There are days when you just know some kind of major shit is going to come down.

There’s something in the air, an electric atmosphere. Streets are just a bit more crowded than usual, people slightly drunker, everybody seems to be wandering around and wasting time until it’s time—time to do what, exactly? You’ll probably find out if you check the news or follow social media.

Or maybe keep an eye on the dozens of police vehicles of all sizes parked haphazardly in pedestrian streets and along main avenues and on riot cops gearing up or eating dinner before reporting for duty. Oh, and choppers. If you can spot choppers in the sky, you can be sure something is about to happen.

Now, the key is to figure out when, where and how.

June 21 was “Make Music Day” in France. It was also the second day with curfew lifted for good and obviously the first day of summer. A couple of days earlier, an “illegal” rave party—quote mark here because COVID or not, rave parties are rarely official by definition—in Brittany prompted a seven-hour-long violent fight with police forces firing tear gas, destroying sound systems and charging at groups hurling metal balls, petrol bombs and other projectiles.

Three years ago, a music fan died when police evacuated a rave party on the Île de Nantes.

So yeah, protests were expected for Make Music Day, two exactly, heard it through the grapevine—one downtown and a tribute march on the Île de Nantes.

The crowd gathered very quickly place du Bouffay around 8 p.m.

“I know that game,” my mom said. “In two minutes, riot cops are going to block all exits. Okay, let’s see…”

Sure enough, all the streets were blocked off but one. My mom “escaped,” I stayed—not as a protester, as a photographer, just for fun.

I knew that I was playing with fire. Protests and repression escalade rapidly these days. I can’t remember as much violence on either side when I was a teen in the 1990. The “black block”—basically protesters dressed in black and voted most likely to smash a few windows—were always at the back of the protests, the key was to get out before the inevitable final face-off between them and riot cops. But nowadays, tear gas, smoke bombs, rubber bullets and various projectiles are routinely used. Protesters lose eyes, limbs.

It’s not fucking normal in a democracy.

I stayed at the back of the protest with a seasoned press photographer for a while as smoke bombs were being thrown around. He had just covered the rave party fight. “Okay, I’m going closer,” he announced after a little while.

I shook my head no. “Good luck!”

I found a good—safe?—spot at the corner of a street.

I participated in many protests and I quickly realized that this one wasn’t your traditional protest, i.e. a march from point A to point B. It was a cat-and-mouse game that could spiral into chaos anytime. Protesters were going one way, then turning around when blocked by the police, then going the other way, etc.

There were fires everywhere.

I was ready to run like hell when needed.

“Troisième sommation. Nous allons faire usage de la force.”  

Last police warning.

And then suddenly a wave of protesters ran my way and there was smoke, so much smoke.

I was standing in front of a fast-food joint. Two waiters rushed to the doors to close them and somehow I managed to get inside, joining the staff and two or three customers. Streets were engulfed by tear gas a few seconds later.

“Fuck, we’re trapped,” one of the waiters said. Our eyes were burning from tear gas.

Better inside than outside, though, because projectiles were flying outside—rubber bullets, chairs, tear gas canisters, paving stones. It felt like a battlefield.

I ran out of the restaurant when tear gas started to dissipate. The fight had moved to the other side of the block.

It lasted for most of the night.