Paris Police Charge Sciences Po Blockade: Tear Gas (video)
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🎥 Watch the incident video at the bottom of the page 👇
Police in Paris moved against a blockade near Sciences Po, with officers seen charging down a street and tear gas drifting over a packed crowd. On-screen text in the clip describes a tense situation in Paris and a police charge with tear gas at the Sciences Po blockade. The footage is credited to photographer Rémy Buisine and published by Brut.
A Charge Near Sciences Po
The sequence opens mid-movement. A long baton is raised above a line of heads, gas spreads past a shopfront, and officers in dark helmets push forward through the crowd.
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Moments later the camera sits behind riot police walking down the street, shields and batons in hand, as people ahead of them give ground. Several officers wear red patches with numbers on their backs, a marking visible in more than one frame.
The standoff is then shown from the police side: a dense line of people facing officers in body armour. Some in the crowd wear masks, hoods or glasses, and a red flag is held on one side. A few faces look down from balconies above the street.
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The street itself looks ordinary — shopfronts at ground level, apartment windows above, a parked van and a few pedestrians further down. The confrontation plays out inside that everyday setting, which is part of why the images land the way they do.
What the frames consistently show:
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- Officers in helmets and protective vests, several with shields
- Puffs of tear gas drifting above the crowd
- A crowded street with onlookers at windows and balconies
What the Caption Claims
The post that circulated the clip carries a caption naming Thomas Portes, a member of parliament for LFI, as present near the scene. It says he was "completely overwhelmed" and wanted to face the officers himself — an assertion made by the account that published the video, not a statement from police or from the politician.
Nothing in the frames clearly identifies him among those standing opposite the police line. That does not make the claim false; it means it cannot be checked from the images alone.
The caption also refers to a blocus, the French term for a protest that physically blocks access to a campus or building. That framing sets the scene as a standoff over access rather than a march.
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The Only Audible Line
The recording carries almost no speech. One shouted line is clearly audible:
"Let's go!"
Whether it comes from an officer, a demonstrator or someone watching from the pavement is not clear. Beyond that single moment, the clip is dominated by movement rather than words.
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Why the Scene Matters
Footage like this travels before anyone has the full picture, and here the caption arrived ahead of the crowd's own account. A police charge and tear gas at a campus blockade raise familiar questions: who ordered the move, how people on the street were behaving at that moment, and whether the force used matched the situation. The clip answers none of them.
The material drew massive attention as it circulated, and no official conclusion yet appears in anything reviewed here. The account that shared the video has a clear point of view, and the recording covers only a short stretch of one street. That is why the same few seconds can be read in more than one way.
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For anyone following from outside France, the mechanics of the dispute matter less than the pattern it repeats: a short clip, a loaded caption, and an audience asked to decide what it believes before the facts catch up.
- What happened before the charge started
- How long the confrontation lasted
- Whether anyone was injured or detained
Some details remain unverified, including who was where when the charge began.
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What should settle a dispute like this — the order given on the ground, or the record the cameras leave behind?
This story was edited from a publicly posted video; some details may not be independently verified. According to Brut, with footage credited to Rémy Buisine.