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France: Protest flags

Opponents to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport
Demonstrations against pensions reform
- Crying Marianne flag
- Frowning face symbol
Anonymous French flag
French Tricolore flag with a black heart
"Arts" flags

See also:

France

Demonstrations against pensions reform

Crying Marianne flag

Crying Marianne flag - Image located by William Garrison, 15 April 2023

This flag was flown at an "anti-64" pension-reform demonstration [c. March 2023], which was held in objection to the French Government's recent attempt to raise the national worker's minimum retirement age from 62 years to 64. In the flag's central vertical white stripe is an image of "Marianne", who has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution in May 1789. "Marianne" is the personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason.

"Marianne" is wearing the red "phrygian" liberty cap or the "bonnet rouge" which was de rigueur for sans-culotte militants to wear to show their loyalty for the revolution.

William Garrison, 15 April 2023

On this flag, the portrait of Marianne is rather hand-drawn than printed.
The crying Marianne symbol was often used after the deadly 2015 attacks in France, but the circumstances are very different this time, and the objective sought, in the French political context of 2023, is to express the
dismay of the people at the repeated use of article 49-3 of the Constitution, described by the demonstrators as anti-democratic, and which allows to force passage of a legislative text without a vote through a commitment of responsibility of the Government, unless the National Assembly is prepared to overturn it with a vote of no confidence.
The use of Article 49.3 sparked more protests and two no confidence votes failed, contributing to an increase in violence in protests alongside the union-organised strike action.

Olivier Touzeau, 29 April 2023

Frowning face symbol

French flag with frowning face symbol - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 4 June 2023

A flag used in the ongoing protests against the pension reform in France was reported on 2023-03-29 at Reddit: source.
Its photo appears at the very beginning of the video by DW which is referred to in the discussion and there is another photo at the beginning of another video from the
same source.

The flag is derived from the national flag by adding a large frowning face symbol, drawn in black, to the center of the white field.

Tomislav Todorović, 4 June 2023

Anonymous French flag

Anonymous French flag - Image by Ivan Sache, 13 April 2014

A demonstration against ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was organized in Paris in March 2012. A photo taken during the demonstration shows a French tricolor flag charged in the middle of the white stripe with the Guy Fawkes mask (history) used by the members of the Anonymous collective.

Ivan Sache, 13 April 2014

French Tricolor flag with a black heart

Flag seen during the 1 May 2002 demonstration in Paris - Image by Jorge Candeias, 6 May 2005

The first round of the 2002 presidential elections showed M. Chirac as winner and M. Le Pen as runner-up, while the Socialist candidate was only third. In the second round of the elections M. Chirac and M. Le Pen were the only candidate, and there was between the two rounds a nationwide appeal to voters not to vote for Le Pen, an appeal mainly to people who ordinarily wouldn't dream of voting Chirac.

Público published on 2 May 2002 a photo of the huge 1-million people demonstration that had taken place in Paris the day before. The photo features a group of three young men, most probably Maghrebine, on the allegoric statue is of the Republic erected on Place de la République, flying a big French flag (c. 5:9) with a black heart in the center.
The black heart might recall the black hand used on stickers (and maybe on home-made flag) by the movement SOS Racisme when they launched the campaign Touche pas à mon pote (Don't touch my buddy) in the late 1980s. The campaign started when Le Pen's FN started its ascension. Since SOS Racism was often seen as an organization managed by the Socialist Party, the use of a heart might be more neutral than the use of the hand.

Jorge Candeias, Jarig Bakker & Ivan Sache, 9 May 2005

"Arts" flags

In March 2004 there was a manifesto assembling artists, intellectuals of all kinds in France (and also lawyers, medical doctors, architects, etc.) against the sectorial policies of the French government, gathering over 40 thousand signatures and appealing to fight againts the "war on intelligence" that in their opinion the government was undertaking.
This resulted in an article in the Público newspaper. The caption of the photo illustrating the article made clear that it had been taken in the summer of 2003, when "intermittent" artists organized rallies all over France, protesting against the same issues that brought up the manifesto a few months later.

The demonstrations included the display of allusive flags. They were different, but designed under a common plan: plain flags with dark drawings or sillouettes in the center. Based on the shades of grey in the black and white photo, I would risk saying that the flags were red with black drawings, but please don't take this at face value. The drawings, as said, were varied, and portrayed the various aspects of artistic work. In the photo, there are flags with the drawing of a clown's head (two instances), with the sillouette of a ballerina and with what seems to be a writing feather inside an inkstand.

Jorge Candeias, 11 December 2004