May Day #2 - Protests in Lyon

 In which we receive an eye-witness report on the May Day demonstrations and parade in Lyon.  As we have discussed earlier in these pages, May Day is a significant social and labor holiday in France.  It is a legal holiday on which employers must give workers the day off work.  The trains do run, but very little else operates on this day.  Even all public transportation in Lyon is shut down! 

As in the US, this is a significant day for unions and labor organizations.  In France it is also a traditional day for citizens to turn out and air any grievances they may have about the state of their lives and the country.  As noted in a preceding post, there is a good deal of displeasure over the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64, and in the fact that the change was made without a direct vote of the legislature.

Our landlords, Stephane and Nathalie came to Lyon to march in the May 1 procession and later gave us an interesting first-hand account of how the march was organized and proceeded.  Neither Stephane nor Nathalie was interested in a violent situation, but they wanted to express their concern with both the change, how it was implemented, and also how they perceive that France is losing sight of the balance between work and other facets of personal life.

Stephane and Nathalie described how the march was structured with the various unions and other labor organizations in front, followed by individual marchers, often in family groups with children.  Few, if any, of these people were interested in anything more than peacefully turning out and demonstrating their concerns to the national government.  The labor organizations marched with large banners and flags with their union logos on them, sometimes singing or chanting slogans.

Demonstrations must be scheduled and authorized by the authorities, at least partly so the authorities can ensure the marchers are safe from vehicles, and in some cases, from opposing groups. The parade was escorted by the police, who blocked side streets in order to ensure that no vehicles impinged upon the marchers, and had officers in front and behind for the same reason.

Marching in Lyon

There is another element to these parades that sometimes appears – people who want to use the event as cover for more violent activities, such as attacking the police, vandalizing shops and government offices, and looting retail businesses.  These folks often dress in black, with masks over their faces, and are known as the “Black Blocs”.  These people are loosely organized and communicate across France and Europe with other like-minded groups.  Needless to say, clashes between the police and such groups can be violent. Unfortunately, as is often the case in such circumstances around the world, the police sometimes react in an ‘us vs them’ manner, perceiving all marchers as potential problems. This causes otherwise peaceful marchers to be unhappy with how the police interact with them and thus perceive the police as more of a threat to the marchers than the folks who are behaving violently towards the police or civic and private property.  In Lyon, the ‘Black Bloc’ was apparently out in front of all the other participants.

What is described in the above paragraph is a classic example of how an organized group’s actions result in the police reacting somewhat indiscriminately.  This in turn results in peaceful march participants becoming more strongly aggrieved than they already were. Clearly, this is a difficult situation for any police force, but the police will have to manage the situation better to avoid creating a citizenry that is more aggrieved than before.

In Anna and David’s recent discussion of these events with Stephane and Nathalie, the question was raised as to why the police did not simply surround and better control the Black Bloc folks so as to avoid some of the damage and to clearly demarcate between peaceful marchers and those bent largely on fomenting broader unrest.  This is no doubt more difficult than it sounds, but if progress could be made in that direction, then many of noted issues surrounding the march would be controlled.

Statistics – about 3000 marchers, about 35 arrests.  Not big numbers for a metropolitan area of well over a million people.

Burning Plastic Trash Cans and an Advertising Sign

From a larger point of view, does the government believe that tacitly allowing a level of violence and destruction reduces the number of potential legitimate protestors, and tends to paint the whole affair as somehow illegitimate?  We are not believers in conspiracy theories, but it would be interesting to know why, if the violent folks are a separate and distinct group, the authorities do not somehow focus more effort on controlling that group and devote more effort to conciliating the ordinary marchers.

In general, it would appear, for the moment, that organized protests have dwindled.  Will big protests reappear this summer after school is out?  Will Mr. Macron find a way to govern effectively with so many in the legislature opposed to him and his policies??