nIn the French capital, several thousand demonstrators – 25,000, according to protest organizers, and 7,700, according to police – braved the cold to the sounds of percussion instruments, in a lively atmosphere.
Many illegal immigrants walked at the front of the procession.
“We demand the repeal of the law, plain and simple,” said retired domestic worker Mariama Sidibe, spokeswoman for the Paris-based illegal immigrants group. “We came to France to work, we are not criminals.”
It called on more than 400 groups, associations, unions and political parties to protest against the text, which “restores many of the ideas of the extreme right.”
“Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tells us that certification will be necessary to protect us from the far right. But then, so that Marine Le Pen (the leader of the French far right) is not in power,” said Marc Sécum, a former public transport mechanic, who demonstrated in Marseille in southern France. , along with about 2,500 people, according to the municipality, he is implementing Marine Le Pen’s program – this does not make sense.
The text, which Parliament narrowly passed on December 19, restricts the payment of social benefits to foreigners, sets immigration quotas, raises questions about the automatic nature of the right to legal residence, and reimposes the “crime of illegal residence.”
Before the announcement of the Constitutional Council's decision scheduled for January 25, more than 200 French public figures filed a new appeal against the law.
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