THIS WEEK IN PROTEST — Photos of Loi Travail Clashing with Police, APRIL 7, 2016.

Photographer Maxime Lamboley sees how demonstration gets violent

Published in

Homeland Is Not a Series.

3 min readApr 9, 2016

Protesters have gathered at the Gare de Lyon station, where Maxime Lamboley started his photo report. Photo by **Maxime Lamboley**

Photographing clashes between protesters and police is like being between a rock and a hard place. Not every photographer will risk going in between police baton smashing a protester or a fist of a demonstrator hitting the policeman back. It’s risky for anyone, especially if you are a photographer. A photographer can be either physically hurt taking pictures of a protest, or in the best case scenario, get their equipment broken.

Maxine Lamboley, a photographer from Paris, took that gamble and risked his health and equipment to document historical events that are happening right now in Paris.

Special Report.

At first, when the police faced a group of protesters, it was hard to predict whether there was going to be a clash or not.

After provocations from both the police and demonstrators sides, anger started to boil. Protesters used smoke bombs, while police responded with tear gas.

Some of demonstrators threw the police granades back at them.

Each person who has attended a protest at least once in their lives can tell you — the main task of the police is to stay organized. Demonstators can disperse and rapidly reform into new groups. However, police cannot break away from their unit incase they become surrounded larger group of protesters.

The police tried to stay united as a large group in facing the protesters in Paris.

French demonstrators introduced a new way of tackling the police. They used paint bombs, covering police with yellow paint.

There were several injuries and arrests made by police that day. The photo below shows a paramedic treating an injured demonstrator, hit by a police baton in the head.