French Protests – Urban Guerrilla Act II, Tear Gas Included

I arrived a few hours after the battle the media probably told you about: the Great October 17 French Riot, not the one where the queen was beheaded but the one where—gasp—windows were broken and garbage cans set on fire.

And also protesters maimed by the police but let’s not dwell on this “detail”.

“I’m picking up kiddo at the train station at 3 p.m., but it’s a mess, I can’t get through!” my mum texted me while I was still packing in Ottawa.

My sister, who lives in Paris, sends her kid to Nantes for half the break and yes, kids get two weeks off roughly every seven weeks in France.

“No trams?” I texted back.

“Of course not.”

Duh. They get torched otherwise.

“Giant clouds of tear gas,” she added.

Mind you, she said it with a hint of excitement. Don’t picture a little old lady. This is my mum, who came to Brazil last year and whose favourite pastime is anarchy. When she’s not at protests, she’s plotting one.

“Go to the station’s south entrance, it’s usually quieter.”

I know my city. I know protesters. Like, sometimes literally. I ran into two black bloc protesters in 2023 who turned out to be old family friends.

The news kept coming as I finished packing, headed to the airport, checked in, and wandered aimlessly at the gate.

My sister had happily put five-year-old kiddo on the train and was joining the protest with her partner.

Meanwhile, my mum was circling around the station.

“The train is delayed. Protesters on the tracks.”

“I’m sheltering in a café with kiddo. Can’t go to the apartment yet.”

“We made it. Helped by protesters.”

Damn. I missed the party, I thought, as my Air France flight was taking off.

On Sunday, the city was very much not burning. Just broken windows and many single-dose saline pods (for rinsing tear gas out of your eyes), plus random discarded military gear.

Then on Monday, shops started boarding up.

“Act II” was set for the following Saturday.

“It’s just like Carnival,” I told Feng. “The boarded-up part. Otherwise… it feels like Canadians waiting for a blizzard. You know shit is going to go down but you don’t know how bad it’ll get.”

I can’t explain it. It’s cultural. Even the hilarious signs are hard to translate and I’m saying this as a translator.

This movement started a few weeks ago with high school kids. I can’t even picture Mark protesting against anything but me telling him to stop playing Red Dead Redemption and go to bed.

Can he picture me shouting tout le monde déteste la police?

Much like roquefort, protesting is an acquired taste and Mark is your typical Canadian kid. He doesn’t rebel against society. I can’t relate. I was his age when I learned how to protest and taunt the police. It was much less violent back then, though.

I admire the French for their ability to get outraged and make their voices heard in public—in person, as we say these days—instead of going full keyboard warrior behind a screen. In that respect and many others, I’m French, not Canadian.

But first, my mum and I had to put kiddo on the train back to Paris—yes, my sister has a wicked sense of timing: he’d arrived on protest day and would leave on protest day. I ended up carrying him on my back to cross the police lines that were forming.

“Why do the police use tear gas?”

“Ask your mum, kiddo, ask your mum…”

My mum waited for the train, I left for the first protest.

“First warning to disperse… second warning to disperse…”

Then tear gas.

I went to pick up my mum at the station and we joined yet another protest. There were four meeting points because why not tire the police out.

The thing is, protesting is scary these days. Grenades get thrown. Reactions are unpredictable. I’m not afraid of being arrested, I’m afraid of being injured by a projectile.

We lasted a few hours.

I skipped most of the night protest.

I suspect there will be an Act III. Capitalism is like a zombie: it takes more than one shot to put down.