For the last few weeks, students across France have been protesting teacher shortages and chronic underfunding in their schools. But what began in high schools has since grown into a wider movement, uniting not only students, but trade unionists, parents and workers demanding better living conditions in the country.
This weekend (October 24), thousands more people took to the streets of Paris. Among them was photographer Chanel Victor, who documented a day’s rapidly shifting atmosphere on film.
Her early images, shot in colour, capture a march that began with music, dancing, singing and a sense of collective hope. “At first, it was very peaceful,” Victor recalls.
“People were celebrating, singing and standing together. It felt almost like spending a day with a huge family.”
This time, the crowd – which included people of all ages, including families with young children – were making a broader call for a brighter future, and an end to the spiralling cost of living crisis. “A lot of it felt like it was for the youth, for their future and the future of France,” she says.
However, as the day went on, the atmosphere shifted. Protesters “threw stones and glass”, and police responded with force, including tear gas and water cannons.
As tensions escalated, Victor switched to black-and-white film to capture the growing sense of menace and hostility. “The colour images reflect the joy, the life, and the collective energy of the day,” she explains.
“The black-and-white images speak to something darker: the tension, the violence, and how the atmosphere changed toward the end.”
For Victor, it was important to document both sides of the demonstration, and for her photos to reflect its inherent contradictions. There is, as she says, no single narrative. “A protest is never just one thing,” she says. “It's joy and anger, hope and frustration, people coming together and being pushed to their limits. I wanted the images to hold all of that.”
To see more of Victor’s work, follow her on Instagram here .
Photographer Chanel Victor takes Dazed inside the latest Paris protests, capturing a day of dancing, defiance and escalating tensions