Through the swirls of smoke rising from the road like so many fragrant clouds, one can make out the slogans on the demonstrators’ placards. The boulevard both welcomes the crowd and confines it. Réaumur-Sébastopol. From République, the procession reaches Opéra. The route of the demonstration follows the boulevard. Boulevard Beaumarchais from Bastille. Boulevard Raspail via Place d’Italie. In these areas authorised by the Prefecture, the bodies of the demonstrators marching and gathering in crowds can seize power. The power to march, to shout slogans or sing, to brandish smoke bombs, placards or banners. Increasingly, demonstrators also adorn their bodies with decorations in the form of stickers hostile to the authorities.
But that is not enough. They must also leave their mark as they pass through public spaces. This is where graffiti comes in: sprayed onto walls, or inserted via posters into the Decaux billboard, which has been hooked up for the occasion. and activism requires a certain speed and agility. Surprisingly, the crowd always seems to arrive a little too late, after the work has been done. They pass by, seemingly indifferent to the graffiti artist’s actions. The advertising hoarding that occupies the space in the public realm is one of the favourite targets. It provokes the activist. Ideal for inserting the poster already prepared to size, it receives the spray paint flatteringly, and the sticker adheres to it wonderfully well. Sometimes the hoarding’s provocation is too great and eventually gets the better of the activist’s patience. So the shattered Securit glass piles up on the pavement in small, glittering heaps, and the structure reveals an electrical network whose existence we never suspected. The activist’s furious gesture thus creates openings, frames that frame.
The beauty of the demonstration lies in these little trifles that will only last a short while: these ephemeral inscriptions, these empty frames turned poetic, and these stickers not yet peeled off. Soon the illuminated signs will reclaim their economic rights, neatly aligned along the pavements of Paris’s grand boulevards. Then, the street that was ours will once again be the street that belongs to them.
