Tens of thousands of people have started marching in Paris for the “great civic march” against anti-Semitism, according to AFP journalists, in the presence of much of the French political class including the far right, but without the head of state or the radical left opposition.
The head of the march set off at around 3:10 pm from the esplanade of the National Assembly, carrying a banner with the slogan “For the Republic, against anti-Semitism.”
The esplanade of Les Invalides was crowded with a dense crowd, and the metro stations and adjacent streets were congested, indicating a very strong turnout.
A group of political figures, including the two heads of Parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, who initiated the march, as well as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, and the president of the Crif Yonathan Arfi, were among those in attendance.
Earlier in the day, other gatherings brought together 3,000 people in Lyon, as many in Nice, and also several thousand in Strasbourg.
