French Protest Act III, the Dreaded Halloween Edition

Last Saturday, Act II of the protest ended with three words spray-painted in black on boarded-up stores: “RDV le 31”.

Act III on the 31st, then.

The week was completely normal by French standards, by the way. Don’t be fooled by Fox News and the like showing the same footage of the same garbage can burning. The French go about their lives between protests. Much like Carnival, protests are organized chaos—it’s not like we mass-produce Molotov cocktails and dedicate all our waking hours to plotting the revolution.

Maybe we should, actually.

Meanwhile, the government had a busy week. It warned of potential urban violence on the 31st. Then it announced restrictions on face coverings. Finally, it banned protests in downtown areas in several cities across France, threatening hell and the full force of the law or something like that.

Of course we all obeyed and wisely decided to stay home.

Just kidding.

At 2 p.m., the new game in town was “find the gathering point”. Since downtown was off-limits, the hotspot was Place de la République, just across one of the many bridges over the Loire River. Basically, a ten-minute walk from downtown, if you know Nantes.

“This is the latest government program, ‘explore your city’,” we joked, walking there.

I mean, you just had to follow… pretty much everyone. It’s like joining a bloco during Carnival, just go with the flow.

And don’t mind the riot police randomly stopping people to search their bags.

The crowd grew bigger and bigger at Place de la République.

We had to march somewhere.

Clearly not across the bridge, now blocked by armoured vehicles and riot police standing guard.

So along the river we went.

The police were also blocking the next bridge, and the following one, which happens to be right in the middle of a construction site where new tram lines are being built.

I started looking for a way out when the first tear gas canister was fired. This was not a great place to be stuck, with fences, rocks and construction materials everywhere, ready to be used as barricades or projectiles.

Off into the side streets we went, but the bridges were still blocked and no one was allowed through.

We kept on walking and found one bridge where the police would let you through if you submitted to a search and could show proof of residence downtown. My French ID has my Canadian address on it, ha ha. As for my mum, she didn’t even have her ID, phone or anything with her.

We snuck through between the shields while the woman in front of us was being taken away by the police. The crime? A face mask in her backpack.

The unauthorized protest was scheduled for 5 p.m. downtown. We were greeted by two armoured Centaure vehicles and tons of police—no one was allowed to gather.

So we all started to pretend we were there to do some window shopping or whatever people do on a Saturday afternoon, never mind that 90% of the stores were boarded up and closed.

The police charged. We escaped into side streets, only to realize another group of protesters—and the police behind them—was also coming our way. In bars and cafés, people stood up at once and brought tables and chairs inside.

We ran the other way.

More running around kept us busy for yet another hour and we got tear-gassed pretty badly a couple of blocks from my mum’s apartment.

Fuck it. At this point, I’m protesting just because the government no longer wants people to protest. Since when do you send armoured vehicles and such a heavy police force to every single protest?