120,000 Take to the Streets as Pro-Democracy Movement Sweeps France

“This movement was not born and will not die in Paris…It has no limit, no border and it belongs to all of those who wish to be part of it.”

by Lauren McCauley | COMMONDREAMS

A police crackdown will not deter France’s burgeoning Nuit Debout (or ‘Up All Night’) movement that has swept across the country in recent weeks as the unifying call for change sparked protests in over 50 cities this weekend.

Riot police early Monday cleared the encampment in the Place de la Republique in central Paris after 11 nights of protest, but demonstrators have vowed to maintain their nightly vigil.

Demonstrations this weekend were held in as many as 60 cities and towns across France as well as in Belgium, Germany, and Spain, according to reports, as an estimated 120,000 protested against austerity, globalization, increasing inequality, privatization, and the continent’s severe anti-migrant policies.

What began as a rebuke of the state’s anti-labor policies has grown into a nation-wide pro-democracy movement that has been likened to the Indignados movement in Spain, or the Occupy protests in the United States. Reporting on the movement’s origins, the Guardian‘s Angelique Chrisafis writes from Paris:

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