Prague atmosphere. The students on strike, the population behind
(archives) When I arrived this morning in Prague, I felt that the day was extraordinary. Already crossing the border by car, you could feel a singular difference. The customs officers who had abandoned their devastating arrogance and contented themselves with a purely formal check let me imagine the rest.
The rhythm in the capital is a little more active in the morning than in Paris. At 4 o'clock, the streets come alive. At XNUMX o'clock, everyone is in the trams and the metro. At six, the street regains a semblance of calm.
Place Wencelas, these are the last major preparations. The students of the day relieved those of the night. Hot drinks and food circulate. People from the "city" bring, who blankets, who food.
In all the places where we can make a projection, we project the images of the last demonstrations, especially that of Friday, the hardest. Here, it's a theater that serves, there a café, elsewhere, we have simply plugged in the loudspeakers of a household goods store outside.
Everyone reads on the walls with avidity, everyone's comments on the news. If there's a line in front of the stores, it's not for the food. But rather to listen to a speaker or read these modern dizzabao.
Czechoslovak colours, which have become the rallying sign of the opposition, are found everywhere: on cars, on the subways, on official monuments. All participate. And there are countless shops displaying Stavk (strike)
The Civic Forum is getting organized in a hasty feverishness: three committees have been created, an Information Committee, an Organization Committee and a working group.
New fact, everywhere we discuss. Which gives a strange atmosphere. In the basements of the metro, you could almost hear dust crunching under people's soles, while higher up, on the surface or on the mezzanine, conversations, harangues, cries of joy mingle... Tirelessly, again and again , people look at each other, discuss... and leave more determined than ever.
The Czechoslovak people seem determined, determined to end it: We want more freedoms, we want the communist government gone, we want real democracy." are the three main ones of their demands. Faced with this, the government remains undecided and there are more and more differences. In fact, the Czechoslovak opening is doomed... to succeed.
We can no longer say today that the protest movement is a youth movement. Admittedly, young people form the backbone, the apparent aspect. But it is indeed the whole of the population which has decided, are there behind them. The 1968 veterans giving advice to the 1989 newcomers.
Nicolas Gros Verheyde
(first atmospheric paper, produced for Kiss Fm Paris)
