Beginning in November 2018 and well into 2019, virtually every weekend protests taking place in the name of the gilets jaunes were staged around the country and, especially in Paris, turned into violent confrontations with the police by groups that identified themselves as anarchists and, yes, "Antifa." The graffiti slogans they left behind make that clear.
On December 1, 2018, presumed members of this group broke into the Arc de Triomphe and destroyed or defaced important artifacts. Others burned banks and cafés and cars. I posted several photographs of the rioting and the police response immediately after the initial violence. Those can be found here. These I selected mainly for the graffiti, which speaks for itself.
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| CLASS against Class .... GILETS JAUNES=ANTIFA - Graffiti on Arc de Triomphe from Dec. 1, 2018 |
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| ----UTION, What else? - in English on fallen sign. French and Palestinian flag in background. March 2019 |
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Trashed and looted boutique, March 2019
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French pun: No quarter (Cartier) for the bourgeois
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Child looking at paving stone projectile at closed entrance to the Arc. Circled A is for Anarchist.
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MAKE IT BURN and SWEPT AWAY BY A REVOLUTIONARY WAVE on torched Belle Époque mansion at the Étoile. December 2018
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Liberty defaced. Inside the Arc during repairs after Black Bloc vandalism.
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VICTORY THROUGH CHAOS
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The Black Blocs trashed Fouquet's, and the gilets jaunes amused themselves.
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Torched news stand, March 2019
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Borrowing a line from the U.S.
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Dec. 1, 2018: "THE YELLOW VESTS WILL TRIUMPH" written on Arch of Triumph.
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December 2019. "WE'LL BE BACK" with Anarchist symbol. And they certainly were.
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The first thing I ever wrote for The Washington Post was a little chapter about statues in a 1975 guidebook to D.C. that is now long out of print, and subsequent editions dropped my contributions. But given the current debate about monuments and protests in Lafayette Park, these pages may be of interest, or even amusement.
