Paris and France at large "Block Everything"

Wednesday, September 10, was been declared a national day of action in France.
According to the Interior Ministry's press release, 850 actions were carried out, bringing together 197,000 people. Even taking into account the usual discrepancy between the ministry's figures and those of the organizer, this mobilization is nothing exceptional in France, a country of 66 million inhabitants.
Wait and see what will happen next to these new forms of engagement capable of bringing together people who are not affiliated with any movement, and are content to follow a blocking order on social networks or Telegram and WhatsApp loops.

We are travelling to Paris and other parts of France in 2 weeks and we have no plans to change our trip. We have been in France many times when there have been May 1st demonstrations, various strikes and also during the yellow vest protest movement. We have never felt unsafe and will move in another direction if there is a nearby protest or change our plans for the day if needed. We feel very safe travelling in Europe just as we do travelling in our own country, Canada.

Drove from Normandie to Paris CDG two days ago. On advice of French friends we avoided toll roads/main highways. Took a couple hours longer but was effortless.

Decided to forego a trip into the city though.

Was in Paris on the 10th and there was no sign in any of our wanderings that day that anything was happening. Most metro lines including the 3 that we use were running normally, all the shops and restaurants were open. Some of the RER lines were running at half. I went from Paris to Auvers su Oise on the 9th with a friend on various RER lines and we purposefully avoided this longer day trip on the 10th but on the 10th in Paris we didn't see any signs at all.

Demonstrations are a way of life in France. It is one of the reasons their food is so far superior, they have good public transport, they have good medical care and employment protection. The French fight for policies that are beneficial to 'the people' not only the billionaires. the US president just cancelled a policy that airline passengers have to be compensated if their travel is disrupted; in France this spring we received a refund of our ticket prices when we were bumped from a flight and delayed in our travels. You don't get policies that benefit people if you don't fight for them.

Demonstrations are not dangerous and you can easily turn and walk the other way if you see one and it makes you nervous.

I'm with Claire, been to Paris many times during strikes and protests with no issues. I arrive on 25 September for a month from Budapest and I'm looking forward to my time there. Starting a couple of days before my arrival in and departure out of Paris I will search Air France, France 24 & other sites to ensure my flights are still ok or if I need to find optional transportation.

TY all for responding and allaying my concerns for now...lol. I guess one way of looking at this all part of the "RS" experience.

We just left Paris after a week there. We didn't see any sign of any demonstration anywhere.

There was also a "transportation strike." According to news accounts the only thing that was actually shut down was a Metro route from CDG to Paris Centre. Of course there were work-arounds on Metro. No reports of any impact on taxis, buses, RER, or anything else.

To piggyback on Janet's comments, that's why I try to always use a European carrier when flying to Europe. There are consumer protections that aren't available on American operators, including cancelation and change protection. It's not a recent phenomenon.

As just one example, I was stuck in Iceland overnight. Our plane out of Paris took off two hours late (due to weather at Keflavik). When we landed, 69 of us had missed our connections. I went, as directed, to the customer service counter. They pointed me to a shuttle waiting to take us all to a hotel. At the hotel, they gave me a key and said dinner would be provided in the lobby. At dinner, they posted our travel connections for the next day and which shuttle to use to travel back to the airport. Breakfast was at another hotel, a short walk from ours.

I was happy. Can you imagine trying to get anything (meals, lodging or even transportation) from an American carrier if the delay is due to weather? Anything you do receive will be bought with serious arm-wrestling between you and customer service.

Brad

I was staying in Paris on 10 Sept, followed closely the news and the violent outbreaks all over the country, "partout en France. " I was impacted by the day's happenings, my train to Cambrai was cancelled. So, no day trip to Cambrai....oh, well.

Got back to Paris in the afternoon, missed the :"action" between the police and demonstrators that turned violent at Gare du Nord...bad timing.

Since my flight back to SFO left CDG on the morning of 17 Sept, I missed the "strike" a much bigger and extensive one on 18 Sept....again, another case of bad timing.

I did talk to a hotel receptionist about the events of 10 Sept adversely affecting her, whether they did or not. She seemed to lament as I could gather from her comments that the planned event for 10 Sept, demonstration, strike, whatever, did not go far enough lasting one day.

Sept 10th- Metro running, with the most impacts to RER. Our train to Caen was cancelled, but it was cancelled 2 days in advance giving us time to switch to a train that was scheduled to run a few hours later.

The CDG RER was also not cancelled on the 10th-- but they ran only 1 to 3 so it was obviously going to be a challenge that day.

The strike on the 18th closed a number of metro stations and disrupted RER and regional trains. We avoided travel that day.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to Paris when there wasn’t some kind of demonstration going on.

Unlike the USA people don’t need to bring an AK-47 to demonstrations so I don’t really feel like I’m ever in any physical danger. ( yes, I live in Atlanta and when we had a demonstration a couple years ago people bought assault weapons because that’s what you do when you’re going to demonstrate something that you don’t like- you bring an assault weapon)

We were there a couple years ago during all kinds of protests. there was a transit strike, there were marches and demonstrations The only thing we wound up having to accommodate was we booked a G7 to take us to a start of a tour so we wouldn’t miss it if the trains and buses weren’t running. And we were waiting on a bus one day and it was cold and raining and the bus kept getting late and we saw a G7 taxi and we got in it and got a ride. We were walking someplace one day and became aware that apparently a demonstration had just ended, but I swear it was more like people coming back from a sporting event. They were laughing and playing and had flags and kids and strollers and wagons and nothing like what you see in Atlanta

"Demonstrations are a way of life in France." Bravo !

janettravels...D'accord!

Yes they are but this one seems a bit different...? Larger, more widespread? Unstable government. Some violence.

Question? I have family arriving this coming week, heading straight up to Bayeux, assuming the flight to Paris is not canceled, should they still come?

Anyone traveling from the US to France will encounter a more stable government, not less.

We're in the extreme southwest part of France, very small town, but dealt with multiple government and commercial staff for the past several days. Nothing seems out of the ordinary to me.

TY JPHBucks,

Agree on the stability concern, glad to hear you have not had any issues in your town. The Oct. 6-8 delayed negotiations will be one to watch , esp. if there is another strike by the ATCs. I will be heading to Paris at the end of Oct. w/a xfer to Nice, so hopefully things will be settled by then.

Bringing an assault weapon is supposed to prove something or a manifestation of the person himself?

On the TV news I saw on Sept 10 and the days afterwards in France, some older news clips were shown on demonstrations, protests, however one chooses to label them and to what degree. One news clip definitely caught my eye, ie historically very true:

The clip showed at one occasion a large banner was unfolded with showing its salient message: "Les revolutions commencent dans les rues." (Revolutions start in the streets.)....how true,

I gave a short answer earlier, but reading more comments leads me to elaborate a bit. We stayed in the 6th. On Sept 10th the only noticeable difference we saw was a few more police cars driving down the roads. Your typical tourist was probably not impacted beyond slight inconveniences to transport. Those news reports can be misleading. They will show one demonstration, no matter how big it really is, and make it seem like the entire city is in an uproar.

It is a little anxiety producing when transportation changes are involved, but these almost invariably work themselves out in the end. Note: we were only dealing with trains, not flights.

TY Carol for the update. I had been following the news, and yes it seems that the whole of Paris is in turmoil. The reality is not that. Transportation might be impacted across the city, but even then it is probably more isolated than it sounds.

The reality is that the demonstrations in Paris don't even cover 1% of the city's surface area. Demonstration routes often follow the boulevards between Place de la Nation and Place de la République (via Place de la Bastille). Being more than 300 meters from this route, you won't even notice that there's a demonstration nearby.

The only possible impact for a visitor is on transportation and traffic.

However, we see crowds of so-called "journalists" and YouTubers dressed in combat gear with helmets and gas masks, who, like vultures, only come to report on the few people who set fire to trash cans and get chased by the cops.

Just like drivers who slow down to get a better look at a road accident, there are people who want to see action, fires, tear gas, fights; they are not interested in watching a few tens of thousands of people marching with their placards in the street.

On Sept 10 the news showed the violence between police the demonstrators taking place at Gare du Nord, the 20th and 19th districts.. I missed seeing that at Nord...a pity.

I just saw a report on these demonstrations. It showed police officers in basically combat gear and states ithat that was because of the demonstrations. No random Tuesday in the middle of July with no demonstrations you see some type of semi military police people walking down the street in basically what looks like combat gear. No one even blinks because that’s just how that particular branch dresses. It’s not we loaded them up and put them in here because we are having a demonstration

It showed police officers in basically combat gear and stated that it
was because of the demonstrations.

Without knowing which report, it's highly likely that these men in combat gear aren't police officers but soldiers from the Vigipirate plan who patrol public places. It's not against demonstrations but to prevent terrorism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigipirate

If you want to get closer to the "action" or the potential action erupting , any action, then walk towards Place de Republique and Bastille.

Re: concerns "for traveling there now." None at all !

If I were not prohibited from traveling back now due to Schengen, having used up 85 days, I would be back in France in an instant plus Paris regardless of its perceived volatility. . I can imagine some French could be saying to me: what are you afraid of?

Gare du Nord has more than one entrance, obviously, depending on which street one is coming from.

If public transportation is impacted, that will be announced.

Only a minor inconvenience if one knows how to get around that. I use a combination of bus different routes and the Metro, plus knowing which Metro stations to avoid also helps if you don't want to be where the action is.

I'm feeling better already. TY All.