PARIS, FRENCH REPUBLIC, June 26 (HNS) -- The French Republic's police, wielding their batons, charged more than 40,000 students, teachers and supporters who had marched towards the University of the Sorbonne in Paris, which had been sealed off by the police the day before.
While the crowd dispersed, some began to create barricades out of whatever was at hand, while others threw paving stones, forcing the police to retreat for a time. The police then responded with tear gas and charged the crowd again. Hundreds of students were arrested, and many more were wounded.
The French Republic's national student union, the UNEF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France) and the union of university teachers had called a march to protest against the police invasion of the Sorbonne.
Only the day before, reports had begun to circulate that President Charles De Gaulle, whose presence has been holding the French Republic together for the last four decades, took a turn to the worse so severe that even the official media had to admit De Gaulle was in a coma, and might not survive past July.
"The anarchist, anti-conservative wing of French politics has been emboldened by De Gaulle's failing health," said Dr. Terence Simonds of the Political Science Department at Penn State. "What, in mainline history, broke out in 1968, has finally broken out in De Gaulle France after 41 years."
Events are only just now leaking out of the country. The French media said nothing until the story was broken on the French Republic's tiny Internet community, on various blogs on all sides of the political spectrum. Once the foreign press got wind of the story through Internet sources, the official press was given free reign to speak on the issue.
According to the blogs, it turns out that on June 24, following months of conflicts between students and authorities at the University of Paris at Nanterre, the administration shut down that university.
On June 25, Students at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris met to protest against the closure of Nanterre and the threatened expulsion of several students at Nanterre, leading to the police invasion that sparked today's protests.
The French Republic has only had an Internet for about a year, after making contact with Team B of the JET and opening communications with Penn State. The Internet is currently concentrated in large universities, which is how the news of these events leaked to the Republic's students despite blackouts that were in the media.
In addition, since several of the French Republic's best medical minds are associated with the unversities, the news of Charles De Gaulle's condition leaked to student anarchist groups via the French Republic's Internet.
"The people of De Gaulle France are not yet used to how fast information can be passed through the Internet, even when it's in the rudementary state that it's in when we're talking about the French Republic," said Dr. Simonds.
The French Republic, aka "De Gaulle France," is a Thread that split off from main continuity in 1968, with a current year of 2009. The Thread stops almost exactly at the political borders of 1960s France, and is mostly self-sufficient, with some trade via sea Gates, which only exist in the Atlantic ports of the country. It has a technology level consistent with 1970s France (Penn State Tech Level 6), and has a Kellner rating of zero.
