Le Chaudron

Vendredi, le 20 Mars. Mon Balcon. 4:06pm

I have chosen a very exciting time to study abroad in France, it seems. At least, in La Reunion. Not that it wouldn’t ordinarily be exciting, but as you may or may not have heard, general strikes have found their way to French Overseas Departments. At first they were only in Guadaloupe (lasting for 44 days beginning around January 20th, blockading the island and killing one person), but on March 5th, the strike came to Reunion. The protests were different from the University strikes that I had been experiencing. “Oh great,” I thought. “As if it weren’t difficult enough to get to class during a University strike, what’s it going to be like when the whole island shuts down?” Well, little white suburban Chelsea soon experienced what it was like to be in a civil uprising.

Before I get to the exciting part (for my friends, the scary part for my adult friends), let me tell you why French Overseas Departments are rioting. Guadaloupe, Martinique (in the Caribbean), French Guiana (South America), and La Reunion are DOMs (Departements Outre-Mer, or French Overseas Departments). I don’t remember if I’ve explained this, but they are like Hawaii is to the USA- all the rights of a mainland state, just farther away. Well, they may have the same political rights, but in fact, life here is structured quite differently. For Reunion, the unemployment rate is something like 50+%, compared with about 18% in métropole (mainland France). Also, there’s a built-in 57% sales tax on all products, which makes life here, as you can imagine, quite expensive. I also need to explain about being a civil servant in France. Any state job- bus driver, teachers, professors, magistrates, etc- have a pretty sweet deal. They get paid pretty well and they get good benefits. That’s all fine and well, but for the rest of the island that’s employed, many are on minimum wage and trying to live on what I imagine to be, less than a living wage. Hence, the protests. After throwing an enormous hissy fit, blockading the island, rioting, and using all their gas, food, water, and energy, Sarcozy finally caved and decided to give those living on minimum wage a 200 Euro a month increase. Sweet. Except, that’s only Guadeloupe. So, what kind of example does that set? Naturally, Reunion said, “Oh, well they protested and got a raise? Well we will, too.” So here I am, sitting on my balcony on the second day (albeit not consecutive) of the General Strike. Fliers are all over campus trying to attract the youth population, and yet somehow classes are still going on (save for my surf class.. grr… I can’t exactly pick up where I left off in Maryville..).

So far, things aren’t as bad as they were on the first day, but who knows. It could get bad by tonight. Let me recant to you how it went down last week. After Steph and I got out of class last Tuesday around 3:30, we kept hearing muffled booms coming from somewhere nearby. As we went for our weekly visit to the International Student Office, Sylvie and Sophie (the tiniest, nicest women ever) informed us to STAY INSIDE tonight- “Don’t leave campus,” they warned. Those booms we were hearing were tear gas bombs being launched in the neighborhood just down the hill. Apparently the protest from the town center had marched all the way to our part of St- Denis and was now agitating the police and army enough to warrant tear gas bombs. Cool.

By dinnertime, it had not abated. In fact, there was a pretty good view of it from our cafeteria by nightfall. So, what do sociology students do? They go check out the riot. Minutes later, Steph, Richard, Ivan, Chaz, and I were walking out of campus and down the hill toward the market and grocery store I frequent about once every two days. Le Chaudron, as the neighborhood is called, is also home to a big bus depot. It’s a busy place. We were immediately greeting with enormous garbage cans overturned and burning in the streets. Gradually we crept closer and closer. At first, it was (and I’m quoting Steph here), a lot like the 4th of July. People were out with their families and children looking at cars maneuvering around the burning poubelle and listening to the shouts of rioters and booms of bombs. Ten police cars passed, and a few army cars passed too. They all had huge shields and the two soldiers on the end of each truck had their rifles out. We moseyed down the street, crossing a soccer field and heading to a side street. More burning garbage, and the sounds got louder. Eventually we could hear the shouts and yells of the rebel men, battling the police. Rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails against tear gas and trucks. We were joined by a few of our Creole friends and another Brit, Becky, so the huge group of white Anglophones didn’t look as conspicuous. We still stuck out, though. Steph, Becky, and I were the only women around at this point. Men were stalking by, marching with long, deliberate stomps. They were baring their chests with tshirts swaddled around their faces to protect their lungs from the piercing tear gas. At this point, the bus depot (a small building where you can buy tickets) had burned to bare boards, and stood steaming. Stranded cars fell prey to the masses and were overturned and burned without a second thought. Ivan, Chaz, and I dared to go closer; Stephanie and Richard and Becky hung back, displaying far more sense than I allowed myself to have. I kept thinking how I wanted to document this all, send it to the media, and all the while memorize every detail- I can’t help my sociology leanings sometimes. “Les yeux, les yeux” cried Steve, our native Reunionais friend. Apparently you don’t have to run everytime you see something launched- it may just be a warning shot. Watch it. It may be a bomb of tear gas, the force of which you can feel on your back when the explosion moves the air around you. At this point, a slight drizzle was leaving an itchy film on my skin and making my toes slide in my Chacos. They reminded me once again of how I must stick out. The American white girl in a French uprising. Amazing, amazing experience, but still so bizarre. Not only have I never been exposed to anything like this- Hollywood doesn’t count, but looked scarily similar - but this is my quiet little neighborhood where I buy mangos and potatoes on Wednesday and Sunday mornings. When we saw men sprinting forth from the fog of smoke and tear gas, we ran in the same direction. That’s a rule of a riot; you don’t want to have people behind you. That means you’re on the front line. If you see people run towards you, do a 180 and get moving. Ask questions later. When the bombs launched, we ran. The rain, a silent and almost unnoticed actor in the fiery evening made the whole ordeal ironically more dangerous. We were slipping around while running and looking back. Enough was enough, and the crowds certainly weren’t going to defeat the police force. We returned, blood pumping, chattering because of the adrenaline and marveling at the sites we saw.

Later, a helicopter swooped and hummed low over the city, illuminating the clouds of tear gas and the stronghold of rioters in its beam. Things were quiet just a kilometer up the hill on my pretty campus. By morning, the tear gas bombs were few and far between. 16 arrests, a few injuries, an evening to remember.

Studying abroad- wow. Please know that my parents and brother scolded me well enough for getting so close. I never felt as though me or my life was threatened, and I’m no worse for wear. Just another exciting experience to add to my study abroad adventures.