"Yellow Vest" Activist Faces Deportation from France Despite Spanish Citizenship

Le Monde reports that "in the processions of the ’yellow vests’, the placard brandished by the demonstrator Camélia, had been noticed since Act IX of the movement by many photographers". On the panel fixed on the back of this Spanish demonstrator, we could read, "End of the world, end of the month, same fight", recalls the French newspaper, which adds that on the occasion of May 1st last in Paris, Camélia had also brought a shield to protect herself: "I am a peaceful utopian. It’s just to protect me. I won’t attack you," she could read.

However, unexpectedly, during an identity check, the demonstrator was arrested by the police and placed in custody, while, recalls Le Monde, "she was passing a police barrier with a friend to go to the climate rally organized in the capital, the police considered that the object could serve as a ’weapon by destination’". But Camélia defends herself: "even though we are pacifists, we are still subject to getting things thrown at us. It’s normal that I try to protect myself," she tried to explain to the police to prove the purely protective nature of her placard.

Despite Camélia’s release after 34 hours of detention and this case being dismissed by the Paris prosecutor’s office, "the Paris Police Prefecture immediately notified her of her placement in an administrative detention center (CRA), a measure accompanied by an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) which orders her to leave France immediately by her own means," notes Le Monde. But it is without counting on the tenacity of the demonstrator’s lawyers, according to whom, "the fact of going to a peaceful demonstration is not sufficient proof of a threat to a fundamental interest of society. The dismissal requested by the prosecutor’s office shows that there were no offenses". So this soap opera, which is causing an uproar on social networks, is still far from its epilogue.