Demonstrations once again took place this weekend in France in support of Ukraine. Nearly 10,000 people gathered on Saturday in Paris and in several other cities including Lille, Rennes and Strasbourg to denounce the Russian invasion.
A total of 9,700 people, including a thousand in Paris, gathered in France for Ukraine, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior. “Let’s help Ukraine, let’s boycott Russian gas and oil”, demanded the demonstrators, including many Ukrainians and Russians opposed to the war, gathered at Place de la République in the capital.
“Being together is a weapon”
“We have to close the sky, it’s essential, because civilians are dying. Putin bombs anyhow, he bombs hospitals, maternities, schools, private homes. Everything, everything, everything…”, denounced Halyna Nyskevya, a 65-year-old Ukrainian living in France for twenty years. We have to “show everyone that there is resistance, even if we are not at gunpoint, but that too is a weapon, the fact of being together is a weapon and we is proud to be there,” said Maya Dahan, 33.
“The purchase of Russian gas and oil directly finances the Russian invasion war in Ukraine and makes us all accomplices in this war”, affirmed many demonstrators wearing a badge in Ukrainian colors calling for a boycott of Russian gas and oil. The banners, mostly in English, read “stop Putin’s war crimes”. A young Russian woman living in France held a sign proclaiming (in English) “I am Russian and I support Ukraine. Putin is an assassin”. In Russian, she wrote on her placard: “No to war”.
In Lille, a hundred people gathered in the afternoon in support of Ukraine. “Fuck Go Home!” “, “God bless Ukraine”, could be read on signs. In Strasbourg, 600 people gathered Place Kléber. And there were 700 of them in Rennes, to the cry of “Putin, a war criminal”.
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