Students throw wrench into Grand Prix events

Crescent St. in Montreal turns fault line between race fans, protesters

MONTREAL— On one side of the barrier they shouted about injustice; on the other they sipped beer and wondered what the fuss was about.

A group of activists — protesting capitalism in general and Quebec’s tuition hikes in particular — tried their hardest Thursday to crash the party on the Montreal street most closely associated with this week- end’s Canadian Grand Prix.

It led to a standoff that many expect to reproduce itself as race day approaches.

Sunday’s Formula One Grand Prix race, and the events leading up to it, traditionally mark the beginning of Montreal’s festival season. The well-heeled Grand Prix crowd can bring in as much as $100 million for the local economy.

Thousands of Formula One fans flock to Crescent Street each year for the expensive cars, the free swag and the popular nightclubs.

It has long been a spiritual home to the city’s old-time scenesters, silk-shirted dance divas looking to see and be seen ever since the days of disco. This weekend it is the epicentre of another phenomenon: Quebec’s ongoing ideological struggle. A protest march that began near a community centre in one of the city’s working-class neighbourhoods marched its way to Crescent Street, chanting.

“1,2,3,4, this is f---ing class war,” the crowd of several hundred chanted. “5,6,7,8, overthrow this fascist state.” As the demonstrators arrived at Crescent Street, they were met by a line of riot police. Behind that line, it was like a paral- lel universe: revellers either indifferent to the protesters, or muttering angry things about them, or approaching the police line and snapping pictures of the crowd. One young woman castigated police officers at the top of her lungs for what she called their “brutality.” A patron sitting on the patio of an adjoining bar looked over and said simply: “keep it down.” Inside an invitation-only Grand Prix event, celebrities were offering similar views. Former Grand Prix champion Jacques Villeneuve, who used to own a posh restaurant on Crescent, called the protesters “rebels without a cause.”