Cicilie among the Parisians

It wasn’t the climate the newspaper Le Parisien was thinking of when they some weeks ago wrote that March would be a “hot” month. And indeed they were right…

I must admit that I leave the demonstrations as soon as there are any sign of violence. (Luckily, there are some observers left – I came across these terrific photos on flickr today!) It’s partly due to the fact that my wretched skeleton isn’t fit for running and partly that the situation on the ground becomes completely unclear and confusing. Only after a few days of searching the net and following the news, do I get some understanding of what actually was happening. For instance, the happy atmosphere (“bon enfant” as they say here) last Thursday (16/03, when the lycée and university students were out in the streets against the CPE again), quickly changed when the procession suddenly was encouraged to divert and disperse…

I noticed many had started going in the opposite direction and others stood waiting. And then I scented the teargas and noticed that the riot police (CRS) had taken position in all the side streets. A guy who had obviously got the gas right in his face asked a CRS what was going on. The policeman just lifted his shoulders. (I wonder if they’ve been instructed not to talk to people when the situation is tense. I noticed the same reaction two days later at Place the la Nation, as well. The armoured CRS just utter one-syllabic words, if they utter anything at all.)

I still haven’t found an explanation for why the final part of the procession was met with an air full of teargas and riot police (apparently) blocking most ways out that Thursday. This chronology doesn’t completely fit with the official version, which says that the situation didn’t intensify before “casseurs” (“breakers”/rioters) at the very end of the procession started making trouble… So, yes, the situation on the ground is so confusing that it’s better to go home in time and start searching the net… ☺

The atmosphere changed even quicker at the demonstration two days later (18/03, when the unions joined the students, still against the CPE). The weather had been wonderful (full of pollen in the air, so I wasn’t ready to wait for the teargas this time…), and the crowd really huge (maybe as many as 350 000, which means a 5 km long avenue filled with people for 5 hours). At the moment I arrived at Nation I noticed a lot of people suddenly moving in one direction. I saw black smoke from a fire. A car? Not easy to tell at the moment. As I reluctantly moved in homeward direction, some men came running –had to be undercover policemen, I thought –, and further down the street I saw they had put a boy up against the wall. In fact, first I only saw his trainers, as there were so much police, with and without riot gear, covering him. I couldn’t make myself take any pictures when he was escorted to the police car right in front of me. But others were, so also at the second arrest I saw a while afterwards. This boy wore ski goggles (in case of teargas) and he was shouting something about La France. Strangely, one of the police officers present at arrest of the other boy muttered something about La France as well. (Unfortunately, I must admit that when the French are agitated their language turn almost incomprehensible to me.)

Early next morning it was so quiet at Place de la Nation that I could hear a blackbird sing in top of one of the trees. And it would still take almost one and a half day before the news that the trade unionist Cyril Ferez was in a coma after being trampled underfoot by the CRS would break…

A television crew hung around at the centre of the roundabout, filming the flags and banners still left at the monument (The triumph of the Republic, I think it’s called). A couple of photographers were taking pictures of the damage, – which were nothing really, compared to what were to come at Les Invalides some days later. As I was waiting for the bus to take me into town, I watched the locals out walking their dog or just on a morning stroll, stopping chatting to each other in front of the burnt out car. To elderly women were talking by the shattered bus shelter: “It’s the casseurs. They always come at the end, and they haven’t got anything to do with the demonstration…” Neither of them mentioned the banlieues, (even though the two issues – the revolt in the banlieues (see earlier in this blog) and the student revolt against the CPE 4 months later – in many ways are related).

Who these casseurs might be seem to be of interest to many these days. And who were the ones who apparently caused quite a lot of damage when they occupied the prestigious EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)?

I got off the bus nearby La Sorbonne and stopped by at the closed off Place de la Sorbonne on my way to the Sénat (for the first day in a week of seminars on discrimination). The façades in boulevard Saint Michel were – and still are, I think – full of graffiti and some of the shop windows (mainly clothes shops, there aren’t many libraries left in The Latin Quarter anymore…) were broken. It wasn’t yet 10 o’clock, but the new Parisian attraction was already drawing an audience.

And since then, the trouble has got worse…