An eye for an eye…

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:06:26 +0200

"8 July 09, the state shot everything in sight"

Local residents of Parisian border town Montreuil are rallying behind a group of squatters who were forcibly removed from a building by the police last week, resulting in one man losing his eye. The outrage has led some protesters to call for "an eye for an eye".

It was last Wednesday (8 July) when riot police arrived to remove squatters from a building in Croix de Chavaux. Later in the day the squatters took to the streets to protest the police brutality used in handling the affair. As though to prove the protesters' point, the police responded with a harsh crackdown, blinding Joachim Gatti with the use of a flash-ball gun. It was this that provoked local residents to take up the protesters' cause, and on Monday night hundreds of supporters took to the streets, resulting in clashes with the police just hours before Bastille Day.

Paris students can't put up with their parents

Julien — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:11:30 +0100

According to a study done by the French magazine l'Observatoire on student life in Paris, a third of students have trouble finding housing in the capital. A whopping forty-two percent live in family homes - 37% have to put up with their parents, while only 7% live in a shared flat. Thirty-one percent live alone or in a couple, while 14% stay in the dreaded ‘residences' (shared toilets and showers and hospital-style food). But thanks to ongoing complaints from UNEF and other associations, the subject has become an important issue in the local elections in Paris, which are to take place on March 29.