Paris in 2018 - What a Riot

When you love a place as much as C and I love Paris, it has been heartbreaking over the last few years to watch how terrorism has taken over as the headline of this beautiful city. We actually skipped visiting Paris on our last trip to Europe, (in retrospect, ironic given Melbourne’s recent events) but as the years passed and a new normal emerged for travel risk we were excited to be heading back.

We had seen in the news the demonstrations of the previous week, with footage of burning cars and tear gas but, while not entirely fake news, dismissed it as sensational reporting. Upon arrival we realised how wrong we were. The city was preparing for full lockdown, all major shops were closing, the Eiffel tower and Louvre museum were even closing for the day. This was serious and all anyone on the street was talking about. Hoardings and mesh barriers were going up across shop fronts everywhere in the city, even the Louis Vuitton store was barricading its windows, albeit with a matt gold finish!

Good window protection here

What was interesting though, was the level of support most Parisians appeared to have for the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) despite it being so hugely disruptive. It would seem the French have had enough of paying increasing taxes while their cost of living grew even greater. The governments aggressive taxing of diesel fuel after years of encouraging everyone to shift to diesel for the environments sake was the last straw. By French law, all drivers must carry a yellow vest in their car for safety, and thus the yellow vests became the symbol of everything wrong with France, high fuel costs causing higher cost of living and the government’s policies doing nothing for the everyman. The general sentiment is that President Macron is only a president for the rich.

Peaceful and widely supported to a point

So Saturday came, the scheduled day of demonstration, and we figured we would get out of the centre of town. As our Uber was taking us out on the motorway and group of protestors linked arms and lay down in front of the traffic. It was all reasonably jovial for a few minutes, but as the traffic piled up and the horns started blasting the mood began to shift. Our Uber driver had his yellow vest prominently positioned on his dashboard, a show of solidarity that seemed to help as eventually they let us pass. C and I joked that had it been in Australia they would have been run over by now!

We started our shopping in the outer suburbs of Paris assuming the excitement was left behind us, when suddenly the owner of the shop we were in started running around wildly screaming at us in French. The staff were all panicked and told us we must stay in the shop for our own safety as they started to pull down the shutters on their windows and lock the doors. C and I were not sure what to do, we couldn’t see or hear anything outside but the staff were all on their phones alternating between tears and mania. I had visited this shop before in our travels, and knew that they had a basement where the best discounts are found. I figured surely that was the safest place and if I happened to stumble on a bargain while we were waiting out the riot, we can call it a win/win. C on the other hand thought we better just get the hell out of there, having assessed our saviours may indeed be the targets. Targets because the shopkeepers inside here were far more worried than those around us that C could see through the partial view of the shuttered window. Outside shopkeepers were all just standing out on the street in front of their shops. C called an Uber before I could descend the stairs to assess the myriad opportunity. They reluctantly let us out, straight into the waiting Uber and we left the area for the safety of our apartment.

We had fallen in love and booked our apartment when we saw the amazing views of the Eiffel tower that could be enjoyed from every window. When the epicentre of the Paris riots is the Eiffel tower this can pose a problem. In the morning we had seen the wall of riot police at the start of our street and were not sure if this was a good or bad thing. Once we had arrived home from our shopping we knew to stay put and as the afternoon progressed the sounds of police sirens became mere background noise.

Around 5pm we heard this thunder of chanting coming from down the street (and no contrary to what certain presidents tweeted it was not “we want Trump”). We looked down from our balcony (safe on the 6th floor) to see hundreds of yellow vested protestors looking like they were running with the bulls of Pamplona except they were throwing paint bombs and smashing shop windows.

Hot on their heels were the riot police obviously employing a keep them moving strategy rather than a stop and engage. It was all over in a matter of minutes but to see a mob mentality in full swing was confronting.

An eventful visit to Paris this time, but a reminder that this city has faced the worst of humanity in its history and her people have this amazing mix of passion and resilience; for C and I the riots made us love Paris just that little bit more!