PARIS,
May 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Thousands of protesters
marched through Paris Sunday, May 26, slamming U.S. foreign, military
and environmental policy, as President George W. Bush arrived in the
French capital on his first official visit.
Police
put protester numbers at over 4,000, while riot-equipped officers said
they were ready for up to 15,000 demonstrators, Agence France-Presse
(AFP) reported.
Peace
activists and environmentalists mingled with Palestinian sympathizers
and those demanding the lifting of sanctions against Iraq in a march
that passed off peacefully, with police keeping their distance.
At
the head of the march was a group calling itself "Americans
against Bush," lambasting Bush's policies. "He's betrayed
everything that represents what were the few good parts of our
country," one of the group members told AFP.
"Since
September 11, he's turned the country into a constitutional crisis.
We're not afraid to speak up like those in America who are silent, who
are in a constitutional coma," he added.
"We're
concerned for our country... take Cuba, the missile programmed,"
said another, criticizing the U.S. president for encroaching on civil
liberties.
"This
president wasn't elected, he was selected," he added.
Protest
groups included revolutionary communists, anti-capitalists,
anti-imperialists, human rights activists, and those demanding an end
to the death penalty. Their numbers swelled by pro-Iraqi and
Palestinian groups.
Some
chanted "Down with the U.S.," while others held a banner
reading: "We want justice, stop the war."
Most
demonstrators focused their rage at U.S. foreign policy, particularly
in the Middle East, holding banners depicting Bush on a Wild
West-style poster saying "Wanted: This man is dangerous."
Marchers
chanted "We're all Palestinians" while others wearing
headscarves shouted "Bush, Sharon, assassins."
With
attention focused on possible U.S. military action against Baghdad,
one Iraqi protester said Bush was already at war with Iraq, while
another insisted: "We are ready for anything."
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| A demo in the Normandy town of Caen saw 1,100 people denouncing Bush's "strategy of world domination." |
"U.S.
military action in Iraq would be a catastrophe for U.S. policy; it
would kick off a war everywhere," he warned.
A
banner mounted on a statue depicting the French republic in the city's
Place de la Republique read: "Iraq: the only legal solution is
dropping sanctions."
Two
protesters visiting from the United States said: "Lots of
Americans are against Bush, but it's difficult to speak out at the
present -- since September 11 -- it's seen as unpatriotic."
"He
gets away with a lot," they said of the U.S. president.
"The
people under Bush are suffering and will suffer a lot more, he's taken
away a lot of liberties," she added, saying the post-September 11
period had given Bush "an excuse to do anything."
Peace
activists rallied against U.S. military action in Afghanistan, with a
banner reading: "Bush assassin," mounted on a pastiche Stars
and Stripes with stars replaced by skulls and the stripes by streaks
of blood.
Environmental
demonstrators, one of them dressed as the Grim Reaper focused on the
U.S. failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change,
demanding: "Rally for Kyoto, save the planet from the toxic
Texan."
An
effigy of the U.S. leader depicted him with a bomber in one hand and a
gas nozzle in the other sitting astride the planet.
A
similar demonstration in the Normandy town of Caen, meanwhile, saw
some 1,100 demonstrators denouncing Bush's "strategy of world
domination."
Protesters
waved banners reading "American imperialism: enough!" and
prepared to march toward the town's war memorial and museum some five
kilometers (three miles) away.
Bush
is due in Normandy Monday, May 27, for a religious ceremony in the
small town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, followed by a visit to the U.S. war
cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, on the ridge overlooking Omaha Beach.
Bush
arrived in Paris Sunday on his first official visit to France, aimed
at rallying stronger support for his so-called “war on terrorism”
and dispelling fears over U.S. unilateralist foreign policy.
He
met with French President Jacques Chirac for talks on the fight
against terror, the India-Pakistan crisis, NATO expansion, Moscow's
relations with the Atlantic alliance and the Middle East
.
