The French Covid freedom convoy goes to Brussels despite the police warning

Hundreds of vehicles that took part in France's so-called freedom convoy on Monday were on the way to Brussels, despite warnings that they would be prevented from entering the Belgian capital.

The protest against covid restrictions and high energy prices shifted its focus on the symbolic heart of the EU after the police had prevented most of the estimated 3,000 vehicles at the weekend.

About 100 managed to come past the police and to walk together on the Champs Élysées, where they were finally sold on Saturday evening with tear gas.

The Belgian police said that it had used strength along several motorways and stopped around 30 vehicles on the way to the capital.

The Mayor of the City of Brussels, Philippe Close, said the police lead to a parking and resting area outside the city, which could absorb up to 10,000 vehicles, and warned the demonstrators that this was the only place where they could come together and protest.

He said that demonstrators could enter Brussels on foot, but they shouldn't "take the capital hostage". The Brussels authorities banned any demonstrations in the city on Monday.

On Sunday evening, the French police warned that around 1,300 vehicles in the northern city of Lille came together near the Belgian border.

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The French convoy, inspired by the movement that Ottawa paralyzed in Canada, brought the opponents of the vaccination pass together, yellow vests (yellow vests) and anti-government demonstrators who were annoyed by increased energy prices.

Jean-Pierre Schmit, 58, an unemployed person from Toulouse, told the Agence France press: "We go to Brussels to try to block it and fight this policy of permanent control."

Sandrine, 45, from Lyon, added: "We want to achieve all European institutions one after the other. We don't know where this leads, but we are on the way and are heard."

The convoy should also head to Brussels Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is also located.

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Jean-Christophe Couvy, the general secretary of the SGP police union, said that the convoy apparently had a number of "goals".

"There is Brussels and the European Parliament in Strasbourg. We have officials on standby and are currently vigilant.

civil servants said only about 10% of the convoy, which had come together in Paris at the weekend, had broken up to Brussels.