La France supports Ukraine. Saturday March 5, the demonstrations which took place in large cities such as Paris, Lyon or Marseille, had no economic or health reasons, like the previous Saturdays. This time, the French took to the streets to show massive support for the Ukrainian people and demand peace in Europe. Placards “Save Ukraine” and “Putin assassin” were waved amid the yellow and blue flags. According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, which reports 20 Minutes41,600 demonstrators mobilized, including 16,000 in Paris.
On the tenth day of the offensive ordered by the Russian president, there were several thousand in Paris, between Place de la République and Place de la Bastille, chanting “Putin, we don’t want your war”. “It’s very important to be here,” said one of them, Bernard Arnaud, 47, blue suit and yellow shirt in Ukrainian colors. “Vladimir Putin is so unpredictable. I will come back as much as possible,” he added.
In Lyon, a few hundred people gathered at Place Bellecour to express their support for President Volodymyr Zelensky and his population, subjected in several cities to bombardments by the Moscow army. “It’s an attack on democracy, freedom. We see that there is no ceasefire, the negotiations are not progressing so I am quite pessimistic”, confided Sébastien Mourrain, 45 years.
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Not far from him, Marie-Line, 64, who did not wish to reveal her surname, worried about a situation which “can change so quickly”. “I thought diplomacy would solve things, but after what happened at the nuclear power station, it’s starting to really scare me.” According to Kiev, Russian artillery strikes caused a fire on Friday at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (south), raising fears of a major accident. Moscow has denied being behind it.Among the 500 demonstrators, according to the prefecture, gathered at the Old Port in Marseille, Natalia, a 56-year-old Ukrainian who prefers not to give her last name, has launched an appeal for donations to help the population. “We need gloves, hats and medicine for our soldiers, as a priority,” she said, urging NATO countries to “close the skies of Ukraine”.
“We need a ceasefire”
The United States and European countries have promised military aid to Ukraine but have refused to impose a “no-fly zone” in its skies which would, in effect, bring them to war. “Close the Ukrainian sky”, “avoid a nuclear catastrophe”, demanded the demonstrators – a thousand according to the police – in Rennes. “I admire the Ukrainian people, their resistance is incredible (…) it is extremely important for them that there are these gatherings. We need a ceasefire!”, Launched Thomas Nouvion, an official of the Brittany-Ukraine Solidarity Collective, whose in-laws are Ukrainian. “We will be there every weekend, in Paris or elsewhere, until Vladimir Putin leaves, withdraws his tanks”, assured Agence France-Presse Aline Le Bail-Kremer, member of Stand With Ukraine, a organizations at the initiative of the rally in the capital.
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Five weeks before the first round of the presidential election, two candidates for the Elysée, Yannick Jadot (EELV) and Anne Hidalgo (PS), joined the Parisian procession, with elected officials LREM and LR. Some 25,000 demonstrators were expected across France, a police source anticipated. More rallies in support of Ukraine are planned for this weekend across Europe. Tens of thousands marched in Zurich, Switzerland, and several hundred more in London.
A week ago, hundreds of thousands of people in yellow and blue colors took to the streets: a few thousand in Russia, at least 100,000 in Berlin, 70,000 in Prague, 40,000 in Madrid in particular.