The leader of La Francia Insumisa gathers thousands of protesters in Paris
Jean-Luc Mélenchon gave the president, Emmanuel Macron, a pulse on the streets of Paris on Sunday with his “march against the cost of living and ecological inaction.” The leader of La Francia Insumisa showed that he continues to have convening power despite the fact that he is a controversial and often criticized figure, even within the left.
The far-left former presidential candidate called the protest “huge success.” In the capital, some 140,000 people paraded between the Place de Nation and the Place de Bastille, according to the organizers. The Police counted only 30,000 people in this demonstration organized by Nupes, the union of leftist parties.
Ecologists, socialists, communists, trade unionists, rebels, young people, retirees and ‘yellow vests’ participated in the Parisian protest, but the march had a star guest: Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who paraded, along with Mélenchon and other members of La Francia Insumisa, through the streets of Paris.
‘Social climate too hot’, ‘Macron resigns’, ‘Retirement at sixty’ and ‘All prices rise, our salaries do not. Revaluation read some banners. They demanded an increase in salaries, retirement at 60 years, the blocking of energy prices and a tax on large corporate profits, among other things.
hot week
The march of the left takes place in a socially hot week in France. Refinery strikes, which have led to long queues at gas stations and fuel shortages across the country, continue. In addition, on Tuesday the unions have called a general strike throughout the country. Mélenchon sees in all this “the conjunction of popular mobilization, union mobilization and institutional crisis” and the formation of “a new Popular Front” against Macron.
“We cannot tighten our belts and lower our pants at the same time,” Laurent, a 57-year-old craftsman, explains to EL CORREO during the protest. This ‘yellow vest’ denounces the difficulties of the workers in reaching the end of the month due to the cost of living and regrets that the rise in wages does not keep pace with inflation.
Vincent, a worker at the SNCF (the French Renfe), denounces that the Government works “only for a small caste of privileged people, that it makes all its reforms to help them and that it does nothing for the majority and so that there is a better distribution of wealth ». This railwayman is confident that today’s demonstration will be the “beginning of an important movement” and a “convergence of struggles.”
“This is the beginning. The French are angry, “adds Laurent, who trusts the return with force this fall of the ‘yellow vests’, the popular movement that put Macron’s presidency in check in his first term with its protests, many of them violent.
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