Protests and violence now go hand in hand in France. It wasn’t always like this

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Lucas Petit was just 11 when hundreds of thousands of men and women wearing yellow vests poured onto the streets and occupied roundabouts across France in November 2018.

His memories are hazy, though stories of clashes with police left a lasting impression. If he ever joined a demonstration, he knew what to expect.

“It helped shape this whole collective image of a violent protest,” he told CNN.

Petit, now 19, belongs to a generation for whom tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and stun grenades are par for the course when protesting.

“We feel somewhat compelled to respond with violence because we’re facing social, institutional, symbolic and now physical oppression,” Petit said. “So I think violence has become normalized.”

Petit has been blockading his school in eastern Paris for more than a month. He’s part of a movement that started out demanding better conditions at French schools and has since swelled into a collective cry of anger, bringing together groups with different grievances.

On October 17, a day of largely peaceful nationwide protests morphed into chaotic scenes of looting and destruction: Limoges’s historic town hall went up in flames; shops were ransacked, and protesters were maimed for life.

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Opportunistic looters joined in, alongside young protesters from various backgrounds. According to an internal Justice Ministry document, 68% of the 186 people jailed between October 18 and 21 were 25 or younger, while 52% had no previous criminal record. Nearly half were classified as looters.

Failures in the police response help explain how the situation got so out of control. Behind the tear gas and smoke, however, lies a shift in how some French protesters operate.

Over the past decade, some have developed a savoir-faire for confrontation. As riot police have adapted their tactics and weapons, demonstrators have become adept at anticipating police maneuvers and exploiting gaps in security. Methods once associated with organized radical militants have spread to a younger generation.

How Black Bloc tactics spread

They tend to gather at the front of demonstrations, dressed head to toe in black, masked and hooded earning them the moniker “Black Bloc.”

The groups first appeared in Germany in the 1980s. Associated with anarchist and anti-capitalist movements, Black Bloc is not an organization with a formal leadership; it’s a set of protest tactics. These methods gained prominence in France during the 2016 labor protests before spreading further during the Yellow Vest movement.

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Identities are concealed and participants often act as a group, sometimes attacking symbols of capitalism such as luxury stores.

These type of protesters are often referred to as “casseurs” too, from the verb “casser,” meaning “to break” – a broad term that can be applied to anyone who vandalizes property regardless of their ideological beliefs.

“Many young people who aren’t originally from the ultra-left are now adopting Black Bloc tactics,” said Thierry Vincent, an expert on radical-left movements. “It’s a way of protesting that doesn’t shock many young people anymore.”

One Black Bloc tactic involves small, highly mobile groups breaking away from the main march, forcing police to spread their forces thin, making it harder for them to respond in a coordinated way. That was on display a fortnight ago when a group of protesters attempted to reach the Elysee Palace, drawing riot police away from the demonstration. The maneuver worked. Police resources were stretched, and it contributed to officers being overwhelmed that day.

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It’s not just their methods that have caught on. There’s also a wider willingness to confront the police.

Hugo Melchior, a historian and left-wing activist who has attended demonstrations in the northwestern city of Rennes for two decades, saw that firsthand. In the sea of masked protesters, he spotted small groups of students apparently unconnected to militant organizations.

“Sometimes it was four young friends, high-school or university students, probably affiliated with no network or organization, who had simply decided to come and demonstrate that way, with the intention of fighting,” he told CNN.

Melchior had not seen so many people prepared for confrontation since the 2006 student riots.

Police tactics are changing too

Historically, France’s crowd control doctrine was all about keeping protesters at a distance. That’s become more difficult to maintain because of violent confrontations.

Olivier Cappe, a former riot police officer with 25 years of experience who now represents the UN1TÉ police union, said officers are now facing threats from Molotov cocktails, fireworks mortars, pétanque balls and other projectiles.

“Automatically you have to send your officers out to intervene, possibly charge and confront people,” Cappe said. “That’s where people get injured.”

Staff shortages compound the problem. Cappe estimates France lacks around 800 specialist riot police officers.

“The principle of French crowd control is numbers,” he said. “The more numerous you are, the more imposing you look. The more imposing you look, the less you intervene.”

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Outnumbered officers may resort more quickly to weapons such as rubber bullet launchers, he suggested. During both the Yellow Vest movement and more recently the student protests, officers without specialist crowd control training have been deployed with devastating results.

Early in the protests, a 14-year-old boy suffered smashed teeth and a fractured jaw after a police officer fired a tear gas canister at close range, striking him in the face. A 16-year-old lost the use of an eye after being struck by a rubber bullet, while a 15-year-old lost a hand to a stun grenade, prompting the interior minister to temporarily suspend the grenade’s use.

Cappe acknowledges that more forceful policing can deepen the problem. When officers confront violent groups alongside students, younger demonstrators may later come to identify with those being targeted.

For student Lucas Petit, who identifies with the far left, the debate goes beyond whether violence is justified. It’s about what that violence is intended to achieve. He’s not shocked by attacks on symbols of capitalism, as he feels these acts of violence can serve a political purpose.

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“These are not acts of violence for the sake of violence,” he told CNN. “They have a very specific political message.”

On Wednesday French President Emmanuel Macron described the escalation of violence as a collective failure.

“I don’t think any high school student started pushing for their demands expecting to suffer such terrible consequences,” he said, adding police officers hadn’t signed up to face such violent confrontations either.

When asked about a 15-year-old student who lost his hand, Macron said nothing could justify what had happened and reiterated his call for calm.

Restoring peace to the streets is a tall order right now when so many feel that the government’s efforts to contain the violence, such as curfews, protest bans and a heavy police presence, violate their sacred right to protest and amount to a denial of democracy.

And with this no longer just being a student movement, as trade unions and Yellow Vests join in, voicing grievances over the cost of living and calling on Macron to go, the anger is unlikely to subside anytime soon.

On top of all that, France is heading into a deeply divisive presidential election in April, raising the stakes even further.

A winter of discontent may lie ahead, with another protest on Saturday and a major demonstration scheduled for November 5, raising fears of a repeat of the extreme violence seen on October 17.

CNN’s Lucie Lepellec contributed to this report

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2018 年 11 月，当成千上万身穿黄背心的男女涌上法国各地的街道并占领环岛时，卢卡斯·佩蒂特只有 11 岁。

他的记忆有些模糊，但与警察冲突的故事却给他留下了深刻的印象。如果他参加过示威游行，他知道会发生什么。

“这有助于塑造人们对暴力抗议的整体印象，”他告诉 CNN。

现年 19 岁的佩蒂特属于这样一代人：在抗议活动中，催泪瓦斯、水炮、橡皮子弹和眩晕弹都是司空见惯的事情。

“我们感到不得不以暴力回应，因为我们面临着社会、制度、象征以及现在的身体压迫，”佩蒂特说。“所以我认为暴力已经变得正常化了。”

佩蒂特已经封锁他在巴黎东部的学校一个多月了。他参与的这场运动最初是为了要求改善法国学校的条件，后来发展成为一场集体愤怒的呐喊，将有着不同不满的团体聚集在一起。

10 月 17 日，全国范围内基本和平的抗议活动演变成混乱的抢劫和破坏场面：利摩日历史悠久的市政厅被大火吞噬；商店遭到洗劫，抗议者终身残疾。

杰弗里·范德哈塞尔特/法新社/盖蒂图片社

趁火打劫者与来自不同背景的年轻抗议者一同参与其中。根据司法部内部文件，10月18日至21日期间被监禁的186人中，68%的人年龄在25岁或以下，52%的人此前没有犯罪记录。近一半的人被认定为抢劫者。

警方应对失控是导致局势失控的原因之一。然而，在催泪瓦斯和浓烟背后，也隐藏着一些法国抗议者行动方式的转变。

过去十年间，一些人已经练就了一套应对对抗的技巧。随着防暴警察不断调整战术和武器，示威者也越来越擅长预判警方的行动，并利用安保漏洞。曾经与有组织的激进分子相关的手段，如今已蔓延到年轻一代。

黑衣集团策略的传播

他们往往聚集在示威游行的最前面，从头到脚一身黑衣，戴着面罩和兜帽，因此得名“黑衣集团”。

这些团体最早于20世纪80年代出现在德国。黑衣集团与无政府主义和反资本主义运动相关，它并非一个拥有正式领导层的组织，而是一套抗议策略。这些策略在2016年法国劳工抗议活动中开始流行，之后在“黄背心”运动中进一步传播开来。

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身份会被隐藏，参与者通常以团体形式行动，有时会攻击资本主义的象征，例如奢侈品商店。

这类抗议者也常被称为“破坏者”，源自动词“casser”，意思是“破坏”——这是一个宽泛的术语，可以用于任何破坏财产的人，而不管他们的意识形态信仰如何。

“许多原本并非来自极左翼的年轻人现在也开始效仿黑衣集团的策略，”激进左翼运动专家蒂埃里·文森特说。“这种抗议方式已经无法让很多年轻人感到震惊了。”

黑衣集团的一种策略是，由一些机动性强的小团体脱离主游行队伍，迫使警方分散警力，使其难以进行协调应对。两周前，一群抗议者试图前往爱丽舍宫，将防暴警察从示威现场引开，这一策略就体现了出来。这一策略奏效了。警力捉襟见肘，导致当天警员不堪重负。

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不仅仅是他们的方法被人们接受，人们也越来越愿意与警方对抗。

历史学家兼左翼活动家雨果·梅尔基奥尔（Hugo Melchior）在过去二十年里一直参加西北部城市雷恩的示威活动，他亲眼目睹了这一切。在人山人海的蒙面抗议者中，他发现了一些与激进组织明显无关的小团体学生。

“有时候是四个年轻的朋友，高中生或大学生，可能没有任何组织或团体，他们只是决定以这种方式来示威，意图打架，”他告诉 CNN。

自 2006 年学生骚乱以来，梅尔基奥尔从未见过这么多做好对抗准备的人。

警方的策略也在发生变化。

从历史上看，法国的群体控制策略的核心在于与抗议者保持距离。但由于暴力冲突的发生，这种策略变得越来越难以维持。

曾任防暴警察、拥有 25 年经验的奥利维尔·卡佩 (Olivier Cappe) 现在是 UN1TÉ 警察工会的代表，他表示，警察现在面临着燃烧弹、烟花迫击炮、法式滚球和其他投掷物的威胁。

“你肯定会派警员出去干预，甚至可能要对这些人进行指控和对峙，”卡佩说。“人们就是在这种情况下受伤的。”

人员短缺加剧了这个问题。卡佩估计，法国大约缺少800名专业的防暴警察。

“法国人群控制的原则是人数优势，”他说。“人数越多，气势就越强。气势越强，就越不需要干预。”

Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

他指出，寡不敌众的警员可能会更快地诉诸橡皮子弹发射器等武器。在“黄背心”运动和最近的学生抗议活动中，都曾部署过未经专业人群控制训练的警员，结果造成了灾难性的后果。

抗议活动初期，一名14岁男孩被警察近距离发射的催泪瓦斯弹击中面部，导致牙齿被打碎、下颌骨骨折。一名16岁少年被橡皮子弹击中后失明，一名15岁少年被眩晕弹炸断一只手，这促使内政部长暂时停止使用眩晕弹。

卡佩承认，更强硬的警务措施可能会加剧问题。当警察与学生一起对抗暴力团体时，年轻的示威者日后可能会认同那些被针对的群体。

对于认同极左思想的学生卢卡斯·佩蒂特来说，这场辩论的意义远不止于暴力是否正当，更在于暴力的目的是什么。他对攻击资本主义象征的行为并不感到震惊，因为他认为这些暴力行为可以服务于某种政治目的。

迪米塔·迪尔科夫/法新社/盖蒂图片社

“这些并非为了暴力而暴力的行为，”他告诉CNN，“它们有着非常明确的政治信息。”

周三，法国总统马克龙将暴力升级描述为集体失败。

“我认为没有哪个高中生在提出诉求时会预料到会遭受如此可怕的后果，”他说，并补充说，警察当初也没有预料到会面临如此暴力的冲突。

当被问及一名失去一只手的 15 岁学生时，马克龙表示，任何事都不能为所发生的事情辩解，并再次呼吁保持冷静。

现在，许多人认为政府为遏制暴力而采取的措施，例如宵禁、禁止抗议和大量警力部署，侵犯了他们神圣的抗议权利，相当于否定了民主，因此恢复街头和平是一项艰巨的任务。

随着工会和“黄背心”运动的加入，这场运动不再仅仅是一场学生运动，他们对生活成本表示不满，并呼吁马克龙下台，民众的愤怒不太可能很快平息。

除此之外，法国将于4月举行一场极具争议的总统选举，这进一步加剧了局势的紧张程度。

一个充满不满的冬天可能即将到来，周六将再次举行抗议活动，11 月 5 日还将举行大型示威游行，这令人担忧 10 月 17 日发生的极端暴力事件可能会重演。

CNN记者露西·莱佩莱克对本报道亦有贡献。