Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia’s deadly airstrikes have visited destruction on the people of Yemen, killing almost 18,000 and leaving most of the population at near-starvation levels. The Saudi bombing campaign is intended to suppress the Houthi rebels who have taken over the capital Sana’a and much of the west of the country, but it is also a proxy for a wider regional conflict with Iran.

Thus far, the Saudi tyrants in Riyadh have been able to count on Western backing — and weapons. Yet as scrutiny of their war crimes intensifies, the edifice of support is beginning to crack. On June 20 the Senate voted to block Donald Trump’s plans for $8 billion of weapons shipments, just hours after a ruling by the UK Court of Appeal forced Theresa May’s government to suspend arms sales to Riyadh.

Yet the first resistance came elsewhere — from the workers meant to make the arms shipments happen. On May 10, the Bahri Yanbu was unable to dock in Le Havre as workers refused to accept the Saudi vessel, and ten days later their counterparts in Genoa went on strike rather than load the ship. On May 28 members of the CGT union in Marseille similarly boycotted a Canadian weapons cargo headed for Saudi Arabia on the Bahri Tabuk.