Paris police intercepted at least 500 vehicles attempting to enter the French capital Saturday, in defiance of a police order, to take part in protests against virus restrictions inspired by Canada’s horn-honking “Freedom Convoy.”
The police said on Twitter that several convoys were stopped from entering at key city arteries and over 200 motorists were handed tickets.
Elsewhere, at least two protesters were detained amid a seizure of knives, hammers and other objects in one central Parisian square.
Some 7,000 officers have been mobilized for the weekend protests. Police have created checkpoints, deployed armored personnel carriers and set up water cannons to brace the city for the protests. So far, the police blockade action has seemed effective.
Railing against the vaccination pass that France requires to enter restaurants and many other venues, protesters have tried to weave toward Paris from north, south, east and west, waving and honking at onlookers from their car windows. Some convoys sought to avoid police detection Friday by traveling local roads instead of the major highways leading into the capital.
Get out in front of this domestic threat or face what happened in Canada, where a tiny group of anti- government, anti- vaxxers have paralyzed Ottawa and disrupted the flow of goods between the U.S. and Canada. It requires imagination, leadership and resolve. Do we have it?
(Photo: anti- vaxxer holds up "Liberty Convoy" sign in Paris/ Thibault Camus, AP)
