After the results, the grumbling. In reaction to the National Rally’s lead in the first round of the legislative elections, several thousand people gathered in Paris at Place de la République, at the call of member parties of the New Popular Front, in order to “say no to the extreme right”.
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With its LR allies, the National Rally won around 34% of the votes in the first round of the legislative elections. Enough to win, according to Ipsos estimates for Le Parisien, 204 to 244 seats in the National Assembly.
In response to this score, opponents of the far right gathered at 9 p.m. on the Place de la République in Paris, as shown in images broadcast by independent journalists on social networks. “The youth piss off the National Front”, “We are hotter, hotter than the fascists”, a few hundred demonstrators were already chanting at the start of the evening.
According to a police source, around 4,000 people had gathered in the Place de la République in the middle of the evening, before the crowd grew significantly larger as night fell. Of the 4,000 protesters initially counted, the same police source identified 500 “radical elements” and “113 risky elements”. Tensions were felt on site in particular between protesters and journalists, on the part of some pro-Palestine activists.
Gatherings in Lyon, Rennes and Strasbourg
In Lyon, protesters also gathered at Place des Terreaux before continuing their march through the rest of the city, according to - Lyon. Clashes broke out between police and individuals setting up barricades and firing mortars, and fires were set in the street, according to images from - Lyon and Lyon Capitale.
Anti-fascist activists also mobilized at Place de la Libération, in Auch, in Gers, according to La Dépêche. A few hundred people also gathered at Place Broglie in Strasbourg, reports a photojournalist on site, as well as in Rennes and Nantes, according to Ouest-France, or even Bordeaux, as reported by TV7 Sud-Ouest.
On social networks, calls for rallies were already circulating during the day on Sunday for the cities of Limoges, Dijon, and even Lille.
Fearing clashes in the city, several Parisian and Lyon merchants had barricaded their storefronts. The information, however, was reassuring, estimating in a note that at the end of this first round, the ultra-left and ultra-right movements did not report “any plans for violent actions”.
