Yep! My first bruises from a police baton stayed with me for almost 2 months (they got me in the ribs) but I showed them off with pride! The comradery at protests is amazing, and the contacts you make are for a lifetime!

I've been to many protests, and oddly enough i enjoy the feeling of freedom. Normal traffic rules don't apply and there are no cars, suddely you can walk in the middle of the street which is normally a forbidden space. You can dance, you can shoot fireworks in the middle of town, you can do loads of things that you normally can't.

Normally there's a nebulous sense that this space doesn't belong to us, it belongs to landlords and the state maybe? You don't feel a sense of ownership. But when it's being taken over by people in an unorganized way, now it feels like this space belongs to you.

And yes i'm french lmao

Not especially, I've always had claustrophobia in large crowds, even stuff like concerts. I'm maybe too keenly aware of how easily people can get trampled in crowds.

Sometimes it can be fun, I've had a fair bit of fun during some rallies by handing my megaphone to loads of different people, we had a counter protest back in April that turned into a dance party too.

I've also been to plenty of scary ones. I had one where I had to run away from violent cops and change into a different outfit behind dumpsters. Sometimes the adrenaline can be fun if it's a more spicy action, usually the nerves go away once you get started.

I don't like multitudes so no. They tend to be stressful. And for the ones I went alone without knowing anyone I felt a lot of social anxiety.

But sometimes you gotta go even if it's not pleasant.

I have sensory issues and don't handle crowds or noise well, I have fun for a little bit if it's not all too crowded, but then I crash hard while still there. After 1st of May I slept 19:00-11:00. And that's in a country where the very worst I've personally witnessed police do was surround and unjustly arrest people. But if I can spare the resources, it's totally worth it.

Back in the day I participated in poll tax protests (fuck Thatcher) and later in some Reclaim the Streets protests.

The poll tax ones were quite tense. What with that and the miners there was a lot of political anger at the time.

The latter were much more fun and often had a chill family feel to them. Such a mix of people from families with small kids to crusties to clubbers with kick ass sound systems. Occasionally you’d see a couple of the “fuck a copper” brigade but they were mostly chill.

I found them fun in the 90s. Now that I’m in my 50s and take longer to recover from bumps, bruises, and batons than I did in my 20s, it’s not as fun.