Health pass: nearly 160,000 opponents demonstrated across France according to the Interior Ministry – franceinfo

As the start of the school year approaches, opposition to the health pass continues to gather in the streets, but the demonstrators are fewer and fewer. They were just under 159,500 across France on Saturday August 28, according to the Interior Ministry’s count, or 16,000 less than the previous week.

This is the seventh consecutive Saturday where demonstrations are organized against the health pass, and the third in a row where attendance is declining. They were 175,500 on August 21 and 237,000 on August 7, at the peak of the mobilization, still according to the accounts of the Ministry of the Interior.

The movement remains widely distributed on French territory: on Saturday, the ministry recorded 222 rallies, a figure which remains stable compared to last week.

In Paris, where four separate processions marched, 14,500 people were identified, against nearly 145,000 in the rest of France, especially in Montpellier (9,500) and Mulhouse (5,500). In many cities, the counts of the local prefectures and the observations of journalists illustrate the decline in participation.

The Interior Ministry also announced that 16 people had been arrested in these various demonstrations, including two in Paris, and he identified three light injuries among the police.

The militant collective Le Nombre Jaune, born out of the “yellow vests” movement and which publishes a city-by-city count, said to have identified at least 319,000 demonstrators in France according to his first estimate. This also marks a drop, as it numbered 357,000 people the previous Saturday.