French protesters defy the ban

Over 700 actions were planned across France on Saturday morning. Here in Montpellier the streets were quiet, but the cops were out in force: foot and motorcycle patrols circulated throughout the city centre, inspecting bags and (inconsistently) confiscating prohibited materials; barriers had been erected in front of the prefecture and train station; and a helicopter circled noisily overhead for much of the day.

Many of the unions seemed to be cowed by the court upholding the ban on their march, but the local Solidaires defied it. The students, who had occupied the faculté de sciences, stated their goal was to reach the Odysseum mega-mall on the eastern outskirts of the city, where some of the stores had closed for the day in anticipation.

The cortege set off around 1pm in high spirits, but were blocked by police an hour later just outside of the city centre. Meanwhile, a smaller independent demonstration formed in Comédie Square. As word began to spread of the holdup, people began to move in the direction of the now-blocked procession.

There was no visible co-ordination; it was as though everyone instinctively knew where they were needed through vibes alone. Things remained quiet and, for a moment, I began to worry that the government’s repressive efforts may have been successful and turnout might be poor. But then, as we neared the point of the blockage, I looked around and realised that at some point, the dribs and drabs had imperceptibly become a dense mass of people. Placards began to appear, as did masks.

At the old gate to the city centre, the CRS police were waiting en masse—but the crowd filtered through their ranks without a word, and they did nothing. The silence was finally broken when a girl leaned out of her apartment window and began shouting: ‘siamo tutti antifascisti’. Slowly, hesitantly, the shouting and the clapping spread throughout the crowd, both rushing ahead of us and echoing behind.

The police, seemingly startled by their shift from being amidst people heading to a demo to suddenly finding themselves surrounded by one, piled into their vans and drove off ahead of us. We swapped over to a parallel street, only to find a flood of people coming towards us. We stood as thousands marched past us, chanting and jubilant. They turned in towards the old gate, now abandoned by the police, and entered the old city centre.

Like butter in the hot sun, the police had simply melted away. For most of the next hour, the only sign of them was the sound of their helicopter spinning around overhead, seemingly just burning fuel for the sake of it. What does it mean for thousands of people to see, all at once, the impotence of a state that has spent the past week terrorising them?

We followed the cortege through the heart of the city. Businesses hastily pulled in their tables and chairs and rolled down their shutters, like a dusty Old West town anticipating a shootout. We reached the main drag and six vans of riot cops arrived, managed to box themselves in, sheepishly reversed back out and then seemed to realise that they couldn’t do anything and opted to stay in their vehicles as the procession marched past.

At Comédie the huge crowd (estimated to be over 6,000 people) celebrated the delivery of an unquestionable ‘middle finger’ to the protest ban. The cops eventually regrouped and arrived to block onwards progress, but few in the crowd were motivated to do so; as elsewhere in France, the day was won.

What happens now is hard to say. Reactionary gangs were out in greater numbers this weekend; in Montpellier and elsewhere, fascist groups identified themselves with white armbands, attacked demonstrators and appeared to collaborate widely with the police. The right-wing media, meanwhile, tried to downplay the significance of the racist attack in Trappes the previous night, whose perpetrator has since been revealed to be an RN supporter.

The government, for its part, has been remarkably quiet since Saturday, perhaps reeling from revelations that they were last week considering cutting social media access nationwide (a tactic pioneered in New Caledonia during the 2024 revolt there).

For my part, I think they are scared and realising they have exceeded their limits. They tried negotiation and co-optation, which has worked for the past ten years; this time, the movement was not fooled. They tried threats and intimidation; this Saturday, the people called their bluff. As our friends put it, ‘they offer crumbs, but we will take the bakery’.

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