It is 17th December. France’s general strike continues and today sees the second big demonstration against the proposed reforms to the pension system. I am invited for lunch with friends in a brasserie on the rue de Turenne in the Marais. I set off on foot. There will be no buses going my way and 90% of the metro stations are shut, the iron grilles down on their entrances. It has been like this for a fortnight and neither side shows any sign of giving way. All of us are walking a lot more than we usually do.
I've put my umbrella in my bag - a wise precaution given how wet this autumn has been - but there's no sign of rain and the temperature is unseasonably high.The bike lanes are busy and there are no bikes sitting idly in their vélib bornes. Some aspects of Paris life are doing OK. Others, like the musées and the shops tell a less positive story. I was in a deserted Pompidou Centre a week ago, had the entire Boltanski exhibition almost entirely to myself and then in the Greco at the Grand Palais yesterday - no need to queue and oceans of space to spend time in front of those extraordinarily modern paintings.
By the time we part after a very good lunch in the cafe des Musées, crowds of demonstrators are streaming past the café door on their way to République, the start of this particular march. In no time at all and well before I reach the rue de Turbigo which leads into République, I can hardly move forward. I am going against the flow, trying to get across the city and back to Chapelle. Up ahead there is smoke and I wonder for a moment if I’m going to feel the sting of tear gas. There have been rumours that les black blocks, les anars will be out to ‘make trouble’. No sign at all of them but the chants are growing louder, the drum-beats echoing off the walls. What half an hour ago were handfuls of heavily armoured CRS and police have coalesced into solid black lines, three men deep. On my way to my lunch date I had seen dozens and dozens of white vans of the CRS parked up along the main roads. Since then they’ve turfed their occupants out onto the streets and they’re standing ready, booted and spurred, visors down and batons to hand.
As I keep pushing through the placards and people I’m thinking about the last demo I was in – 19thOctober the London People’s March for a second vote on Brexit. There were lots of kids at that one. There are none that I can see here. But you wouldn’t bring a child into what feels like a tense and threatening situation. This is no British-style demonstration with men dressed up as teddy-bears and funny hats and joky placards. This demo feels deadly serious - and angry. It has brought together cheminots and social workers, doctors, some in white coats, and teachers - a vast swathe of French society that wants to be heard, that insists it must be heard. But so far isn’t. And that makes me think again of our buoyant hopes on 19th October when another outcome for the UK still seemed possible.
It is hard to find a Christmas message of love and resilience in among such conflict but that is the main reason for this bulletin in the dying days of 2019. I send you best wishes for 2020. Keep going! Ne lâchez pas! There will be better days ahead.
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| Clouds over the Solway Firth |
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