This Saturday, Bastien, a forty-year-old Parisian hairdresser, will not go to demonstrate. Not that life suddenly became cheaper or that the problems disappeared in ten days. But “on October 17, I thought I was going to go there. I know the fight is important, but not so important that you lose your life. » He recounts, still marked, the multiple police charges and the repeated use of tear gas at Place de la République. “We ended up drowned, loaded, gassed. However, that was before the thugs arrived. We hadn’t done anything,” he swears, still incomprehensible about this sudden outburst.
Insidiously, a fear of demonstrating is gripping the country. Even among those who still take the plunge to hit the pavement. “I know why I’m going there. But I also know what I risk,” confides Safia, a 37-year-old anarchist activist and regular at demonstrations.
The Labor law, the first break in the maintenance of order
For Nathalie Tehio, president of the Human Rights League, the shift took place during the mobilization against the Labor law in 2016. “Before, contacts with the police were infrequent. Maintaining order consisted of escorting, or in the worst cases making false charges to intimidate before backing down. » During the Labor law, the police force was quickly overwhelmed by a huge social movement that lasted for months. So the government will call on other units, “notably the BAC or the Brav-M, much less in maintaining order but more in confrontation and arrest. »
Another change is the appearance of 24-hour news channels and “the eventization of burning trash, because of the need to show something,” continues the president. The scrapyard, which runs continuously on the chains, “will take on disproportionate importance and become unbearable for the government. » The latter will feel forced to publish a number of arrests each week “to show that he is not letting this happen”.
Children, the first to be excluded
However, the arrests completely change the course of the mobilizations. “Even to challenge a single person, that means entering the procession, splitting the demonstration… The procession is no longer sacred,” notes Nathalie Tehio. Another shift, those of the “yellow vests”, when the violence that had already appeared during the Labor law increased tenfold. Magali Della Sudda, research director at the CNRS and specialist in mobilizations, noted in her hundreds of testimonies collected brutality in various forms, physical of course, but also symbolic in rural areas with pressure from the mayor or the gendarmerie, “in places where everyone knows each other. » There is also a financial dissuasion with refusals to go and demonstrate “for fear of fines of 135 euros. »
Because of all these forms of repression, the researcher received testimony from people, sometimes used to demonstrations, who refuse to return to the streets out of fear of repression but also out of spite at not being listened to. Faced with this violence, not all audiences are equal, starting with children.
It seemed unthinkable to Hélène, in advertising and creation, to miss October 17. However, she did not go to demonstrate in Nantes that day: “I have seen, in recent weeks, too many children with limbs torn off, blinded, gassed, handcuffed. I have seen too much violence to go to demonstrations like before. Horror took over hope and joy. I know they still exist, but not at the cost of trauma forever anchored in the head of my 8 year old daughter. »
Deterioration of ability to manifest
Like children, a vulnerable public is increasingly being asked to stay quietly at home. Seniors, people with disabilities, even women… Safia, who hates being told what to do, finds herself dissuading her friends from demonstrating: “I know it’s too dangerous for them. Today, it is better to have experience in manifestation, to be a little seasoned. I would not advise starting with October 17th. It would be like playing your first football match in the World Cup final.”
Stéphanie, asthmatic, no longer goes to demonstrations. The use of tear gas has become almost systematic, deplores the 40-year-old nurse, which can have very serious consequences on her health. She regrets the extreme trivialization of its use: “We will focus on torn hands or gouged out eyes. Obviously we need to talk about it. But suddenly the Overton window moves and we no longer condemn the excessive use of NAS or tear gas. »
Unreasonable use of weapons
“There is an addiction,” regrets Nathalie Tehio. Which reminds us that tear gas is considered a weapon and can normally only be used in cases of violence. “But that hasn’t been the case for a long time.” Same thing for the NAS, which makes post-demonstration organization impossible: “We no longer know if we will be able to join the procession, nor when we will leave it. It’s another way to discourage.”
On October 24, the deployment in Rennes of two Centaurs, these armored gendarmerie vehicles, made Laurie, a 44-year-old doctor, disgusted: “I wanted to go demonstrate but I'm too freaked out. The police terrorize us. They succeeded. Don't want to lose a hand. »
The fear is that Mathilde, 21 years old and a master of law, “regrets today having recounted the baton blows of October 17, the grenades, the charges”, which dissuaded those close to her from going to demonstrate. However, the overwhelming majority of the demonstration was joyful, she assures, but the damage is done. And what should we think of a State where demonstrators must hide reality so as not to dissuade them from fighting?
Democratic danger in the home
The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty, issued a warning to France in October, telling it to protect freedom of peaceful assembly and prioritize de-escalation. On Thursday, UN experts said they were “dismayed” by the “repression” of student protests in France
François, 49, refuses to allow his parents to accompany him: “They are old, fragile and no longer run very fast. If charged, I know they would be easy targets. » So certainly, he can “carry out their claim and shout for three. But the fact remains that when counting the demonstrators, that makes two people less. »
Which is not without posing a real democratic debate. “Demonstration in France is not only a constitutional right but also a heritage element of our political life,” protests Magali Della Sudda, recalling that on January 10 and 11, 2015, the day after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, it was the President of the Republic himself who called on the French to “republican demonstrations”.
“La Marseillaise literally invites people to march to defend democracy. Demonstration is a central element of our republican political imagination, and when people are afraid to go and demonstrate, or when entire populations are excluded such as children or vulnerable people, we must worry about a democratic breakdown. »
The researcher believes that October 17, but also the repression of the high school movement in the preceding weeks, could constitute a new rupture. “There were more arrests, the overwhelming majority of which were minors, than during a year of 'yellow vests'. Systematic preventive arrest becomes a new weapon to deter demonstrations. The risk, always the same, “is that the exceptional measures are extended to target the entire population, then become common law. » » There remains a reason for hope: despite the collective trauma of October 17, “there were still 800,000 demonstrating on the 24th.” And undoubtedly several hundred thousand more this Saturday.
