In the name of their freedoms, their children or their religious convictions, a few thousand Americans demonstrated Sunday in Washington to protest against the obligations to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
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“Obligations (vaccination) and freedoms are not compatible. Like water and oil”, launches a speaker on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the imposing white marble building dedicated to the 16th president of the United States.
“Breathe,” urges another. “Inhale God, exhale fear,” he adds to the applause of the crowd, Americans of all ages, unmasked, sometimes accompanied by children.
“I’m not anti-vaccine, but I’m against this vaccine,” Michelle, a 61-year-old physical therapist from Virginia who prefers not to give her last name and judges messenger RNA serums, told AFP. “too experimental”, “hasty”.
After pausing in the interview to be able to sing the national anthem with the rest of the demonstrators, hand on heart, Michelle explains that she refused the vaccine and benefited from a religious exemption. But to continue working in Washington, she has to get tested every week, she says.
To his great regret, his son, initially hesitant, ended up getting vaccinated. “So much pressure from his friends,” she blurts out.
Therese is categorically opposed to vaccines – all vaccines. She explains that she came by bus from Michigan, in the north of the country, to protest against the attack “on our freedoms” which constitute the vaccination obligations.
“Vaccines don’t work, we are being lied to,” says the sixty-year-old, who worked in a school canteen before retiring and refuses to give her last name.
“And we shouldn’t hide our children,” she argues. “I’ve spoken to psychologists who say our kids are hurting, they’re depressed; “It’s terrible, we have to recover our freedoms,” she says.
Higher up, on the steps, the speakers – in particular people in white coats, presented as doctors from Texas – continue to follow one another.
“We’re Americans and that’s our thing: we fight tyranny!” says someone from the podium.
Rare joggers, as lost, cross the crowd in the middle of the signs “My body, my choice” or “God is our rock and he will defeat Goliath”. There are also many anti-Joe Biden posters, in the middle of a few flags stamped with the name of Donald Trump.
Is it difficult not to be vaccinated in Washington, a Democratic city with an overwhelming majority, rather attached to the rules and where the vaccination pass is now required to go to a restaurant or the cinema?
“It’s okay, we’re saving money,” laughs Isaac Six, 34, who works for a charity.
The young man, not vaccinated against COVID-19, says he went “one last time” to his favorite restaurant, Le Diplomate, an establishment specializing in French cuisine and very popular in the capital, before the introduction on January 15 of the pass. sanitary.
Vaccines in general “are wonderful, they have helped millions of people” around the world, but “that people are forced to get vaccinated, especially when the vaccine does not completely prevent transmission”, he finds it “irrational “.
Unlike others here, who see vaccination obligations as a threat to democracy, he says he is confident. But what worries him are policies adopted according to him “against a background of fear and panic” and “by decree”.
“I would like to see more legislative processes, that the people we elected to represent us are the ones who actually pass the laws,” he argues.