Even though the discredited evening did not ultimately take place, they still mobilized in the streets. Around 300 people gathered on Friday evening in the city center of Rouen (Seine-Maritime) to denounce racism and xenophobia, and to protest more specifically against a party called “Ausländer Raus” (Foreigners Out in German), “racist and anti-foreign”, which was to be held that same evening in an identity bar in the town. The mayor had tried to have it banned by the courts, in vain, but it was ultimately canceled by its organizers themselves.
The gathering took place early in the evening at the Théâtre des Arts, reports France Bleu. “This has no place in France for an evening Strangers outside “, one of the participants, Aïz, told local radio, stating that “many people felt insulted and outraged” by the event. Other demonstrators also denounced “uninhibited” xenophobic speech and called for Rouen to be kept as a “multicultural” and “open” city. “No to exclusions, regularization of all undocumented immigrants,” they also chanted, in a video filmed by the local media.
Among the signs brandished by the crowd, “We are all children of immigrants”, “Don’t you think it’s fascist these days? » or even “Bardella get out, Macron too”, also relays Paris-Normandy. The right-wing identity bar Le Mora, where the evening was to take place, was booed by the protesters. But the atmosphere remained calm until the end of the gathering, around 7:30 p.m., reports the regional daily. According to him, the gathering was initiated by the VISA association (Vigilance and Initiatives Syndicales Antifascistes), which brings together nearly 120 union structures.
A gathering outside the perimeter prohibited by the prefect
The controversial evening had been the subject of a bitter legal battle in recent days. On Thursday, the socialist mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol issued a municipal decree banning the event, before the organizing association, Union Normande de France, requested its suspension by filing a summary liberty order with the city’s administrative court. The latter ruled in their favor late Friday afternoon, considering that the disturbance to public order resulting from an attack on human dignity which would allow the mayor to ban the evening “is not characterized in the circumstances.”
But the Le Mora bar ultimately decided not to organize the evening, stating on its social networks that the “title” of the party was “likely to attribute to the members of the association feelings or intentions that are not theirs, when this evening had no other aim than to initiate a debate on immigration in France.”
For his part, the prefect of Seine-Maritime had banned any demonstration in a perimeter around the bar located in a pedestrian street in the city center, from Friday 5 p.m. to Saturday 4 a.m., saying he feared “risks of disturbances to order public and clashes between antagonistic demonstrators on public roads. The approximately 300 people gathered Friday evening remained outside the perimeter affected by the prefectural ban.
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced on - on Friday that he “will involve the investigation services of the Ministry of the Interior” with a view to a possible dissolution of the organizing association, at the request by Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol.
