Incidents broke out on Saturday evening between a few hundred young people, who had come together for an improvised party, and the police came to interrupt the festivities on the Esplanade des Invalides, in Paris. It was a "Project X" evening, relayed on social networks, which attracted adolescents, for lack of nightclubs. Inspired by the American film of the same name, released in 2012, these "Project X" evenings bring many people together. The goal ? Celebrate by massively taking over a place, at the risk of it slipping.
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"Since everything is closed, we are a bit restricted at nightclubs," explain Lola and her friends. Sitting on the lawn, they share bottles of wine or vodka. They came to enjoy the evening, before running to avoid crowd movements. "There is adrenaline because there are so many people. We got gassed," said one of them. "There are a lot of people who want to mess up with the police a little bit and suddenly it goes a little peanut."
The party turns to chaos
The incidents started shortly before midnight. On the esplanade, the party turns to chaos: high school students, sometimes tipsy, shoot smoke bombs. Some also threw glass bottles at the CRS vans arriving on the scene. The police responded with tear gas canisters. "Each time it's the same thing, they leave, they fall back so we tell ourselves we're going to be able to party. We come back, re-tear, we run again, the whole evening is good! will not necessarily be done, "annoys one of the young people present. "We are 15 years old, most of the young people they are 15 years old, we get gassed it is not normal that!"
Around 01:30, a few dozen very mobile young people were still on the esplanade, sometimes throwing bottles at each other and also at the police, who again had to fire tear gas canisters to disperse the last recalcitrants. Many of them are already planning to come back next weekend.