Paris
On the way to Saint-Germain, my taxi was passed by about twenty navy blue vans of the CRS (riot police). The CRS inside looked relaxed; it wasn't at all like the time of the big riots of November 2005. At the Luxembourg Gardens, we saw a lot of gendarmes, looking bored as they set up blockades.
"What's happening?" I asked my driver. "Who is demonstrating this time? It was the handicapés on Saturday."
"And the retired people. I think it's les profs today," the Moroccan driver said. "There's always somebody." He was a "rightist" and said the only politician he ever liked was Villepin, but that Villepin had been too decent a man for politics and was obliged to retire.
I asked if he had ever been in a manif himself. "The big taxi one, at the Gare de Lyon?" I asked.
"Yes, of course," he said."We have to defend our rights."
On my way home later, I took a bus. It was hard to find the bus stop because the buses were all following different routes to detour around the blocked-off area. "Les lycéens protestent," I heard someone say. The lycée students are up in arms about a reduction in the number of teachers.
"Ils s'amusent, but we have to get home," said someone else.
On the radio, I heard a union leader predict that this May (the 40th anniversary of the major riots of 1968) will be "hot!
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