The context of great anger among farmers foreshadowed a complicated visit. Emmanuel Macron’s arrival at the Agricultural Show on Saturday February 24, at times, turned into chaos with clashes between demonstrators and CRS, mobile gendarmes, security and intervention companies and police officers in civil.
During a press briefing as Emmanuel Macron completed his visit to the Salon, Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police prefect, estimated the number of the most vindictive demonstrators in the morning between “300 and 400”. He reported six arrests of demonstrators as well as eight injuries among the police, including two “slightly more seriously injured”.
The prefect specified that three of the people arrested had been arrested for “violence against a person holding public authority”. The Paris prosecutor’s office had noted a little earlier that these people would be summoned later by the courts. Laurent Nuñez, who thanked the police for “their responsiveness”, “deplored the violence shown by certain demonstrators” towards them.
Increased tension in the afternoon
Concerning the afternoon, he claimed to have prohibited “300 activists of the Rural Coordination” from entering hall 4 of the Exhibition Center where the Head of State was then, to prevent them from coming “to again in contact with the President of the Republic, to attack a public authority”. “I take full responsibility for this decision.” “We were able to ensure the security” of the president, continued the police prefect, stressing that there had been “extremely tense moments”. “We were able to see that this morning, violence is not the prerogative of left-wing movements,” he said.
The police chief affirmed that the police did not use tear gas. “With one exception, that of a mobile gendarme, thrown to the ground, attacked, who, to free himself, very briefly used a hand-held gas canister.” “It was the only case,” insisted the prefect, adding that “the use of tear gas was completely prohibited” on Saturday. The police “made a strong case” to contain the demonstrators, he said. “The living room is a moment of celebration, not a place where we come to make violent demands.”
This 60th edition of the Show “will go down in history,” Arnaud Lemoine, director of Ceneca, the organization that owns the event, told Agence France-Presse. For his part, Emmanuel Macron left the premises at 9:15 p.m., indicated his entourage, after more than 13 hours of visit, not without addressing a dig at the Rural Coordination, some executives of which are close to the RN: “There are people who are there with a political project which is to serve the National Rally, to make tomorrow or the day after tomorrow a guard of honor to the leaders of the National Rally and to lead a political campaign”, referring to demonstrators and trade unionists who booed him.
