REPORTAGE
Detonations and tear gas: in Paris, the march of the mobilization against the pension reform on Thursday had sometimes the airs of 1st-May 2019. While the demonstration was held overall in the calm, framed by some 6.000 policemen and gendarmes, a group of radical militants positioned upstream of the official procession caused chaos in a few minutes. According to our information, 57 people were also placed in police custody.
Fifty breakers
A thick smell of tear gas still floated in the early evening on the Place de la Republique, especially at the corner with the Boulevard de Magenta. It was here that in the middle of the afternoon, a group of thugs, at least fifty, dressed in black, began by burning a prefabricated building site. The tension with the CRS is then mounted: tear gas on one side, jets of bottles and planks of wood on the other. Shots to which were added firecrackers, fireworks and sound grenades.
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Many protesters were caught in crowd movements and did not understand what happened. "The boulevard was full, and then the heads of the procession were stuck at the Gare de l'Est, so everyone gathered in République but it was not moving at all, and it ended with the tear gas, but we do not know why, "testifies Aurélie at the microphone of Europe 1." It was a little mess, "adds Sonia a little further.
Heard on europe1:
Young people who start to break, it's them who fuck shit, and it's a shame
Fragmented, disordered, the procession Parisian Thursday was not well organized: some three hours behind the course compared to others. A demonstration already ruined even before the violence according to Lionel, a worker in metallurgy: "We try to win our bread, it is a peaceful demonstration, and it begins to become dangerous for people. they are the ones who fuck shit, and that's a shame. "