Duly blocked

It would be so great to meet!

I think they just were convenient to drag and use to create barriers, then burn.

Off on my annual trip to Turkmenistan today.

But what’s the right response now? It’s what I struggle to see, a path out.

Oh thank you! Both look great!

Source of funds test… it’s why I need to do this before I retire.

Haha. Or the ve’lib?! I easily pass the integration test and commitment to the values. But it seems France itself may be having an existential value crisis right now.

I think it’s also economic policy. As a foreigner in France for 9 years now, it makes me want to apply for citizenship asap.

That’s what Wikipedia told me. I had to look it up on Saturday to learn more. The reading I went to opened with a poem written to recount 1961.

It is frightening to think the next electoral choice may be these extremes, here in France.

The irony is not lost in that I crossed the Seine seeing lots of Algerian flags because it was 17 October - 65 years on 17/10/61 prior police massacred Algerian demonstrators, with up to 300 reported drowned in the Seine.

It seemed to me the route was everywhere, but forced to converge into ever smaller areas. And that was part of the issue I think: corralling / kettling. Anything can - and does - kick off in a perimeter you can’t leave.

Which populists? Left or right?

Frankly speaking I was shocked to witness a charge. Just behind the potted plants of a cafe, and the post box, you can just see the police running past.

Finally, it is not legitimate protest that makes things go bad, in my view. It is police tactics and people who show up, not to protest, but to burn stuff and loot. The answer is not to stop protest. But I struggle to identify an answer in a situation that has clearly spiralled.

This made the metro edgy. Not to mention because of station closings the transits between lines were empty. It started to feel “zombie apocalypse”.