Thousands gathered in Paris’s Place de la République this afternoon at an even organized by the civil movement Patriotes de la Diversité (Patriots of Diversity), called to show support for the French Republic, and express pride in the French identity and the country’s republican values. The French tricolors carried by the attendees filled the square, as a symbol of the unity of the French “regardless of skin colour,” ethnicity, or religion, as the organizers put it.
In their appeal online, the organizers called on “French men and French women” not to remain silent, but be ready to send “a powerful message to all of France and the entire world: our country is alive, our memory is sacred, our values are inviolable.”
The main ‘face’ and conceiver of the event was a French firefighter and influencer of Algerian extraction, known as Ben le Patriot, with around 350, 000 followers on TikTok, who decided to launch preparations for today’s rally after the monument to the Republic in the iconic Parisian square was repeatedly defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti this year and Palestinian flags were displayed on the statue of Marianne, the female figure personifying the republic. According to Ben, the French “should fight for France, not for Palestine.” At the event today a Palestinian flag was removed by the demonstrators, and replaced with a French tricolor.
At the time of writing, the mainstream media both in France and abroad was conspicuously silent about the event.
