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Technorati‘No Sarkozy Day’ does not rally the masses
Several ‘No Sarkozy Day’ demonstrations were held Saturday in cities around France, but attendance was nowhere near the 100,000 people hoped for by the organisers. Public demonstrations of exasperation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy were called by 55 French bloggers, based on ‘No Berlusconi Day’ organised in Italy in December.
People were called on to gather in front of regional prefectures. About one thousand people turned up for the demonstration in Paris, many wearing purple t-shirts, to symbolise their political neutrality.
Outside of the capital, 400 people gathered in Marseille, 300 in Grenoble and 250 in Nantes.
According to an organiser of the Paris demonstration, Benjamin Ball, the movement was born out of the “necessity to express a general exasperation of the Nicolas Sarkozy’s politics,” he told the AFP news agency.
'No Sarkozy Day' started as a Facebook group calling for a million supporters of the demonstrations planed for 27 March. As of Saturday afternoon, the group had gathered only about a third of the goal, or about 388,000 members.
Sarkozy’s UMP party dismissed the movement.
“Bringing together a few hundred people, when the goal was 100,000 or even 450,000 like in Rome against Silvio Berlusconi – this kind of negative initiative during a crisis period is laughable, and is even uncalled for,” Frérédric Lefebvre told the AFP.
The ‘No Sarkozy Day’ organisers see the movement continuing in the future, with another round of demonstrations called for 8 May.
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