Protesters

On Friday January 5th Robert and I opened up the church for tourists visits as usual. At around 2pm a large group of people came in, I thought they were just a group of tourists so I was merrily telling their leader about our services and the church open hours. But actually they weren’t really particularly interested because it turned out they were an association of asylum seekers who were protesting against Sarkozy! They were a group of about 50 men, women and children. They shut the front door of the church and barricaded other doors. I looked out the window and saw that the police were already outside. A journalist had managed to get in with us too and was asking Robert and me questions and trying to get hold of Gilles who was in Lyon. It was difficult trying to talk to her, knowing that she was writing down everything we said and seemed to be trying to put a negative spin on things. Most of the church council members were away from Paris and so there was only Robert and me as representatives. The asylum seekers were a bit disappointed to have only two clueless English students to discuss with. There weren’t any problems, all the people who had encamped in the church were peaceful and just put posters up and sat there talking. Gilles was in contact with us by mobile phone (whilst on a train back from Lyon) and gave us instructions to just wait it out - he was in contact with the authorities and everything was under control. In the end it all lasted about four hours. The police were let in a side door by one of the church members with a key. They were very professional and immediately gathered the protesters into a group. The policeman in charge came and told me what was happening and what they were going to do – just get the protesters out onto the street as the church council had decided not to press charges. The protesters left very easily, just with a lot of shouting and waving of banners. God most definitely had his hand on the situation, apparently these protests quite often end violently with a lot of things being broken. It was unusual that the protesters left so easily without leaving behind too much damage. Thank the Lord! It was definitely an experience. At first I was quite anxious because I didn’t know what was going on. But after realising that there wasn’t any threat and having talked to Gilles and knowing that everything was under control it wasn’t too bad – God was looking after us. This sort of thing definitely doesn’t happen back in my church in my little English village! It’s so difficult to know what to do in these situations, obviously the church council couldn’t discuss things with the asylum seekers at the time. The church agreed with some of the points that they made but certainly not all. When there is such a mix of people, situations and demands in one place it’s difficult to be able to act accordingly when you can’t agree with and support everybody. For the cases with which the church council agrees it is willing to do what it can to help and raise awareness. But hijacking a church is not really an appropriate way to do this. Gilles was in contact with the leader of the association in the days following the event.