VIDEOS: Liberté! 150,000 Protest Against Vaccine Passports in France

CRS riot police charge demonstrators on the sidelines of a demonstration as part of a nati
ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The movement against vaccine passports in France extended to over 150 towns and cities on Saturday, with 150,000 protesters estimated to have taken to the streets against President Emmanuel Macron’s draconian coronavirus restrictions.

For the third week in a row, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of France, following President Macon’s pronouncement that health papers would become mandatory for daily life in the country, such as going to the cafe, eating in a restaurant, or getting on a train.

Protesters in Paris clashed with police, who fired tear gas grenades at the anti-vaccine passport demonstrators as they reached the Place de la République square in the French capital. Police later used water cannons to try to disperse the crowds at the former site of the Bastille.

The prefect of Paris, Didier Lallement, amassed some 3,000 police officers and Gendarmerie in the city to control the protest.

According to La Chaîne Info, at least 38,000 people demonstrated on Saturday throughout south-eastern France, with numbers growing in Montpellier and Marseille. In total, some 150,000 are believed to have joined the marches on Saturday.

Last week, approximately 110,000 people joined the protests against the so-called sanitary pass, following an estimated 160,000 the week before.

There has been growing public opposition to the introduction of domestic vaccine passports in France, with forty per cent of the French public saying that they are in favour of the demonstrations against the health pass regime.

A further fifty-one per cent have said that even if they don’t necessarily support the movement, they “understand” the reasoning behind the anti-vax pass demos, according to a Harris Interactive poll.

The new law, which was approved by the French congress on Monday, will introduce mandates for vaccine passports for adults by August and will extend to children as young as 12-years-old by September.

Any public venue or place which can accommodate more than 50 people will be required by law to check the vaccination status of their patrons or face hefty fines or possible jail time.

The law will also mandate that healthcare workers take a coronavirus vaccine or face losing their jobs.

Prominent anti-vaccine passport campaigner and the leader of the centre-right Union Populaire Républicaine party, François Asselineau, rejected the notion that the movement against the health passes should be equated with being anti-vaccine, saying that it is merely a “label that Macron propaganda wants to stick on us!”

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