Thousands march peacefully for 100th day
Thousands of people marched peacefully in Montreal Tuesday afternoon to mark the 100th day of student protest.
I went, and I’d have to say that if someone came to town not knowing what the march was about, the signs and chants would’ve clued them in that they’d stumbled on an anti-bill-78 action and an anti-Charest movement. Hardly anything harked back to the original tuition hike struggle. Plenty of folks in the crowd were well beyond typical student age, too.
Ian 18:41 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Exactly – by introducing bill 78, Charest has successfully turned this from a “student” issue into a “popular” issue. People were marching against the suppression of dissent – and historically, once a movement progresses from “interest group” to “popular movement”, the government’s goose is cooked.
Bill Binns 18:41 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
The Police just declared the march illegal
Ian 18:45 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
On twitter they say there’s a group trying to take the Jacques-Cartier bridge – surely the entire demo isn’t being shut down for one branch’s actions?
Kate 18:52 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Difficult to know. Technically a big part of the march this afternoon was illegal, because we took a route that hadn’t been agreed with the police – but there were so many people it wasn’t practical to try to stop us, and it remained peaceful. The only police I saw were outside the Loto-Quebec building (“guarding my retirement fund” somebody tweeted).
According to La Presse the demo broke into three major pieces almost from the beginning.
Twitter indicates the demo goes on, though.
walkerp 19:41 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Wow, I wish I were in Montreal today. I’m hearing about people just coming spontaneously out of their houses with pots and pans in support. This whole movement seems to just keep on gaining momentum. Well handled, Charest.
Kate 19:43 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
I’ve heard some “concert de casseroles” and some vuvuzelas from my place in Villeray, a pretty long way from the demo.
Ephraim 19:52 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Lost focus… is this about tuition anymore?
C_Erb 19:53 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Concert de casseroles in Villeray: http://superbon.net/?p=2312
Ian 19:55 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
@ephraim Not only, a lot of this protest was specifically against bill 78 and is being positioned that way by the media, too.
walkerp 20:10 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
This isn’t lost focus at all. This is broadening the appeal and sending a message that we are sick of paying for government and corporate collusion. This is a cry from a wide range of the population that we want a fair society and a government that represents us and our future.
Alex L 22:27 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Pots & pans = cacerolazos. This is going on all around the city since at least friday.
Stefan 02:51 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
This has made major news [traduction en francais par google] in Austria today, with what I think is very objective coverage (initiated by protest against tuition fee hikes, now broad protest against this emergency law). A sign that this conflict is not only noticed in a few select countries anymore, but in a broad international spectrum.
Ian 07:26 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
How strange that CBC and CTV are reporting “tens of thousands” when even the Gazette acknowledges that Place-des-Spectacles holds 100k and was well over capacity.
Josh 15:54 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Ian: Fagstein has a post up about the difficulties of crowd estimations. You might want to check it out.
http://blog.fagstein.com/2012/05/23/protest-crowd-estimation/