Gendarmes

A couple nights ago, looking for a taste of home, we went to FrogBurger in the Bastille section of Paris. However, on our way to the restaurant we were blocked by a policeman from taking the metro exit we wanted. Coming out an exit on the other side we saw a few gendarmes in full gear patting down a few young men inside the station. Once aboveground we saw people everywhere and at least ten gendarmerie vans and loads of gendarmes in riot gear. They looked pretty badass in armor from the shoulders down and holding their helmets with face shields, but I wouldn't want to mess with them, and they were guarding all the metro entrances. Walking around the Place de la Bastille circle to the road we needed, we passed an sidewalk cafe of a bar where the employees were cleaning up a lot of broken glass, but we didn't know what had happened. We went and ate, and the gendarmes were still there when we went home, but it looked like things had calmed down.

Here's a bad picture of a gendarme I tried to take sneakily as we walked past:

The next day we found out that we had arrived at the tail-end of a conflict about a controversial comedian, Dieudonné. His show has been banned in some countries for anti-Semitism, and he produced a video that mocked the Holocaust. Demonstrators showed up to protest the event and came face to face with Dieudonné supporters, which was why there were so many gendarmes with riot gear. There was only one small fight, which is why we saw the broken glass at the bar we passed. One more reminder that we're in a strange city and at times woefully unaware of many aspects of the politics and culture here.