Sunday, June 1
5h30am in Champel (the first day of the summit in Evian)
Another glorious day in store. At 5am the sky is beginning to get light, although the sun is not yet up, and the doves are still cooing. The air is cool and soft. Then I step onto the balcony and hear what sounds like a group of fans watching a World Cup in a neighboring building. In fact, it is a group of protesters marching down the Avenue de Miremont. But they are either too late or too early -- the bridges were to have been blocked by 5h30am and the main march won't begin until 10.
I throw on my clothes and dash out to Miremont with my camera. The group has disappeared but there is a lone protester tramping along, raving. Behind him a man who has to be an Spanish concierge in a short-sleeved light shirt and black pants. And on a balcony a woman in a blue dressing gown. Further on an old lady walking her poodle. She glares at me although I have been deliberately wearing medium-heeled pumps with my jeans for the last three days so as not to be taken for a demonstrator, as I just was. Then there is a man with a ponytail -- fiftyish. Then no one until a car of young men who run a red light at the intersection of Miremont and Louis Aubert and then make a U-turn at the intersection of Louis Aubert and Champel. I realize I am alone and not especially reassured. I see several more young people heading down Champel with their backpacks. And one going in the wrong direction! There are no groups. At the busstop in front of my building there is a lone protester waiting for a ride. He is hunched over and looks tired. Today, the TPG has announced that all rides will be free. Lucky for him.
When I am out on my walk, I notice that the newspapers are speaking of violence in Geneva. So I buy a couple of copies and then learn the truth. Overnight the casseurs have gone into action smashing store fronts downtown and in the Vieille Ville. They even tried to set the Grand Théâtre on fire with Molotov cocktails. About this time I changed my mind about going back downtown. Instead I followed events on the Tribune de Genève website.
About 3h30pm I hear a loud volley of what sounds like firecrackers and learn, when I check out the website, that a bagarre between police and casseurs was at that very moment raging in front of the Museum (at the end of the rue des Contamines near me) and in Eaux-vives. The march had followed this route and they were coming home. And my great fear was that they would spill into Champel.
On the evening news I watched them trash the gas station at the route de Malagnou were we often stop to tank up on the way into France. "They" are calling themselves/being called "Black Blocks" and are not just casseurs out for fun. They seem to have a credo involving actual violence as a legitimate response to the violence of the world.
But by the time I had gone to bed the confrontations had moved back to the rues basses and the Rue du Stand, which is where they began.