Click on the images above to see the rest of the pictures.
No, I hadn’t.
But to my French compadre Arnaud (who is also fully fluent en mexicano) it was quite the surprise.
“Pinches culeros,” he said about the gendarmerie and the police who monitored and dispersed the Gilets Jaunes (yellow jackets) and the thousands of others protestors at the manifestation against pension reform changes proposed by an increasingly unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron in a time when many in the public sector have seen their bottom line go up by very little.
The thing about tear gas is that it — obvio — fucking stings. Imagine choking on a mustard laden piece of dry bread while someone keeps grinding the goddamn paper into your pupils.
The tear gas canisters are shoot with such pressure it’s as if a firecracker went off right next to your eardrums. The gendarmerie and the Compagnies Republicaines de Securite also don’t give much of a damn if you’re a simple passersby or an old man protesting the pension; you’re by the protest, you’re in the protest.
Throughout the hourslong march from Boulevard Magenta to Gare de Lyon, there were few skirmishes between security forces and protestors. There were a number of arrests — especially when bricks and the like were thrown against the riot shields — and also various protestors covered in mace and tear gas. Dozens of street medics, covered with protective gear and backpacks replete with emergency material, aided those injured by the police presence.
I’ll have a ski mask on for next time.