Sirens wailing all this evening and long into the night. The first-round vote results are in. Macron and LePen will face off on May 7th, separated by only one or two points.
Around the Place de la Bastille people coming together to protest ‘the score’ of LePen. Clearly well-informed phalanxes of armoured police and vehicles have massed to prevent any directional movement. All streets are effectively cut off. One gendarme wants to know my business, then strikes up a low conversation with ‘la spectatrice.’ “Not harmless citizens if they arrive with gas masks, are they?” The sense I received was: now it begins.
Morning post-script. The score from the Bastille: broken shop windows, smashed cars, twenty-nine arrests.
POINT de VUE: PARIS 
Yes, yes. Yes, now indeed it begins…and will continue on into many nights ahead. My own Letter From Paris went live this morning @ POETRY INTERNATIONAL. Yes,…here we go…les amis, Yes, as we hang on to our souls!!
with care for us all, margo
Salut, Margo–your letter and the referred poem were most welcome.
I am astonished that neither the Times nor the Guardian mention violence on the front pages of their websites. It’s clearly beginning, but here in the states it’s all very abstract…
One of my elder brothers has his shop in the 20th. He calls it the “Paris Bronx”. Burned cars are not uncommon. Inside Paris. never makes it to the news though. Maybe you are right. Hope not. Maybe now it begins? (Watch your back)
B.
B.– Your brother is right, of course. Smashed windows and bus shelters etc are back page stuff even for French papers. That said, at present I don’t feel that violent clashes before May 7 are inevitable. But we must consider that over 40% of voters went for the extremes (Melenchon or LePen) and are now disappointed, frustrated, angry. Certainly the police have orders to take no chances. By the way, I hate to think what the mobilization of materiel and officers cost, merely at the Bastille night of the 24th.
Maybe now it begins? com/2017/04/23/letter-from-paris-april-2017-from-margo-berdeshevsky/
with care for us all, margo