We were very lucky to see a bit of real life protest and street marching; something the French do very well, especially on a fine weekend in Lyons. I heard about one demonstration (Manifestation) in Paris but didn’t get to see it, though if you have a photo to send I will put it up here.
The manifestation I saw in Lyons was a large and well organised protest about an autoroute that was about to demolish part of a town. At about 2 pm on a nice dry Saturday afternoon, as the population was shopping at the soldes, a group of bright green drummers 
appeared on the main shopping road and started up. Behind them came wave after wave of people with very nicely made protest signs. 
I’d gone in all inconspicuous in my day glo orange jacket and black tracky daks,
so they figured, when I pulled out the ubiquitous camera, that I was a reporter, and they were glad to be noticed and photographed..
The general population took the manifestation in its stride, crossing the road or not as it suited, and many stopped to watch; the drummers were excellent. I don’t know how many folk were in the march, a few thousand maybe; Lyons was packed that day and all I can say is the whole thing took about 15 minutes.
As I was leaving I saw a man sitting in the road refusing to get up, doing his own personal protest about something that was unclear to the rest of us. He had a policeman or two in attendance, plus a friend, who gave him sips from a water bottle. He didn’t like me taking a photo of him, but as I yelled back, ‘If you do it in public the public will notice,’ so here he is for posterity.
And that’s it for the famous French strikes and manifestations.
(The autoroutes, by the way, are excellent; well constructed toll roads that enable one to scoot along at 130k and cover ground fast. You pay as you leave, which is clever, and there are snack bars at frequent intervals as well as little picnic sites every now and again.)
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