PARIS – On a recent light night, a group of four young women wandered the peaceful neighborhood of East Paris, equipped with backpacks full of glue buckets, paint brushes and posters.
They were looking for a surface of paper with a complete message.
“There, it’s not bad, is it?” Wear black, as he pointed to a 20-foot-long wall on the east side of the Marais neighborhood, Astrid told Tan. His companion in arms was Chloe Madesta, holding the bucket and nodding.
A well-choreographed immediately operation began immediately: first, one woman wiped a little glue on the wall, then another woman pasted the page, while a third dripped down the second layer of glue.
Less than seven minutes later, the words came to the wall: “You said you love me, but it was rape.”
For almost a year, posters condemning sexual abuse and murder of women – women killed because of their race – have been posted on public walls by hundreds of people in Paris despite what is considered sabotage and illegal.
The posters are the work of feminist activists who have taken to the streets with a massive poster campaign aimed at raising awareness of the violent crimes committed against women by their current, criticizing the French government’s response to the growing problem of domestic violence. Or former partners.
“Our goal is to bring these facts before the eyes so that no one can look them in the eye,” Ms. Madesta said. “Because this violence always stays in the shadows.”
On the sandstones in the middle of the city there are cold slogans reading “Daddy killed mom” or “She leaves him, reads him”. There is a “no silent consent” statement on the canal bridge in northern Paris. Long messages about the deaths of women at the hands of their partners are spread with mines in the outskirts of the city.
Posters have gradually become a fixture of the capital’s landscape, so common that many Parisians have gone through at least many people.
Women want messages that “come daily, normal life fodder”, Ms. Madesta said. “That’s what causes this violence.”
Messages Who owns the streets has become a potential battleground. Posters are regularly torn or painted with paint by passengers, but activists fix the damage, restoring words.
The bold graphic identification of black, large letters drawn on a white sheet of paper draws posters to their greater power: simple, sober, and recognizable.
“With this style, we’re looking for the original side of the message, the literality,” Ms. Madesta said. “There’s no metaphor in what we paste, no poetry.”
The postering technique is simple and inexpensive, helping to explain why messages appear so quickly everywhere.
The campaign is the work of a new feminist group, “Les Collus,” or “The Glauers,” started by Marguerite Stern, who, in the summer of 2019, made a call on a social network. Dozens of women responded. Now about 1,500 workers have joined the postering operation.
“I think it has something to do with Paris,” she said. Stern responded strongly to his initial call. “It’s a city with a lot of young women, students, a huge activist network.”
Activists say the papering walls enable them to expose any reality, domestic violence, which often pervades the private sector, but also allow them to reclaim the space – the alley – where many women feel vulnerable.
But the operation itself is not without risk.
As Mrs. Tennon was pasting her third poster at night, along with Anne-Elizabeth Ropertz, they heard what sounded like a police siren.
“Oh no!” Ms. Ropertz, 24, said he was on tiptoes to paste a half-finished poster. It turned out that the sirens came from the ambulance that preceded the group.
“The situation is becoming increasingly tense,” Ms. Tennon, 26, the play coach, who said he has years of experience, being harassed by men on the street.
Although officers initially turned a blind eye, they have recently started sabotaging as police have stopped more activists. The maximum fine for vandalism can reach up to 4,500.
Some pedestrians verbally confronted the activists.
“It causes an acute inflammation, but that’s definitely what’s best about it,” Ms. Madesta, 27, whose clothes were stained with glue, he said. “It means our struggles and our determination are starting to move.”
In the eastern Paris neighborhood where some feminists had gathered last night, the group found a place for their work on a pale gray wall.
One man shouted “Police! Police! “I saw the women and put up posters. But other locals jumped out of the windows of their apartment apartment and expressed support.
Khalid Bakri, a 42-year-old wholesaler who accidentally sat on a bench near the wall, was vague about the effectiveness of the women’s fight.
“He can change things and he can’t change anything,” Mr Bakri said.
Last year, 146 women in France were killed by their current or former partners, an increase of 21 percent from 2018, according to government data. In November, the government introduced new measures to tackle the problem like more education and more social workers. Police stations. Activists say the effort is not going well enough and comes at a low cost.
Street-level activism by women has a long history in Paris, and Gloucester is part of the French tradition of “feminists, who sometimes challenge these illegal actions, through these barriers” to a stable order in people’s daily lives, BBA Power said. Having scholars.
There is a very long history of posters here. Their widespread use for sharing and advertising ideas began in Paris in the late 19th century. But today posters can extend their messages beyond the wall where they are placed.
Pictures of the posters, which have about 70,000 followers, have been posted on Gluers ’Instagram account, essentially giving a second life to messages that may not last long on the streets.
Thanks to social networks, the postering movement has spread to many other French cities and Belgium and Italy.
Ms. Madesta said she was afraid of the streets until she started using it as a platform for activism. In late 2019, she pasted her story as the daughter of an alcoholic father who beat her and her mother.
Sticking to messages condemning domestic violence is a method that is so empowering and that allows you to change your relationship with the world, with others, with the street. ‘
Ms. Tennon agrees. He said, “It’s stupid, but from the moment we have our bucket, our glue and our paintbrush, we feel invincible.”
