Part of the CRS leaves Nation. Where are the wild demonstrations?, asks a Parisian Internet user on the encrypted Telegram messaging service. Marseille en sauvage, near rue d'Endoume, announces, in another group, a demonstrator mobilized in the Marseille city. This is the type of calls for wild wanderings that appeared on Thursday, November 5, on the occasion of the great day of national mobilization, which brought together between 575,000 and 1.6 million people throughout France. They could multiply again on Saturday during the demonstrations planned at the initiative of the inter-union.
These parallel processions often form spontaneously, generally via social networks, before, during or after demonstrations authorized by the prefectures, when night falls. We can meet up with 20 or 200, testifies a regular, based in Aquitaine, to franceinfo. There is no leader as such, it is very autonomous. Sometimes it's planned several hours in advance, sometimes it's just a few minutes before. The idea is to disappear and then reappear further away.
Then follows the traditional game of cat and mouse with the police. From my own experience, it never lasts long, because the cops end up finding us, says a participant based in Île-de-France. The law is clear: organizing or participating in a demonstration not declared to the prefecture constitutes an offense. The police are responsible for intervening to disperse participants in such cases. Yesterday [Thursday] was pretty easy. We very quickly directed [the demonstrators] towards the Place de la République and we arrested them, a security source reported to franceinfo. But when a wild procession is set up by ultra-left individuals who want to fight it out, it is indeed a little more difficult.
There was a fanfare, it was extremely joyful
Aware of being illegal, Joy, who organizes alternative processions or spontaneous strolls (according to her expressions) in Pas-de-Calais, sees above all in these methods a response to the government which wants to limit [their] right to demonstrate. He forbids us from city centers, he forbids us from routes, he forbids us from equipment..., lists this woman in her twenties. From there, these alternative processions are a way of protesting, and even of existing. We cannot be satisfied with what is happening. At the peak, there were around fifty at the appointments that Joy herself had arranged in her region. Next attempt, this November 7, on the occasion of a new Saturday of mobilization.
A student in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), Lulu has also taken part in several wild processions in the capital since September. She describes groups wandering around to music: There was a fanfare, lots of singing, it was extremely joyful. Once, she remembers, the group had reached 150 people until the moment of dispersion. It is important to participate in these so-called wild processions, because in recent weeks we have seen repression, but also the cancellation of demonstration routes, particularly at the last moment, says the young woman. This helps show that we don't panic, that we know how to reorganize ourselves.
The example of Hong Kong
This strategy of wild or alternative processions is in reality nothing new. In spring 2016, during demonstrations against the Labor law, they were already recurring. But this time they seem particularly more structured. The RT [territorial intelligence services] are working on this by carrying out extensive monitoring on social networks, confirms a commissioner.
Even if the political contexts remain very different, several demonstrators spoke to franceinfo about the experience of Hong Kong. In 2019, during a new large-scale pro-democracy protest movement, Hong Kong demonstrators made this concealment in public space a mobilization strategy. Rather than concentrating demonstrators in a fixed location, with a determined route and a clearly identifiable hierarchical structure, the movement favored fluidity, spontaneity and the ability to reconfigure itself quickly, describes researcher Rahaf Harfoush, digital anthropologist, who worked on the subject, for franceinfo.
The principle was based on a combination of physical mobility and digital coordination. The demonstrators exchanged information on the evolution of the situation, in particular on the police presence and the various assembly points, continues the specialist, guest of the International Festival of Democratic Resistance, in Paris, on November 9. The idea was to multiply the centers of mobilization rather than concentrating all the participants in a single place.
After two months of mobilization in France, some regulars of wild processions even advocate the discreet word-of-mouth strategy within the gatherings themselves. It's certainly more complicated to count the number, but the risk of being infiltrated is almost zero, estimates a Parisian participant.
