I found your site from the link on Ace of Spades. After reading your post about trying to do your man on the street interviews I HAD to contact you.

I have some experience trying to talk to average French folks in the streets of France as I am a Mormon and served my mission in France from 2002 to 2004. While the tactic I’m about to give you is not one I personally used, several people I met (not of the Mormon faith) used it to discuss their faith with others. If you want to talk to a French person, the most luck you’ll have is by setting up in a sidewalk cafe probably over by the Universities or near the Chatlet Les Halles Metro Station (since it’s one of the busiest in all of Paris). Have an obvious empty chair in front of you and your sign. You’re basically inviting them to sit down with you and discuss things over drinks. Then they’ll talk. For hours. But remember, you invite, you pay. This wasn’t well suited for religious discussions but for general economic discussions you’ll do fine.

As for the police roundup, from my experience they do that from time to time because they are trying to catch undocumented illegal aliens (generally from Africa). The turnstile jumping is a common practice and they’ll do periodic checks of everybody getting off or on at a metro station to catch turnstile jumpers (those without a ticket).

The 3 team automatic weapons sweeps at the Christmas Market are probably a bit unusual but you’ll frequently see them at airports and busy tourist destinations. France is not exempt from Islamic terrorism so they’re probably at the Christmas market to deter that. The catch with those teams is that there is usually one guy who DOESN’T carry an obvious weapon and if you look really closely at the automatic weapons, you’ll notice they don’t have clips in them. They don’t trust their own police to carry loaded automatic weapons around so the guy without a rifle carries the bullets and distributes them when the shooting starts.

As for the “Occupy” protest, if you see a bunch of people that look like they belong with the Occupy crowd but no tents, no obvious protest signs but a lot of dogs, those are just the SDF’s of France. That’s San Domicile Fixe: Homeless. Since France is such a generous socialist state, generally you’re only homeless if you want to be. So think of them as a cross between punks and hobos. They’re generally pretty low in the social order and looked down on in France. I was told they keep dogs so that they won’t be arrested since they are responsible for the care of the animals. They sit around town squares smoking, drinking, fighting and begging. They’re probably not the best for interviews. I’d advise you to steer clear. If they have tents and signs, they might be part of the occupy movement but my money is they’re just SDFs.

I can’t think of anything else at the moment but I look forward to reading your other posts and If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thanks
Nathan