Paris: The City of Protests

So I am in roughly my 7th week of a 6 month student exchange to Paris. As is well documented by others, it is a beautiful, historically and culturally rich city filled with well dressed, not-as-rude-as-you-might-expect people. But what has interested me most has been their passion for protesting. I haven't even been actively searching and already I've happenned to stroll into four protests, one of them with hundreds of riot police lined up with their shields, protective vests, batons and guns at the ready. The spirit of revolution still lives here.

I tried to go and see the olympic torch relay as it progressed though the city the other day. It wasn't exactly "harmonious" like the Chinese government said it would be, protesters came from far and wide to assist the locals in disrupting the flame. I attempted to see it at two places of the relay: the first at Place de la Concorde and the second on Blvd Saint Germain. The first time I saw it was from a distance of about 60m, peeking through a line of police, a procession of about 40 cars and 4 buses, olympic officials, samsung sponsership, strange robotic-looking guys in metallic tights riding sail-powered karts (with more samsung sponsership), groups of nationalist Chinese students (holding signs with Samsung sponsership),another bus filled with arrested protesters (probably with Samsung sponsership) holding 'Tibet Libre' signs up against the windows, human rights protestors and police on rollerskates. I'm not joking. The rollerskates definately better equipped the police to do their job though. Just imagine: the protesters with their fire extinguishers would never be able to push the police out of their way. The second time I was meant to see it it was extinguished in a bus.

Even though it didnt go quite as planned, I only had two small critisims of the protests at the olympic torch relay.

1. No ad-hoc marching bands playing White Stripes covers.

2. No hot-dog vans.

The last protest I went to had both. And that protest wasn't even an international event, it was just an attempt to get higher disability pensions from the national government.

This was the Parisian's chance to show the world that protests can be fun! Unfortunately, they failed. Nonetheless, I had fun.