Saturday lunchtime on the Champs Élysées: a surreal Parisian feeling. You jamais-vu, this means, never seen before. Because there is something that you never have in this city, which actually does not exist here: There is suddenly room, plenty of space. There is so much of it, it feels unreal. Unobstructed view, clear road, empty walkways. All this on a Saturday in the run-up to Christmas, on a Saturday on the Champs Élysées.

Where else crowds of people with bags at countless shops up or down roll over, where it otherwise glitters, flashing and lights, is somewhere halfway up, tied to a grid, a lonely thin shepherd dog. A watchdog?

The Parisian grisaille stretches from the facades to the sky at this lunchtime; he seems to be high and far. Almost like in the country. The facades, the shop windows: some barricaded with simple wooden slats, the more luxurious have a kind of bulletproof glass prefabricated. That's the way to look through it, but you can not beat it.

For a moment one is tempted to call home and say man and child, come here and take the wheel with you. So much room is on this Saturday afternoon in the Périmetre, as the spell of misconduct called by the security forces, in faith, hoping to prevent the violence, the riots. At this time, only the metro stations located directly on the Champs are closed off. If you drive only one station, you can quickly reach the boulevard without any problems.

And then it pops

At this time, it is so quiet that the news channel Bfm has to send flashbacks from the morning when it really popped right.

photo gallery


15 pictures

Protests in Paris: the day of escalation

At the top, on Place Étoile, it is getting fuller. Now and then stun grenades, again and again Böller. Tear gas? The eyes are not burning. Otherwise, Place Étoile is a transport hub with a sightseeing stop. Here stands, always sublime, the triumphal arch. Now she is Arena. As if the lions were left to gladiators for a long, tough fight. Police and security forces in body armor against hooded in signal vests.

And as in the Circus Maximus, the audience is not missing: Several rows of yellow vests, densely packed, most with raised smartphones. It's a spectacle, so it has to be filmed. Hoot. Boos, whistles.

Anyway, the audience. It is, it seems, everywhere at the same time an actor. In the glazed bay window of the brasserie Georges V people are sitting at full tables, their yellow vests hanging over the chairs behind them. À bas les voleurs, a bas la république, insists. Away with the thieves, get away with the Republic. Or: Macron démission. Macron: Resignation!

"We are the people" in French

They eat Croque Monsieur for 20 euros, drink coffee for 5 euros or a small glass of beer for 7.50 euros - but they are here because they find that at the end of the month they do not have enough money. If you ask them, they say laughing: I spend my money on food rather than more expensive gas.

ETIENNE LAURENT / EPA-EFE / REX

President Macron on the Champs Élysées

Macron has to listen to us now, they say. He does not come around anymore. They speak of the people, "le peuple". It sounds like the French version of "We are the people".

They are filming. Or take pictures. Through the slices, while eating. How the water cannons out of the side streets are out of place and robotic and slowly advance to the arena, like a remote-controlled oversized toy.

Pictures show fighters later, with a pickaxe in one hand and a selfie stick with the GoPro in the other.

Still, everything looks like a bizarre, but quite choreographed spectacle.

You leave the Champs where it starts, just past the Élysée Palace. The Rue Fauborg St Honoré may not be entered. On the way home more metro stations are blocked than on the way there. The battle zone has widened. Not only at the Arc de Triomphe and its access roads, but also at the Grand Magasins, at the Galérie Lafayette and Printemps, and at the Rue de Rivoli, near the Tuileries.

REUTERS

Demolished bank on 2 December

And, as always in Paris, in such a densely populated area, just a few steps away, back to normal Saturday life: aperitif instead of burning cars.

On the boulevard on the doorstep, between Bastille and République, the union CGT and its supporters march red-flagged. Also, every time slices are entered, dealing with it: routine. Unlike the yellow vests, the union has, of course, registered their demonstration.

At this time, late afternoon, the news broadcaster Bfm has to send no protest pictures in flashbacks. The live is drastic enough now.