Labor day

Paris, 2017

On this Labor day in Paris, I tried the “photojournalist” hat, during the demonstrations of 1st May 2017. I went armed with my camera body and my 50mm following the march.

“Defense of workers’ rights, calling for a check against the Front National and abstention … the demands of Labor Day were very diverse this year. As the newspaper Libération said the day after. This 1st May was for me the first time I was participating in a march on Paris.

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I positioned myself in the heart of the black-block and I was served in terms of actions, they were ready to fight with the forces of order. The balance of the two sides was heavy, more than a hundred side protesting. While in the security forces the Interior Ministry reported two seriously wounded policemen.

I had not felt the smell of tear gas since the riots of 2001 in Tizi-Ouzou my hometown, I can tell you that it sent me back to another era. The violence of repression was quite different.