MANIFESTATION

After a cold last week kept me in the apartment aside from daily visits to class (and a Bateau Mouche ride down the Seine),  I re-committed myself to seeing a bit of Paris everyday.

                                                                                   The Louvre along the Seine

Saturday we went to Le Marais (in the 4th Arron.) with our class for a tour with our professor. The class was broken into groups that were assigned different topics on the Le Marais to give an exposé (oral presentation) on; my group presented on the museums in Le Marais, which there are many. Le Marais is a very intellectual area of the city that welcomed some of Europe’s greatest poets, artists and philosophers and this energy still remains. It is also a neighborhood popular among the Parisian gay community and has a large Jewish community which means that the Jewish bakeries here are phenomenal. 

That night I went out to dinner with some friends in the Menilmorant area of Paris and then attempted to find a party that our SciencesPo group leader had told us about. Instead of finding this event we stumbled on a hidden gem; La Bellevilloise. The main floor houses a restaurant that bustles with locals and is complete with live music. And in the basement is a club/concert hall. Saturday night they were featuring Jaguar Wright, an African American jazz/r&b singer from Philadelphia. She was outstanding and the best part, as a ‘poor’ college student, is the concert was free. I had never heard of her before but can tell from my quick Wikipedia research that she is actually quite famous and has done work with Jay-Z and The Roots.

On the way to the Metro from La Bellevilloise we walked past an alley that was filled with a few dozen people; our curiosity led us down to check it out (and the fact that there were 7 of us in the group lent some security in this foreign place). In the middle of literally no where there was a grunge club in this shack type building down the alley and next door was a drum circle which we joined. These are the completely random occurences I'm starting to encounter everywhere in the city. Once you get off the touristy drags of the Champs Elysees and away from the Eiffel Tower there is a whole other energy thumping vibrantly among the locals. 

A group of new friends and I set out on what we like to call a Grand Explo (exploration) on Sunday. We went back to Le Marais for a falafel lunch and more of the delicious pastries from a local Jewish bakery. Then we decided to walk to the Grand Opera. Along the way we ran into a pro-life protest made up of easily 8-10,000 participants. 

 The Opera!

When we finally got to the Opera there was live music on the front steps of the building. I love running into live entertainment in big cities like Paris or New York; you never know what you will find and often times sidewalk performers are really talented. 

But what started as a fun encounter of live music quickly took a turn when the pro-choice protesters showed up. We quickly realized that the thousands of protesters we had seen a few minutes before were coming to the square in front of the Opera. The pro-choice protesters clearly didn’t have a permit to protest on the steps of the Opera and within 5 minutes of their chanting they were encircled by a ring of police and 3 of our friends were trapped in the circle of police with the protesters. The police here are clearly well trained in dealing with protesters and I cannot even begin to imagine how much the French government spends every year on police forces for protests. Essentially we were chasing the counter protesters down the street as the police corralled the pro-choice protesters and wouldn’t let our three friends out of the crowd. When they finally broke free from the group of protesters the rest of us got stuck in the approaching throng of pro-life protesters. We were all very relieved when broke away from the protest especially when we saw a police bus heading towards the protest; we saw the bus again later filled with a couple dozen of the protesters. 

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”  ~James Michener

A protest/march is a perfect moment to get freaked out in a foreign city and then all of a sudden my curiosity takes over and I become completely fascinated. That isn’t to say that I am going to run onto the stairs of the Opera and join the protesters but the feeling of being in the thick of something bigger than yourself is the most exhilarating feeling in the world. Maybe that is the journalist in me: being in the middle of it all; observing how the locals do it, the sights and sounds of a new culture and navigating something that starkly differs from home, and then sharing every detail with someone else. 

Pretty much every travel and study abroad 101 guide says to avoid French protests but I found this experience to be a surprisingly peaceful one. This protest was very civil and reminded me more of a County Fair with families and young children in attendance. I think I am more likely to be hit by a car or vespa than experience a hostile French protest. Of course any large scale event like this could turn into something dangerous or out of control but there is a whole side of French culture that you would miss if you run away in fear. 

Saturday was rounded off with a cafe pit-stop near the Madeleine church, a stroll down the Champs-Elysees and a French film called Women are Heroes.