The lovely Eiffel taken just below the structure
On the 20th July,while my wife was shopping, I went to catch a glimpse of Paris' most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower.
As I approached the tower from the Metro, there were many vendors of different origins, I imagine they must be immigrants from the past colonies. Algeria,Senegal,French Guinea and Vietnam spring to mind. The most prevalent were the African vendors probably from Senegal, selling all kinds of trinkets from small Eiffel keychains to silk scarves.
His countrymen are screaming but as more police and reinforcements come up,they back off.
At the foot of the Eiffel, I am reminded that this structure was once given to America as a gift between the French and American Governments and it is now back at its rightful place. Seeing the thousands of tourists there, I decided to take snaps of the Eiffel from various angles just for fun. At the base of the Eiffel, I milled with many photographers and tourists who were queueing to buy tickets to either take the elevators to the 1stbase, 2nd section or the top. There was the presence of armed soldiers - special operations weapons specialists who were patrolling the place to deter any suspected terrorists or any people causing trouble. Some were on foot and some were on bicycles, a smart thing given that there are masses of people in close proximity and a home made bomb or detonating device can cause massive collateral damage. So the need for heightened vigilance.
A second vendor is arrested while the first guy is still wrestled on the ground - all this in full view of about 2,000 tourists just standing metres away
Suddenly, without warning, I heard shouting and the soldiers made a beeline for someone, before I know it, 2 soldiiers wrestle a Senegalese vendor to the ground and pin him there. What I didn't expect next was that, in a flash, ALL the Senegal vendors started screaming and became very hostile swinging their goods and taunting the soldiers.There was a tense standoff and I, bouyed by my karate training and slight sense of bravado, started taking pictures barely 10 feet away of the standoff. All this in front of thousands of tourists and onlookers !
Verbal taunts and tense situation with army people with submachineguns
There a few pushes and staring going on and the vedors told some tourists to backoff. Police reinforcements started filtering in - seems like they were prepared for this kind of situation on a regular basis. The vendors got really angry and one guy who shoved the policeman got caught and was handcuffed.
Suddenly about 20 vendors start to faceoff with the army
The rest of them started to shout and curse and the police came in in droves. The Senegalses started to back away and made a hasty retrest,but you could see the killer stares. Calm was restored and the Eiffel looked as resplendent as ever in the morning Sun.
A Senegalese vendor is wresteld to the ground by 2 army personnel, he had stolen something
It was going to be a lovely day.More of that in a later blog.
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