Hey Andy, remember your encounter with the Paris riot police?

Yeah, this is how it went down.

I had left the hostel to go check out this science film festival that was at the Natural History Museum. I would love to be able to say that I went and it was great and I was offered the job of my dreams after speaking to one of the filmmakers, but the truth is that I found out about the thing at the same time that the last films were ending. I felt obligated to go and just see if there was anything left, but it was all dead. The thing that pisses me off is I was basically AT the place earlier today, at the Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Gardens), yet I failed to see the posters advertising the thing.

Anyways, on my way back, I decided to check out the view from Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, so I got off the subway at the stop before the one for the hostel, only to find out that the subway tunnel was filled with smoke. I initially thought there was a fire, so I ran up the stairs just to get away. Then I saw police running down the steps in the opposite way and I was afraid there had been like a terrorist attack with nerve gas or something, so I really started moving. I covered my mouth and to my surprise there was even smoke on the street level. I saw flares burning bright red, a chorus of car horns, people on top of vans and everyone around was shouting and yelling. Needless to say, I was a bit worried that I'd gotten off at the wrong subway stop. I'd heard about youth riots in Paris from a few years ago, and that coupled with the fact everyone around me was arab-looking made me wonder if I'd stepped into some sort of race-riots a la Rodney King. However, I found out from some other lookers-on that this was mostly a celebratory gathering, as Algeria had just qualified for the World Cup 2010 this evening. Relieved to hear this, I decided to check it out.

I started out on the fringes of the people and started working my way through the poeple in the direction of Sacre Coeur. Flag waving, drum beating, dancing, whooping, hugging, the revelers seemed to grow in number every second. And then, a whole mass of people started moving my direction. So I stopped. And then, the people started coming towards me covering their mouths, breathing through their shirts. And then I got hit with a whiff of tear gas. It was not sweet, stung my throat and my eyes like really bad campfire smoke. Everyone around me was coughing and rushing in the oppostite direction I had been heading, so I made like a tree and got the fuck out.

So before I said that the gathering was mostly celebratory, but there were dozens of riot police visible, and the tear gas indicated that there was a little more going on. The police had sealed off one of the streets, so I had to go all the way around the block to get to the other side of the police line. Especially as the French team is experiencing difficulty qualifying for the World Cup (they may have to go into a one-game playoff for it), it seemed a little bit more than a citizenry-authority clash. The Algerians were shouting and looked to be taunting the police, even going so far as to throw glass bottles at them. That was about the time I decided I'd had enough.

But yeah, holy shit.