.
Even a Human Right League observer was taken into custody.
A Gj has been sentenced to eight months for shouting "suicide yourself" to police officers, 180 hours of community service and 500 euros each to the two police officers who filed the complaint.
Delusional media
Video showing of the media owned by plutocrats manipulate us with images.
Even the newspaper Le Monde is finally forced to publish a piece on "the deliberate desire to prevent independent journalists from working".
Contrary to false information in the French press, according to which nearly 200 yellow vests had tried to break into the Besançon police station on May 1, only a few individuals went into the police car park, writes the regional daily L'Est républicain, referring to the prefecture. Still another Fake news from the mainstream media.
The mainstream media is beginning to be increasingly accused of biased report.
A European Union out of democratic control
For those who are still wondering whether the European Union is really defending the public interest, the European Commission has responded to a request for information concerning a secret meeting between Soros, Blair and Moscovici that " in what has been discussed about Brexit, the need to protect the EU's decision-making process is more important than any public interest."
A government in the midst of collapse
The city centre of Amboise has been completely closed on Thursday, May 2, for the presidential visit of Emmanuel Macron and his Italian counterpart. The city centre will be completely emptied. Each street will be locked by gendarmes.
In an interview with Le Monde, Jean-Marie Delarue, appointed on 10 April as head of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), answers to the question "In what state are the fundamental freedoms in France?" with a "In very poor condition. On the surface, we are a state governed by the rule of law, and we flatter ourselves enough with it... In reality, that is not completely the case."
In a stadium of Marseille, Macron was booed, even without being present. Marseilles supporters chant "Emmanuel Macron, big head of a jerk" while brandishing their yellow vests.
Nathalie Loiseau, head of Macron's list for the European parliament, dares to make a fool of herself by saying that "to be sovereign, France must be subject to Europe.
Tensions appears in the government? "The Head of State did not appreciate the "atmosphere of picnic" of this working meeting supposed to record the implementation of his announcements". "Macron knows it, he's up against the wall. In his entourage, as in the executive, many of them recognize him: he is "at a crossroad". "Macron is putting a lot of pressure on the government. He wants to fight against any form of gentrification of his ministers. Those who cannot follow will be fired," an LREM parliamentarian already anticipates.
In his speech on April 25, Macron, wanting to make his people feel guilty, said that France had to work harder, but the OECD figures show that the French already work harder than the Germans, Danes or Dutch.
In the world of the Gj
The Gj set up their own website and social platform to communicate, organize events and structure the movement. It has been named La Ligne Jaune.
Juliette Binoche, Emmanuelle Béart, Edouard Louis, Alain Damasio... 1400 personalities from the world of culture support a movement "unprecedented in history". They created a website to continue collecting signatures. Some Gjs answered them.
Recording of the conference organized by Robes noires/Gilets jaunes. The theme is "Do we have the right to civil disobedience?"
Discreetly, associations of people from all "sides", in each village and city are setting up politic gatherings, discussions evenings, to lead open citizens to build lists towards a "participatory" democracy. "Politicians call us "little people or those who know nothing, or understand nothing". Let us not trust what they say because all these little people all have very good ideas that are more reliable and efficient than the ones the elites propose."
The Gj Special Operations Group continues its boycott of multinationals and will submit a brief opposing the privatization of Aéroport De Paris to the Constitutional Council.
For May 11, the Gj will gather in cities, Lyon especially, and roundabouts throughout France.
Le Saker Francophone