Manifest destiny

I went to my first French demonstration a few weeks ago. The universities are having weekly "manifestations" against the proposed reforms of the government, which would do various things, among them increasing teaching loads, making graduate students more fireable (?), and making it more difficult for high school teachers to complete training.  It's pretty impressive that they can get 1000+ every week to march Thursday at 2 pm for two hours, and also impressive that Lyon lets them shut down the center of the city to do it.  Some slogans (that I caught) from the march:

Mar, Mar, Mar

Marcel Proust

La recherche n'est pas de temps perdu

Lyon 1, Lyon 2, Lyon 3, Sarko-zero

[when asked for an explanation, one guy I was with said that 3-0 is a very important score in France, since France won its only World Cup in 1998 against Brazil 3-0.  The better explanation is that there are 3 main universities in Lyon, named Lyon 1, Lyon 2, Lyon 3.]

Sarko, cedez

Sinon, on viendra

avec des bazookas

[Sarko, give up, if not, we'll come with bazookas]

A sign with an arrow pointing down at the holder, saying

"Future chercheur . . . du travail!"

[Future (re-)searcher . . . of work!  That guy was in the math department.  He's right.]

At one point, the march started to disintegrate, with large portions of it cutting across a square, seemingly to take a more direct route.  I, as well as my companions, were confused.  Eventually, I discovered the facts: a bus/van was set up by the UMP (Sarkozy's party -- a crucial fact I took a while to learn) to campaign for the European elections.  The demonstration, being basically anti-Sarkozy, devolved into a protest against the two or three people in the van, who were surrounded by a ring of police.  Video is available, and the story says that three eggs were thrown at the vehicle, though unfortunately neither the video nor I captured that.

The march never fully recovered, since the marchers were torn between the symbolism of the march and the action of attacking the van.