Hundreds of ‘Black Vest’ Protesters Occupy Pantheon in Paris (+Video)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Hundreds of ‘Black Vest’ migrant protesters flooded the Paris landmark, the Pantheon, demanding the right to remain in France.
The protesters vowed to remain on site until all the illegals get proper papers from the authorities.
The protesters, many of whom were from West Africa, called themselves “Black Vests,” an allusion to the recent antigovernment “Yellow Vests” protests.
They surged the memorial in the early afternoon, where luminaries such as Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Simone Veil, champions of human rights, are buried, NYTimes reported.
Occupying the memorial for a couple of hours, they sat peacefully under the monument’s dome, waving papers and chanting, “Black Vests, Blacks Vests” and “Solidarity with migrants.”
“We are undocumented, the voiceless and faceless of the French Republic,” read a leaflet shared by La Chapelle Debout!, an advocacy organization for migrants and refugees. “We come to the graveyards of your great men to denounce your desecration.”
As France has grappled with an increasing number of asylum requests in recent years, it has closed its border with Italy, fought illegal immigration in cities like Calais and adopted tougher policies against migrants.
The protesters — many of whom live in the Paris region in migrant shelters, in precarious hotels or on the streets — have staged other protests during the past few months.
In May, hundreds of “Black Vests” protesters occupied a terminal at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport to denounce the “collaboration of Air France” in the repatriation of undocumented migrants to their countries of origin. In June, they stormed the entrance hall of a catering services group in the financial district of Paris, claiming that the company, Elior, exploited undocumented migrants.
