[30/04/10] Apéro géant à Bourges

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Strikes... Parties... Riots... Impromptu brass band concerts


At
the centre of Tours is the old town, a network of cobbled streets
grouped around Place Plumereau, the heart of the medieval city. It's a
magnet for tourists and party animals alike, with buildings dating as
far back as the 15th century and dozens of bars, clubs and restaurants
crammed into a pedestrianised area a few hundred yards across.
Traditionally a student area due to its relatively low rents and the
extremely high bar:resident ratio, it was saved from demolition in the
1970s and glammed up during the 80s and 90s to become the most
beautiful part of a beautiful city.

After over five weeks of strike at their university, students at Tours are
coming out into the town to increase public awareness. A demonstration
last Thursday ended in a face-off with local police dolled up in riot
gear as protesters blocked the two main bridges into town. This didn't
stop the Commission for the Community from organising a party in Place
Plumereau for Saturday night, a sort of flash-mob/ protest that was
probably intended as much to boost strikers' morale as to create
publicity. We're all a bit down this week after quarrels with the
President of the university and even some disagreement between members
of the movement.

Well, I actually had another party, so I just
popped by the square on my way to the under-the-counter-alcohol candy
shop. It was a beautiful sight. Around the edges of the square,
tourists and towns-folk sipped their saturday night demis, pretending
not to watch the middle where jolly students and hippies drank bottled
beer and danced in a conga line. I waved at my friends, wished them a
bonne soirée and toddled off to my friend's birthday.

Coming
back at 1am from Les Halles I would normally cross Place Plume, but
from la Place du Grand Marché I could tell something was going on in
the square. I cut down rue de la Rotisserie and found myself slap-bang
in the action at the corner with rue du Change. Crammed into the tiny
street, a couple of hundred young people were being advanced on by CRS
(riot police). A friend told me the police had burst into Place Plume
at around 10.30 while protesters and partiers were dancing round their
bonfire, and had been gradually pushed south of the square. Here it is
necessary to comment- anyone who actually wanted to stop a bonfire
would send the fire engines. This was a move on the part of the police
to stop free protest, not fires. What the police hadn't counted on was
the fact that every young working person in the Tours agglomeration
gathers in the bars on Saturday night to kick back. My British
readership may not believe this, but there are young working people in
Tours who resent violent police involvement in peaceful protest. Some
of them even distrust their police force.

So by the time I had
got there the students had in fact dispersed into largish groups around
the centre-ville, but their numbers had swelled from a couple of
hundred to maybe a couple of thousand as young people spilled out of
the rapidly closing bars to help their cause. What I first saw on the
corner of rue du Change was the hard-core of a mixed group of youth,
the ones who were taking the biggest risks to keep the riot police out
of our part of town.

I
had barely been updated on this by my friend Etienne when flares roared
up in front of the police lines, blanks appeared to be fired and he
grabbed my arm, shouting 'Run!'. We ran back into Place Plume as the
narrow road was filled with tear gas. My friend pulled my scarf tightly
around my face but it didn't make much difference. The gas filled up
everywhere for a good hundred yard radius- it must have affected a lot
of onlookers and people on their way home.

Despite
the gas I stayed in rue du Change for a good half hour, taking photos
and talking to people. The police were trying to advance back north
towards Place Plume, but kids throwing bottles and periodically rushing
them in a mass impeded their progress, so they contented themselved
with generous doses of gas (lacrymogène, my wortd for the day) avery
five minutes or so. They'd been stuck like that for several hours and
were clearly awaiting reinforcements.

When my camera ran out of
battery I went home and changed out of my party gear into a hoody. I
decided this time to approach the riots from rue de la Monnaie, coming
up behind the police lines. A small crowd had gathered to watch on this
side, presumably all people who thought they would be protected if they
stayed behind the police.

When
I got out my camera, however, there were problems. An officer told me
to move further back, so I did. However when he told me to stop taking
pictures I refused. He told me he would break my camera- I said 'I
doubt that.' There were clearly too many witnesses for him to try. Then
he told me he would break my camera if I didn't delete all the
pictures, and if not, arrest me. He was one of those thugs doing crowd
control safely behind the actual riot police lines, a real thicko. I
replied that if he wanted to delete the pictures on my camera he would
have to arrest me first, and we could go down the station and discuss
the matter.
'There's nothing to discuss. It's illegal to take pictures of a police officer carrying out his duty.'
I
suggested here, perhaps a little rashly, that as an employée of the
state, if he was doing things at work that he didn't want recorded, he
was probably not doing his job properly.
Classic answer- 'I don't come and take photos of you doing your job.'
'Alors maybe you're in the wrong job, Monsieur.'
He
grabbed my camera. I held on fast. Then the crowd saved me- all the
young men behind me got out their camera phones and started snapping in
solidarity. This posed enough of a mental challenge to the copper that
he losened his grip, and I judged the time right to slip away, not
without taking a quick pic of him. Funnily enough that was the only
picture of the night that wasn't completely blurry.

As
I wandered away from the police lines, several more vans drew up. The
long-awaited reinforcements had arrived. I kept on round the corner to
the Place du Monstre, on the western edge of the old town. And what a
charming sight after the CRS! A group of boys were leaning out of a
first-floor window with brass instruments- one had a tuba- playing
jolly music to the crowds below. Crowds were dancing to a variation on
the theme from Tetris, a great song and one of my favourites. I saw my
friend Benjamin and he introduced me to his girlfriend. 'Enchantée,' I
said, as though we were all having an apero together.

It
was 3.30 am. The dancing carried on in Place du Monstre, but the newly
strengthened police had nearly finished pushing everyone out of the old
town via the 8 or 9 roads radial to Place Plume. I saw the smoke
pouring out of the nearest side road, rue du Grand Marché, and gauged
it was time to go home to bed. Skirting the Place to get home via tiny,
winding side-streets, I could see cops fighting kids, and smoke
everywhere. When I came into my road, rue du Commerce, the main exit
from Place Plume to the east, there was still a line of protesters to
one side of me and a line of police to the other. I ignored the flying
bottles and went off home to bed, but the noise carried on till much
later. This morning rue du Commerce was scattered with broken glass and
blood.