Protests and Riots in France

For, I mean, clearly not protesting for schools.

Right.

And as my mom would say, "Pick up your pants, dude." I mean,

a lot of

this-

Yeah

... they, they, this is what you are describing it is.

There it is on the back of his sweatshirt. We are getting so...

I'm gonna ask you to stand by with me, Niall, 'cause this is breaking.

Yes.

And, and it's, it's something that we didn't anticipate at this point.

There's now a standoff in the middle of the street.

We've seen the tear gas. You've got media in between the

rioters. You know, when you protest, that, that's free

speech. This is in Europe right now, and people are banding

together to, it looks like, pull off to the side maybe for some

safety away from all of this. This has gone away from the protesting for

schools and teachers and all of that, and this is just a

free-for-all. And what you are describing,

uh, is, is really frightening because

it's not just here. And in this country we've seen some of it,

but

not quite like this. What stops this? Where is the military?

You, you know the ground in Europe.

What, what take, what is it gonna take at this point?

Yeah. So, um, those are great points, uh, Harris.

And what, what you see at the moment is that the French riot police have been

deployed, um, in Paris, but also dozens and dozens of cities

across France.

But frankly, they are, they are losing control of the

country. Uh, this is a-

Yeah

... this is an uprising basically. This is not about schools or education.

Uh, this is about overthrowing, uh, frankly the foundations of, of Western

civilization here.

Yeah. Do-

Uh, and you do need to see the, the, the military being deployed on the streets

of,

of France, 'cause otherwise, uh, the, the rioters, the

looters, uh, they will take control.

Uh, it's that serious in, in France.

This is a country descending into a state of anarchy-

Mm

... where the police cannot even control the

streets of Paris, the capital city.

It is so helpful to have you with your expertise

talking with us as this breaks apart in France.

Um, thank you. I wanna keep you with me because I'm being

told our, our

correspondent who is not far, he's in Paris, Geoff

Paul. And, and Geoff, when we were speaking earlier, we

were talking about some

damage to schools and so on and so forth.

If you're with me, I, I think we're gonna stay on these

pictures, but we'll be able

to hear you.

What are you learning there on the ground not too far from where this is happening?

Well, Harris, many of these people that you're watching on this live

footage were just surrounding us a few hours ago.

There was about, I don't know, a little over 10,000 people at the square

we're at here in Central Paris. Uh, they were here protesting.

Some were shooting off fireworks.

They had signs, and then they moved along, and that's kinda where this movement is

right now. You have different little factions within

this movement that are

breaking out, going down different Paris streets.

Wow.

Something happens between the police and the protesters, and then of course the

tear gas then comes out, 'cause they're trying to get them to

leave.

But you can see in some of the shots, people are just kinda walking around,

taking

in what's going on. But in other sections of, of the city,

you, you have this,

a bit of chaos breaking out, and this is what we've seen over the last week.

You have this, uh, confrontation-

You know-

... between the riot police and the demonstrators and, and,

and then they

w- have this kinda scene that you're watching un-

unravel live on TV right now.

Look, you know, one thing that Niall Gardner and I,

I have been talking about is

how quickly this happened, and I'm just wondering over the week

you've been there,

Geoff Ball, are people afraid? I mean, you can't even live your daily

life if what you describe is this mob is going up

and down the streets of Paris. How do you go on at this point?

Are people expressing fear?

Uh, Harris, I gotta tell you, no, people are not expressing fear in the

city.

Okay.

And it's, it's incredible. Like I said, where we were standing, where we were

standing, there were

tens of thousands of people. And, and now the, the, where we're standing

is just

back to normal life. There's tourists out here walking around.

The cafes are full.

But then these movements then move to another part of the city,

and then you have

something like this. And then of course this will disperse,

and they'll go to a

different part of the city. So it's a bit of cat

and mouse going on right now

throughout the city.

Um, Niall, I wanna bring you back into the

conversation.

I, I, I think you could hear Geoff-