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PROTESTS

Black Bloc: Who are the black-clad figures who hog the headlines at French protests?

They feature in some of the most dramatic images from French demos - smashing windows, torching bins and confronting police. But who are the 'Black Bloc'?

Published: 31 March 2023 13:21 CEST
Black Bloc: Who are the black-clad figures who hog the headlines at French protests?
A clack-clad youth kicks a bin into a fire during a demonstration in Paris. Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

It’s a regular pattern in French demonstrations or manifestations – thousands or even tens of thousands of protesters turn out to peacefully register their opposition to something, and then as the demo ends figures dressed all in black emerge and begin causing havoc.

They frequently smash shop windows or bus shelters, set fire to bins, street furniture or piles or trash and often clash with police. As such, their activities create the most dramatic images of the demo, which end up being used by the media.

Most people agree that the black-clad figures are not simply demonstrators – they turn up prepared; their faces covered, toting gas masks or goggles to protect against the inevitable police tear gas and often with tools or home-made incendiaries.

Some see them as radical Leftists, anti-capitalists or Marxists, others as hooligans solely out to wreak havoc, destroy property and engage in violent confrontations with police.

Although not originally a French movement, in recent years they have became more notorious in France, particularly for destruction caused along the Champs-Elysées, the high-end fashion and shopping boulevard, during the ‘yellow vest’ protests of 2018/19.

Some protest leaders and unions have expressed regret that Black Blocs infiltrate their protests, focusing the media attention on violent elements rather than the protest topic at hand.

The history of Black Bloc

It was West Berlin police in the 1980s who gave them their name – the English term is a translation of the German “Schwarzer Block” – in reference to their protest tactics.

At the time, activists involved in the non-hierarchical Autonomist movement protesting against squatter evictions began to use the method during protests – essentially moving to the front of the march as a ‘compact black block’ to preserve anonymity, protect one another, and sometimes to confront police or begin property destruction.

In April 2000, Black Bloc made headlines outside of Germany, when a group called the “Radical Anti-Capitalist Blocs” (RACB) joined in rallies against the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC. 

Many researchers on the topic point to 2009 as the first time Black Bloc made their appearance in France. In Strasbourg, thousands of protesters gathered to demonstrate against NATO during the April 2009 summit.

Among the 10,000 to 30,000 people present were approximately 2,000 Black Bloc protesters who vandalised much of the Port du Rhin district, causing damages estimated at €100 million.

In the years following, Black Bloc reappeared during protests against the 2019 pension reforms, as well as during the ‘yellow vest’ movement.

READ MORE: Whatever happened to the ‘yellow vests’ in France?

Modern Black Bloc are defined as “a procession of revolutionary militants dressed in black who are likely to resort to direct action”, explained Francis Dupuis-Deri, a political scientist, to French daily Les Echos.

Who are they?

Another political scientist, Myriam Benraad, told Les Echos that in the 1980s, Black Bloc members “were fairly educated People” and often intellectuals.

In more recent years, many people in France have typecast them as “teacher’s sons” – essentially middle-class young people who engage in far-left politics and violent protest for a short time, before themselves joining the professional classes.

It is difficult to have a complete picture of who joins Black Bloc, due to the anonymous nature of the movement, but it seems that the demographic is more mixed than this image, although it is generally a young movement and news photos suggest that members are mostly white. 

According to Benraad: “Today in France, it is more so the radical left, but it is difficult to determine how they got there (…) globally, Black Blocs are attached to radical revolutionary political movements – like anarchists, Marxist-Leninists, radical environmentalists, feminists and autonomists”.

Political commentator and columnist for The Local, John Lichfield, wrote in UnHerd that “many are students (which in France can cover ages 18 to 25). Some live in squats and live on casual work. Others have well-paid jobs”. 

In an interview with TV5 Monde, one activist said that in terms of gender demographics, about 20 to 40 percent of members were women – in 2020 The Local spoke to one Black Bloc member who was a 35-year-old Parisienne who joined the movement after losing her job as a server during the pandemic.

What do they stand for?

Although they do not belong to one particular political party or union, Black Bloc tends to support a far-left, anti-capitalist message, which is typically seen in the graffiti sprayed during protests.

Destruction tends to be concentrated on symbols of capitalism and globalisation – like banks and multinational companies or restaurants, like McDonalds or real estate agents (which are targeted for ‘gentrifying’ neighbourhoods).

However, it is not uncommon for cars parked along protest paths to end up burned, in addition to police vehicles, while Black Bloc have also torched news kiosks in Paris, which are operated by self-employed traders earning close to minimum wage.

In a 2020 interview with The Local, one Black Bloc militant – a 35-year-old Parisian woman who had previously worked in the service industry – said: “To me, protests are just walking in the street. There is no point in that. Not now. Protesting worked when we had presidents who listened to the people, but this government doesn’t care.”

READ MORE: INTERVIEW: A French Black Bloc rioter explains reasons for protest violence

She said that after losing her job she felt that: “There is something within that needs to get out. I told myself that I need to get all that hatred out of my body, otherwise I would implode.

“Either we keep all that inside, get ill and end up on antidepressants, or we dress up in black and explode on the streets.”

One thing that the Black Bloc are is violently anti-police – they frequently engage in running battles with riot police, who respond with tear gas, water canon, rubber bullets and flash grenades.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: Why do French police love to use tear gas so much?

Although they have sometimes attacked journalists covering demos, especially representatives of right-wing media, they are very rarely violent towards members of the public and, perhaps paradoxically, present little threat to passers-by.

How many of them are there?

According to French intelligence sources in 2020, there were an estimated 800 “pure members” of Black Bloc, but in 2018 at least 1,000 participated in a protest on May Day. 

As the group communicates using secure channels, like Signal, where their identities can be protected, and one tactic involves dispersing and running off in different directions after causing destruction – making it difficult for police to make arrests or identifications – the group’s true numbers are not clear.

Find out more about the black bloc protesters in our Talking France podcast

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LEARNING FRENCH

Is the English language really just ‘badly pronounced French’?

A French linguist has been making waves with his boldly-titled book 'The English language does not exist - it's just badly pronounced French', but does the professor actually have a point?

Published: 23 April 2024 14:35 CEST
Is the English language really just 'badly pronounced French'?

The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini is clear that the title of his book should be taken with humour and a pinch of salt, beginning his work by explaining that it is a ‘bad faith proposition’.

Clearly, the English language does exist and equally clearly the French are a little uneasy about it – with numerous laws, national bodies and local initiatives attempting to fight back against the anglicisms that now litter everyday speech, from ‘c’est cool’ to ‘un job’. 

But Cerquiglini argues that the supposed ‘influx’ of English words that are now used in France, especially tech-related terms, is nothing compared to what happened when French literally invaded English in the Middle Ages.

And the close similarity that the two languages enjoy today – around 30 percent of English words are of French origin – speaks to this entwined history.

“You can also see my book as an homage to the English language, which has been able to adopt so many words… Viking, Danish, French, it’s astonishing,” he told AFP.

The history

The key date in the blending of English and French is the Norman conquest of 1066, when Duke William of Normandy invaded England with a small group of Norman knights and made himself the English king William the Conqueror.

What happened next was a radical re-ordering of society in which English nobles were displaced and William’s knights were installed as a new French-speaking (or at least Norman-speaking) ruling class. 

The use of French by the ruling classes continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, by which time French was the official language of the royal courts, diplomacy, the law, administration and trade – meaning that ambitious English people had no choice but to learn French in order to take part in official or legal processes. 

Cerquiglini says that half of all English’s borrowings from French took place between 1260-1400, with a heavy slant towards words related to nobility, trade, administration or the law.

But a large group of non-native speakers meant that the French spoken in England was already starting to evolve, and the French words ended up with different pronunciations or even a different meaning. 

As early as 1175, the records show a Frenchman in England snootily remarking that: “My language is good, because I was born in France”. 

English and French started to part ways from the mid-1400s, by which time the two countries no longer shared royalty (the last English possession in France, the port of Calais, was lost to the French in 1558) and gradually systems such as the law courts and trade began to be conducted in English.

French remained widely spoken as a second language by the nobility and the elite right up until the early 20th century and French is still the most widely-taught language in UK schools.

The similarities

It’s not always easy to distinguish between English words that have a French root and those that have a Latin root, but linguists estimate that around 29 percent of English words come from French, another 29 percent from Latin, 26 percent from German and the rest from other languages.

But many of the English words that do have a clear French root are related to nobility, administration, politics and the law.

For example the French words gouvernement, parlement, autorité and peuple are clearly recognisable to English speakers. Likewise budget, revenus, enterprise and taxe, plus avocat, cour, juge, magistrat and evidence.

Amusingly, the French and the English obviously found time to share many insults, including bâtard [bastard], crétin, imbecile, brute and stupide.

Adaptation

But most of the people in England who were speaking French did not have it as their mother tongue, so the language began to adapt. For example the French à cause de literally translates into English as ‘by cause of’ which over time became the English word ‘because’.

There are also words that started out the same but changed their meaning over time – for example the English word ‘clock’ comes from the French ‘cloche’ (bell), because in the Middle Ages church bells were the most common method of keeping track of the time for most people.

When the mechanical clock began to appear from the 14th century onwards, the French used a new term – une horloge – but the English stuck with the original.

The differences

One of the big differences between English and French is that English simply has more words – there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language, compared to about 135,000 in French.

And at least part of this comes from English being a ‘blended’ language – that English people hung on to their original words and simply added the French ones, which is why you often get several different English words that have the same translation in French eg clever and intelligent both translate into French as ‘intelligent’.

Another difference represents the class divide that the Norman invasion imposed between the French nobles and the English labourers.

For example the words pig and cow both have Anglo-Saxon roots, while pork and beef come from French (porc and boeuf) – so when the animal is in the field being looked after by English peasants it has an Anglo-Saxon name, but by the time it is on the plate being eaten by posh people, it becomes French.

There’s also a tendency in English for the more everyday words to have Anglo-Saxon origins while the fancier words have French origins – eg to build (English) versus to construct (French). In French construire is used for both. Or to feed (English) versus to nourish (French) – in French both are nourrir.

Faux amis

One consequence of English and French being so closely linked in the bane of every language-learner’s life – les faux amis (false friends).

These are words that look and sound very similar, but have a completely different meaning. If you don’t know the French word for something you can have a stab at saying the English word with a French pronunciation – and often you will be right.

But sometimes you will be wrong, and sometimes it will be embarrassing.

READ ALSO The 18 most embarrassing French ‘false friends’

Often, faux amis are words that have changed their meaning in one language but not the other – for example the French word sensible means sensitive, not sensible – which is why you can buy products for peau sensible (sensitive skin).

But it once meant sensitive in English too – for example in the title of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility – over time the meaning of the English word adapted but the French one stayed the same.

The title

And a word on that title – La langue anglaise n’existe pas, C’est du français mal prononcé (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) is actually a quote from former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau.

He did apparently speak English, but doesn’t appear to have been very fond of England itself – his other well-known quote on the topic is: “L’angleterre n’est qu’une colonie français qui a mal tourné” – England is just a French colony gone wrong.  

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