April 19, 2008 (LPAC)--Despite the Lisbon Treaty having been ratified in France's parliament in early February, the spontaneously formed Citizens of Europe Against the European Illegitimate Regime (CECRI) has organized 8 demonstrations all around the country on Wednesday, April 16th: Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Paris, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Rennes, Trets and Saint Denis de la Réunion. The initiative started with a call written by a private citizen, Etienne Chouard, posted on the internet a week earlier. Etienne Chouard, a junior high school teacher in Marseille, had already played a role in the defeat of the latest version of the treaty during France's 2005 referendum campaign when the French people voted "no" against the so-called "constitutional" treaty. At that time, his criticism of the text circulated through the web and got 1 million hits within the weeks in which the "No" vote went from 40% to 55% in the polls.

In this 2008 document, Chouard calls on the people to deal with the EU "illegitimate regime" as the East Germans did with Honnecker's dictatorship in 1989 when they took to the streets every Monday of each week to demonstrate peacefully until the whole population joined and the wall fell. Demonstrations are planned every Wednesday from now on in more French cities and, already, a citizens' initiative is organizing demonstrations in Berlin and Essen.