PROGRESSIVES HIJACK STREETS AND SPACES

THE HUGE VOIDS BUILT FOR MASSING TROOPS HAVE BECOME SITES FOR PROGRESSIVES' DEMONSTRATIONS 

For demonstrations now at place d'Italie please click here, for place de la Nation here and for place Saint-Michel, here. As for City Hall...

     Collectif des jeunes du parc de Belleville, October 25, 2025

      Immigrant youth united for housing: drumming heightens the energy. 

Many of those events culminate at place de la République, which demonstrators reach by crossing the overpass over Canal Saint-Martin built for marching troops... 

Les Indignés (like Occupy)

In 2012

...to assemble in that void:

Victor Locaturolo

Claude Abron 

Heart of the giant demonstration after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack (January 2015)

AVAAZ / zoom

Alternative to a climate march that threat of terrorism had cancelled (December 2015)

Nuit debout ("Up all night") / zoom

"General dream"

Epicenter of a nationwide movement of occupation of public spaces (March-May 2016) 

 The New York Times, July 7, 2024 (cropped)

Epicenter of the mobilisation against the xenophobic far right before the legislative elections of 2024.

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People from other countries demonstrate there too:

Juan Francisco Gonzalez / Youtube

Chileans support their own strikers during a strike in France (2019).

Youth of the Sudan (in January 2025)

 Siomara Cramer

The city's largest barracks, part of the design to facilitate repression, and Americans protesting the first Trump visit (in 2018). 

End of an American protest at Trump's second inauguration (in January 2025)

It was the epicenter of a mobilization against the far right, which seemed on the verge of winning the legislative elections of 2024:

The New York Times, 7 juillet, 2024 (recadré)

A design meant to repress insurrection

has become a progressives' tool.

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Next,

A market replaces the army