Reportage
Article reserved for subscribers
A few hours after martial law was declared by President Yoon Suk-yeol to everyone's surprise, thousands of demonstrators came to protest in front of the National Assembly in Seoul.
“I was watching television. Time to put on warm clothes, I came directly by taxi.” Like hundreds of people around her, Kim Eun-seon did not want “stay at home”, and visited the National Assembly in Seoul on Tuesday, December 3. A few hours earlier, President Yoon Suk-yeol took the country by surprise by declaring martial law to fight against “North Korean communist forces”. In its sights: the internal political opposition, led by the Democratic Party, which has a majority in Parliament and which blocks any possibility of reform by the Conservative Party.
“I am convinced that the Korean people will win,” assures Kim Eun-seon, herself a member of the Democratic Party, by taking up the songs – “Cancel martial law” or “Stop Yoon Suk-yeol” – chanted by demonstrators not cooled by the temperatures of the Seoulite night. Initially disorganized, sometimes attempting to climb over the barriers demarcating the perimeter of the Assembly
