Overwhelming Majority of Loyal Patriotic Citizens Update: “Tension as party goes flat on Champs Elysees,” from AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:
PARIS (AFP) – First there was hope and expectation, then there was undiluted joy, a reality check, exasperation, despair and finally deflation – that was the Champs Elysees during the World Cup final….
The only happy people, barring pockets of celebrating Italians, seemed to be those for whom the result bore little consequence to their reason for hitting the Champs – trouble….
Crowds of blue shirted people headed one way while gangs of rowdy young men headed the other.
Youths waving flags – not French or Italian but Algerian and Turkish – ran around shouting and cheering….
Were they the same as these “young men”?
But there was also a sinister side lurking in the shadows.
Other than around the Arc itself, the crowds were hardly heaving but young men loitered in darkened pockets of the Champs, just yards away from riot police.
Up by the Arc itself was the biggest police presence and it did not take long for the first baton charge to be launched.
Hundreds of young men, clearly angling for trouble, squeezed in and around the Arc. A flare was thrown into the crowd of people, the police braced themselves and the fleeing began, swiftly followed by a charge.