No shade, but this is a simplistic understanding of the dynamics at play.
Protests go like this : slow & joyful start, march, sing, march some more, have a good time, then at some point a smoke grenade triggers somewhere behind you. Did anyone see where it came from? If someone did, their eyewitness account is immediately drowned in the crowd trying the flee from the fumes. Some light panic ensues : not everybody knows what the movement is about, what the danger is, and that’s very scary. The handful of people who saw the cop roll the grenade shout, or possibly send it back towards the cop line. This small commotion is used as casus belli, because that’s all they’re waiting for : an excuse to beat people to death.
This is from experience of protests in France (mostly Marseille)
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No shade, but this is a simplistic understanding of the dynamics at play.
Protests go like this : slow & joyful start, march, sing, march some more, have a good time, then at some point a smoke grenade triggers somewhere behind you. Did anyone see where it came from? If someone did, their eyewitness account is immediately drowned in the crowd trying the flee from the fumes. Some light panic ensues : not everybody knows what the movement is about, what the danger is, and that’s very scary. The handful of people who saw the cop roll the grenade shout, or possibly send it back towards the cop line. This small commotion is used as casus belli, because that’s all they’re waiting for : an excuse to beat people to death.
This is from experience of protests in France (mostly Marseille)
English might be my second language but I think both of you are agreeing that the police said they’re gonna kill people