Clashes erupt at Paris train station

PARIS - Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, officials said. Nine people were arrested.

Officials said about 100 people were involved in the melee at Gare du Nord, one of Paris' most important transport hubs. Officers and police dogs fired tear gas and charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods and swinging metal bars.

Some pictures taken by people who were there....



From Atlantic, a poster on a French forum: "Commuters who do didn't seem really scared by the clashes, and stopped to watch the "show" and take pics and videos..."

Another little piece of Paris that the youths are trying to make their own. It doesn't take much of this to make law abiding people go around the long way.

France recently passed a law making it illegal for normal citizens to take pictures or videos that were not for the sole use of the State. I wonder if the commuters who took these pictures could be liable for prosecution?

Apparently not.

The law was passed ostensibly to stop the craze of 'happy slapping'....taking video of one of your buds smacking a stranger and then posting the video on the web. That law doesn't specifically say that tho, and could be used for anything the State wants to use it for....slippery slope and all that.