Three weeks change to a country, and a president. On the 11th of November, Emmanuel Macron received at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe to various heads of State internationally. Among them, the american, Donald Trump and the Russian Vladimir Putin. The commemoration of the end of the First World War was, for Macron, the occasion to criticize in a speech vibrant nationalism that no leader represents as well as Trump. It also served to enhance the grandeur of French, symbolized by the monument in front of which he delivered the speech, and for the tomb of the unknown soldier, whose flame burns eternally.
just landed from Buenos Aires, where he participated in the G20 summit, Macron again this Sunday at the same place. What he saw was very different. The walls of the Arc de Triomphe were full of graffiti, many offensive against Macron. The ticket booth where tourists buy tickets to climb to the roof of the monument were destroyed. Only the flame of the unknown soldier remained intact. The rest of the temple republican had been the object of destruction and vandalism in the manifestation of yellow vests on the Saturday in Paris.
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There were the remains of grandeur in the desecrated Arch of Triumph, or in their surroundings. The balance in Paris: 112 cars burned, fires in six buildings, 133 wounded (including 16 police officers), 380 detainees and images of destruction and chaos in the tv and press from all over the world.
The uncontrolled violence can compromise both the authorities, which failed to avoid it, as the movement of the yellow vests and the political opposition that jalean as a project of insurrection. The French Government has assumed that the perpetrators were groups outside the yellow vests. On the ground, in the midst of the confusion that surrounded the event, it was very difficult to distinguish from each other.
After a visit to the Arc de Triomphe, Macron strolled through the nearby avenue Kléber. “Macron resignation”, shouted a few yellow vests. Other people applauded. In the avenue were the skeletons of several motorcycles, a truck and a car, burned down the night before. The president of the Republic, could feel the smell of gasoline and ash.
it Is far away the solemn commemoration of the 11 November, and the speech before a leader like Trump, who eats a surfeit similar to the one of the yellow vests. The walk of Macron by the Arc de triomphe and the avenue Kléber, among the ruins of cars and shop windows blown out, was something of a stroll for the ambitions frustrated of his presidency.
