First-hand account from a daily protestor in the French uprising
21 October 2026 – It has been crazy here, a large escalation of violence from the government and a huge show out from the people. The police violence has only gotten worse, two protesters have now been killed, another child has lost his hand, I’ve managed not to get badly wounded but my lungs hurt badly from the tear gas, the government has started talking about banning the left opposition party here, and are trying to pin it on them, despite there being no evidence of that.
They’ve started stopping and searching anyone who “ont l’air d’être de gauche”, who look like leftists at all the big stations, very fascist, they’ve also banned protests and installed a curfew to try and stop the people from gathering. But we are still going to protest this Saturday 24 October. Vive le Nouveau monde! Viva Palestina!
The government has mobilized the military for this Saturday, which is also a big escalation, they are sending in specialized anti-terrorist units, the BRI, the GIGN, and armoured vehicles, they’ve started scrambling phone reception apparently in certain areas.
Despite all of this the protests continue, the feeling is that they are afraid, and doing everything they can to terrorise the people, but it does not seem to be discouraging the movements, on the contrary the more they escalate the more people join the cause, even if they crush the protests with brute force, they’ve radicalised tens of thousands of people, including many of the children they’ve tried to intimidate.
I’ve never seen so many people, from so many different groups, there were a million of us in the streets, the government is lying about the numbers to minimise the movement. The mainstream media are also lying, they haven’t mentioned the two protesters that have been killed.
The feeling here is hope, a movement that started with nuits debout, was hardened by the gilets jaunes protests during COVID, and the riots when the police shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, a child, in 2023, and now there is a huge influx of young people, most of the people I met and talked to, of all ages, were at their first protest!
We are organising, we have more and more street medics who carry first aid and who tend to the wounded, the police are running out of options, and they also ran out of tear gas in multiple cities on the 17th Oct.
The movement isn’t motivated by any political group or figurehead, which is what makes it so hard to suppress, there’s no one to kill, no one person to demonize, no heads to cut off except those of the people, and the people are done with the capitalist boot.
24 October 2026 – I have mainly protested in Paris, the centre, place de la République, Nation, place de la Bastille, place de la Concorde, and recently I protested in Rennes, but the police have now banned protesting to a certain degree, in an attempt to scare people. They’ve given the policemen guns with live ammunition, hearing talks of them being equipped with FAMAS, which is an assault rifle.
For the tear gas the only way to endure is with a gas mask, otherwise you have to move. They use a gas called CS-2, which is a cousin of mustard gas, very very painful and it has many side effects over the next weeks It’s what killed both protesters I believe. If you can’t get out of the tear gas smoke the pain and burn in your lungs creates spasms, it’s happened quite a few times to me and I’ve always thought if I was older this would have killed me. The best thing is eye drops, sérum physiologique, but the police confiscate it (which they aren’t allowed to do) or gas masks, which they also confiscate. When you get home you have to immediately shower and wash all your clothes separately. You do have to be careful how you wash because it sticks on everything including your hair, so if you wash wrongly you’ll get it in your eyes again, not as painful, but by that time you’re tired and exhausted, and it feels such an extra work.
There are Palestinian flags here and there! Many thousands wearing kefiers scarves, many of the activists that i saw at the Palestine rallies are present, but there is also a trend among the French media that is very racist, that says the people protesting mainly are immigrants etc, so people are not as inclined to take Palestinian flags or others, as it plays in their narrative, have seen people take french flags to the protests out of pure spite !
It was the most people I’ve ever seen at a protest, police punished the peaceful protest by keeping everyone from leaving and tear gassing, beating and using the water canon on everyone. They are controlling / searching anyone who looks like they’re leftists. I’m heading to the protest right now! Vive le nouveau monde!
31 October 2026 – Going back today, they’ve banned even more protests, and have shut down more than 40 underground stations. They don’t have the space to keep all the people they’re arresting.
The main demands are to invest a lot more money into schools and jobs for teachers, to end something called Parcoursup which is a terribly outdated software you have to go through to reach higher education, and it is very shady about who it selects for courses etc, very stressful to use. I remember hating it when I needed it. Then it’s to have more teachers, better infrastructure, the firemen want more funding and better equipment; the CGT workers want lower fuel prices and to end price gouging on food etc because the cost of living is way too high and everyone knows it’s the corporations that are profiting, the Gilets jaunes too want that; the free party association wants the government to lift the ban and imprisonment threat on their festivals; the dock workers want liveable wages, and all around this is free Palestine and antifascist movements!
