Day 44 Part 2: Tear Gas at the Fireworks and Other Things the French Police Can Do

So tonight was the fireworks and I didn't plan on a second blog entry for it but I feel like I have to because I'm sort of in shock about what exactly the French police can do. I've seen them chase and grab people on the street, trap us underground in the metro, and hit ladies in the head which was all disturbing but tonight was pretty bad. We arrived at the fireworks at around 8 and stayed and ate a dinner and played cards for 3 hours until the fireworks started. However when the time came around and we realized there was a better section to sit in some of us tried to move our seats. By this time there was a barricade though and nobody could get through and there were police everywhere. I saw somebody further along the barricade jump over it undetected so we started walking that way. That's when this old lady passed by me crying and saying something fast in French which I didn't really understand. I then smelled the worst smell in my life, and my eyes were tearing. By the time I saw a 20 something year old girl on the ground crying I realized that it must be tear gas and I tried to leave the area. This was a hard feat because the tear gas was everywhere and you couldn't really breathe in without inhaling it all which made you cough and tear up. It was so scary and we were all in a panic. I just couldn't believe that they could do this to the public. We were at the Eiffel Tower for Bastille Day fireworks and there were kids and babies around.
After the fireworks, which were absolutely amazing, we walked to the nearest metro and had to go from metro to metro since there were police at each keeping them closed. By the time we found an open metro there were so many people I could barely breathe, I felt like if the metro had taken a sharp turn I would have broken a rib. All in all tonight was crazy and even though the fireworks were the best I'd ever seen in my life, I'm still not sure that it was worth the panic and the fear. I would love to know what happened that warranted a tear gas spray on a crowd which was mainly tourists and families.