The freedom to protest breaks nothing

On Saturday, I rode my bike across Paris. Near Place de la République, the smell of tear gas still hung in the air, and I had to take detours to get through. Nobody attacked me. I saw a tense city, not a city at war. In Paris, a protester died after collapsing, according to Le Parisien and France 24.

Freedom first

Protesting is a freedom guaranteed by the Constitution (declare?). It is exercised without damage and without violence, and that is what the marches did, all over France, from high school students to pensioners. The rioters turned up at the end of the day. They are there at every big protest. They are groups that must be identified and arrested, and that is the job of the police and the courts.

« It’s now or never. »Nydal, 23, a first protest, translated

Not mixing everything up

Broken shop windows, fires and arrests say nothing about the hundreds of thousands of people who marched. Mixing the two erases their message. Lumping people together works both ways. A rioter does not represent the protesters, and a violent police officer does not represent all police officers.

Today, people must be put back at the centre of society. The street remains one of the few places where we count ourselves, talk to each other and see each other. That is what high school students in Aix-en-Provence, Lyon and Paris came looking for on Saturday. Who will remember the anger of those who marched, if we only look at those who smashed things?