Trucker-led protests against COVID-19 restrictions in Canada have inspired copycat movements as far afield as Europe and New Zealand.
As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says “everything is on the table” to end the Canadian blockade, thousands of vehicles were headed to Paris, Brussels and Vienna.
Canada’s self-styled “Freedom Convoy” began late last month in the country’s west, sparked by anger that truckers had to either be vaccinated against COVID-19, or test and isolate, to cross the US-Canada border.
Photo: AFP
For two weeks, a group of protesters have blocked the center of the capital, Ottawa, with protests against a backdrop of truck horns honking.
The movement has morphed into a broader protest against pandemic health restrictions and the Trudeau’s administration.
Hundreds of vehicles remain camped on Parliament Hill below Trudeau’s offices.
The epicenter Ontario province on Friday declared a state of emergency.
Trudeau said: “Everything is on the table because this unlawful activity has to end and it will end.”
FRANCE
Thousands of vehicles on Friday were closing in on Paris in convoys from across France, with many hoping to blockade the capital to protest COVID-19 vaccination rules and other restrictions.
The protesters set off from Bayonne, Perpignan, Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg and elsewhere.
Paris police sought to prevent the demonstration, saying they would ban the convoys and would stop roads from being blocked, threatening hefty fines or jail.
BELGIUM
Belgian authorities also said they would ban the convoys that have been announced to converge on Brussels on Monday, according to a call to protest circulating on social media.
AUSTRIA
Austrian police on Thursday announced a ban on any “Freedom Convoy” after reports that several hundred vehicles were set to converge on Friday in central Vienna and near a major public park in the Austrian capital.
THE US
People in the US have taken to social media to call people to gather east of Los Angeles for a two-day rally beginning on March 4 before hitting the road, possibly toward Washington.
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