Have you heard of the Yellow Jackets? The gilets jaunes?
Me and some other Americans took a bus down to Marseille, the oldest city in France. It’s huge, dirty, loud, and frightening. I didn’t do any research about the place beforehand, so we just got off the bus and started walking. One person in our group had never seen a body of water bigger than Lake Erie, so we decided to find the port. We did find the port, but also a giant cathedral, an super-old church on the top of a high hill, and a fort — the fort will be an important plot point later in this post!
The fort is from the 16th century, I think. The signs were all either in French or Korean. We made it to the edge of the pier right as the sun touched the water. The Mediterranean turns pink during sunsets. The wind tossed our voices around.
We had to cross a narrow metal footbridge to get make to the center of town. It’s a interesting situation: the fort is much taller than the road, and the whole town is a series of steep hills, so you have to climb a mini-mountain and then the footbridge to get to a small opening in the side of the fort. Underneath the footbridge, about fifty feet under, is a four-lane with wide sidewalks. We spent a lot of time in the fort, looking at old staircases and such, and so we didn’t realize what was going on outside, on that very street.
The four of us, teenage Americans with intermediate French skills, emerged from the opening onto the footbridge to find a sea yellow jackets below us, chanting, drumming, hollering, and throwing things at the police who swarmed them. To be clear, they were throwing things that the police had first thrown: teargas canisters. The police were geared up with plastic shields and multiple black weapons of mysterious purpose.
There were loud popping sounds and banners and night was falling. We decided it was time to leave Marseille.
I was the only one of us who had ever been in or seen a protest. I was also the only one of us with a working phone. I was in charge of getting us back to the bus station. So I led the way, up and down dark and narrow and foreign streets, trying to keep us as far away from the heart of the demonstration as possible. I did my best, but there were probably a thousand people mobilized for this thing, and the bus station isn’t super far away from the center of town. When we got to it, Most of the door were closed and locked, and a dozen or so Yellow Jackets were milling around them. We followed some normal-dressed people to a side door and made it inside, where we found maybe forty police officers in riot gear.
We got on the bus. I took a nap.
Other than that, I went to the Saturday market on the main street of Aix and bought some clementines. I had a croissant and some tea at my favorite cafe and did a bit of back-and-forth with the waiter who now recognizes me. I got a bus pass and signed up for my electives. Got a lot done!
Cordialement,
Allison
P.S.: I also stole a small candle from the cathedral. Well, not stole, because I left a tithe, but you’re only supposed to light a candle and leave it. I just put it in my purse.
Flan in France 