Paris under siege: Tear gas, fury on the Champs-Elysees

PARIS >> Late Friday night, the air on the Champs-Elysees was thick with perfume: heady blends of lavender, rose and other enticing scents wafting out of chic boutiques and perfumeries aglitter with Christmas tinsel.

A day later, on what turned out to be yet another angry Saturday, Paris’ most famous boulevard simply reeked of tear gas. Clouds of the stuff hung in the air, burning throats but not silencing the sullen, rebellious crowds.

Noses dripping snot, eyes red and watering, demonstrators in their “look at me!” high-visibility fluorescent jackets spontaneously burst into song as they fled the choking gas, running past luxury boutiques boarded up with plywood boards hastily screwed or nailed into place overnight.

“To arms, citizens!” the yellow vests sang. “Form your battalions, let’s march!”

It was “The Marseillaise” — France’s national anthem.

Sang in joy in July, when France won soccer’s World Cup, the anthem was now an expression of defiance, spat out by protesters at phalanxes of heavygeared riot police. Regularly, the officers broke ranks to toss tear gas grenades, fire rubber pellets and make arrests — nearly 1,000 of them, according to the country’s interior minister.

Those brief outbreaks of song from the protesters were among the few fleeting moments Saturday when the demonstrations resembled something coherent.

From all corners of the country, French protesters — the vast majority of them men — came by the thousands in trains, buses and cars. But once together in the capital, the most concrete thing they shared was simply fury.

Fury at President Emmanuel Macron. At taxes. At jobs that don’t pay the bills. At politicians they accuse of stuffing their own pockets. At the elite. At banks. At ‘the system.’ At life in general.

“Ras-le-bol” — which translates as “fed up” — was their common complaint.

But without leaders or clearly expressed goals, lacking shared slogans or even an agreed-upon route through Paris, the protesters mostly milled around, roaming the streets like a giant florescent caterpillar.

And that, for many, was just fine.

Simply by being in Paris, by being so visible in their vests, by bringing their grievances from France’s many pockets of neglect, they felt they were making their point: We’re here. We exist. We cannot, will not, be ignored any longer.