Subject: Paris was fun last night
   by Magnus

France held its first round of presidential elections on Sunday yesterday.  The two most popular candidates out of sixteen
go head-to-head in a second election on 5 May.  Everyone assumed the two winners would be the current president,
the conservative Jacques Chirac, and socialist Lionel Jospin, who is currently the prime minister.  But Jospin didn't make it; instead, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the extreme right National Front got through.  So instead of having a choice between the
right and the left for president, the French will have a choice between the right and the extreme right.

Chirac received 19.6% of the vote (the lowest ever for the winner since the system began in 1958), Le Pen received
17.2%, and Jospin 16%.  28% of people didn't vote at all; another record.  The 13 other candidates, mainly on the left,
each got 6% and less.  So Jospin failed to get through for two reasons: votes on the left were fragmented, and everyone assumed Chirac and Jospin would be the ones to go through so perhaps didn't think it necessary to vote for him.

Le Pen is 73 and has been in French politics forever.  This is his fourth run for president, but the first time he has made it
to the second round.  His policies include stopping immigration, writing into the constitution priority on employment,
housing and social security for people with French nationality, and deporting unemployed foreigners and illegal,
delinquent or criminal immigrants.

During the evening it was becoming more and more apparent that Le Pen would get through, and at half-past midnight
it was time to hit the streets.  A march was starting from La République in the north-east of Paris, then down to La Bastille
in the east, then down Rue de Rivoli to Place de la Concorde (where hundreds were beheaded during the revolution),
and across the river to the Assemblée Nationale.

I headed out and crossed the river and walked towards La Bastille.  Parked on the street were about 20 police trucks
with riot police.  I got as far as the Mairie (the Town Hall), when I met the march.  So I stood and watched them go by.
I would guess very roughly around 10,000 people in the first group (to compare, I went to the Paris Marathon a couple
of weeks ago which had 29,000 entrants).  I hung around after the first group went by, and about 15 minutes later a
second group, about the same size, went by.  There were about 5 or 6 groups total.  People were chanting
"Nous sommes tous enfants d'immigrés" (we are all children of immigrants) and "Dehors Le Pen, Chirac en prison"
(out with Le Pen, prison for Chirac, who was in corruption scandals a while ago).  People were also gathering
in the square in front of the Town Hall, and pretty much filled it up.

Everywhere in Paris there are steel placards for posters of each presidential candidate.  So as you walk around,
you see groups of 16 of these steel notice boards everywhere.  Some people had grabbed a couple of the ones
with Le Pen's poster, and dragged them to the Town Hall.  They threw them into the moat around the building
(there's a stone moat about 5 metres deep surrounding the Town Hall) to everyone's cheers and loud clattering.

So eventually everyone joined up with the main crowd heading towards Place de la Concorde.  That's where the
riot police were.  They had blocked off the Champs Elysées (the main street which continues on to the Arche de
Triomphe) and also the street which heads north to the Madeleine.  Some people were heading south across the
river to the Assemblée Nationale, and others were staying at Concorde and chanting at the police.  I headed close
to where the action was, and could smell tear gas.  I got up real close to the police barricade towards the Madeleine,
and the police soon decided to force the crowd back.  They switched on the sirens on their trucks and advanced
in a barricade with riot shields.  People were throwing stuff at them, and kicking down traffic lights.  Once everyone
was out in the main area of Concorde, the police let off their tear gas again, and canisters hit the ground all around me.
Time to run, it's the first time I've ever been tear-gassed.
It must have been the low-grade variety, I get more noxious fumes in the kitchen when I cook up a curry.

I went east along the river Seine to the first bridge after the one you cross to get to the Assemblée Nationale (I figured
it would be a bad idea to go there).  Police were following us along the river, and also across the bridge towards the Assemblée, popping off tear gas.  I crossed the bridge, which is a few hundred metres down from the Assemblée,
and watched the action on the other side.  People were heading towards the Assemblée with rocks and other stuff
to throw.  Once, a police car drove by and was pelted by half a dozen stones.  I could see Boulevard St. Germain,
which runs parallel to the Seine but one block south, and which leads from the Assemblée.  A huge riot police
contingent and trucks and cars moved down the boulevard.  After they had passed, I headed down.  The air was
full of tear gas.  I could see the sirens as the police continued down the boulevard.  I asked a photographer the time;
it was 4 am.  I followed Boulevard St. Germain back towards my place.  Rubbish bins had been overturned,
and rubbish and at one point building scaffolding was strewn across the street, and rubbish had been set on fire.

I got to where the police were, at the intersection of Boulevard St. Germain and Boulevard St. Michel, just a couple
of hundred metres from where I live.  They had arrested about twenty people and made them sit down facing shop
windows, but let them go pretty quickly.  A TV cameraman was prevented from filming.  I hung around a bit, and
one guy told me he was among a big group of people at the Assemblée Nationale, and they were all very peaceful
and just sitting down on the ground (I was across the river at Concorde where things were more tense) but the police
came and broke them all up with tear gas.  There were a few TV reporters interviewing people, and were standing
around and filming some rolls of camera film that had been torn out of a camera.

Well, enough was enough, so I went home, around 5 am.