I should be working on my finals but I canāt. I need to talk about this because the world is looking at us through Notre-Dame, and I need to use this. You want to talk about France? LETāS TALK.
We have been on the brink of civil war since November.
You canāt even begin to imagine what itās like to live in France right now. Every Saturday, we protest for our rights, our civil, constitutional rights. Some may remember the student protests of last year (if not, here is a chronology of what happened: x,Ā x,Ā x,Ā x). Since then, itās gone downhill. In my university, the dean faces charges but is still in function, he hired a milicia with bulldogs who patrols the uni and separates any group of student they deem too big. They used to control our id before going in. The police violence is the worst thing Iāve ever seen in my life.
Iām terrified to go outside, but I still go to protests because we are being silenced, slowly, methodically, by the Macron government. I was hurt multiple times during protests, almost always in the face. I was gassed, I was hit by water canons. The police isnāt even caring about the non-protesters. Iāve seen them shoot gas grenades at toddlers, three-year-old choking on lacrymo. Two girls, gassed, and a little nine-year-old who had her arm broken running away.
A mother falling to the ground because a plastic-shrapnel grenade exploded next to her ankle and destroyed her foot. Most of my friends have PTSD, any sharp sound can send every single one of us into a panic attack. We canāt handle fireworks or firecrackers anymore.
The blood. I canāt make you understand how much blood is spilled during the protests. The number of times they scream MEDICĀ during protests makes me sick.
On record, there are currently three persons who were shot in the eye. One man had his hand ripped off. Multiple men and women got broken ribs from the flashballs. THEY EVEN SHOOT AT REPORTERSĀ from the national television and freelancers, with water canons and flashballs. Theyāve beaten minors unconscious, theyāve shot a flashball into someoneās mouth and it exploded his cheek,Ā theyāve thrown a disabled man off his wheelchair.
During the protests, we break things. Of course we do. We break glass, mostly, because itās the cheapest to repair and itās whatās the most impacting visually, so itās our compromise. They break us.
If you carry a camera into a protest, theyāll track you down and target you until either your camera is dead or youāre too beaten up to be able to film. Iāve been there. I never bring my camera anymore. And even then, I wouldnāt film anyway, because the police is on social media, and they look at every video, they identify peopleās faces, and then people get in trouble. They block entire streets so you canāt escape them. They makeĀ ānestsā where they circle around protesters until theyāre surrounded, then they throw a gas grenade in the middle and when people run away towards the edges, they catch everyone one by one and beat them bloody.
And the worst is the misinformation. The media have done such a good job at misrepresenting the protests that there is infighting inside my own family, inside most families, at work, at school, between people who think the government is doing its best to control the situation and the protesters are violent anarchists set to destroy the country, and the people whoāve actually been in protests, whoāve peacefully raised their hands up when asked and where shot in the ribs with a flashball in thanks. My own parents didnāt believe me until I came back from a protest with a split eyebrow and sprained wrist.
This is a short documentary a French newsreport/gamer youtuber made. If you speak French, it will give you another inside view. If not, you can just watch the images from March 18th, until now the most violent protest since November.
In Paris, now the army is in the street. They pulled back the anti-terrorism squads soldiers (about 7,000) and put them in the street, against us. They had orders to shoot after three warnings and they are armed to kill. THEY ARE ARMED WITH LETHAL WEAPONS. The last time the army was sent to control a protest was in 1948.
You want to talk about France? Talk about that. We are scared. We feel abandoned by the world. And guess what? If France falls, youāre all coming with us. Right now, itās easy to forget that the same thing is happening in South-America and all over Middle-East, because Western media doesnāt like talking about anything that isnāt white and pretty. But if they managed to forgetĀ to talk about just how bad it is here, then itās going to happen to you too. So the first step? Is to talk about it. Share this, share other news report. Talk about it with your friends, your families. Contact your local news, ask them why no one is talking about it. Go to social media, tweet people, ask questions. Hell, ask ME questions.
France is heading straight to civil war, and Iām terrified.
