Étienne Jarrier says CRS continued gassing orchestra after crowd dispersed

Orchestra members had asked CRS for warning before gas deployment

As riot police encircled Place de la République last Saturday and fired tear-gas canisters to disperse demonstrators, Étienne Jarrier and the Orchestre du Nouveau Monde played on, The Guardian reported. They kept playing after nearly everyone else had disappeared and tear gas was still being fired into the central Paris square. Tear-gas canisters landed in double bass and music stand cases and ignited fires that musicians had to extinguish, Jarrier said. After 20 minutes, Jarrier stopped the orchestra, whose volunteer security personnel then formed a human chain between the musicians and police.

The confrontation turns on an unanswered question: why CRS officers continued using tear gas after the orchestra had disclosed its planned performance and the surrounding crowd had dispersed. Jarrier said orchestra members notified representatives that they would be present and performing and requested warning if police planned to charge or gas the square. The representatives said they would provide warning. His account does not identify any police orders or reasons for the continued use of tear gas.

The Guardian reported that Place de la République was the starting point for the official demonstration by high-school students protesting what it called “a failing and unjust education system” and by unions angry over the government’s failure to address wider grievances. Jarrier invited musicians with instruments to gather there before the official march scheduled for 1pm. He called the gathering a “convergence of struggles” and said the orchestra’s political involvement made its presence necessary. Between 400 and 500 musicians gathered, Jarrier said. “We planned to make music when it set off,” he added.

During a rehearsal, a happy crowd of people of all ages gathered around the orchestra, Jarrier said. He had reassured the musicians that police would not use tear gas or charge a peaceful gathering. Tear-gas canisters then began landing around the orchestra rather than directly at the musicians. As the rehearsal continued, the square emptied until almost nobody remained except the orchestra, after which Jarrier said CRS officers continued to gas the group. Jarrier said he ordered the musicians to stop only after noticing they were being directly targeted.

Jarrier said the aim was to clear a peaceful crowd from the square, which he called serious and something he had not seen before. He described what happened to the musicians:

“There were teargas canisters landing in the double bass and music stand cases, and starting fires the musicians had to stamp out.”

“After 20 minutes we had no choice but to stop playing,” he said.

Jarrier described the musicians as “stunned” and “truly shocked” and said, “It was quite scary.”

Photographs showed Jarrier with his baton raised against the backdrop of the 10-metre-high bronze monument representing Marianne, a symbol of the French republic. A dense white cloud of tear gas hung over Place de la République while the orchestra continued performing.

The Orchestre du Nouveau Monde, also known as ONM or the New World Orchestra, is a Paris-based ensemble used to accompanying protests and co-founded by Jarrier in 2022. It comprises hundreds of young professional and amateur musicians, all volunteers, and combines classical performance with activism on social and climate justice. The orchestra describes itself as “anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, environmentalist and committed to de-growth”. The ensemble also seeks to bring classical music to younger audiences rather than its traditional “white bourgeois and elderly” following.

The orchestra has performed at earlier political actions. In 2022, it played at the foot of a melting Alpine glacier. Two years later, it performed outside the headquarters of the Rassemblement National, or RN, using a parody of an anthem popular with Marshal Pétain’s Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis. The Guardian described the RN as far-right and Marine Le Pen as its Eurosceptic leader. Last year, it formed a welcoming committee outside a television station for Marine Le Pen and played the EU anthem and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Jarrier, 25, said the orchestra was happy to play at demonstrations because France has anthems for social struggles, including the Marseillaise and the International, along with activist music from earlier centuries. He said it was important to play music that appeals to new generations. For recent protests, the orchestra’s repertoire has included The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games and the theme from Marvel’s The Avengers film. “Music from a superhero movie on a day of social struggle seemed appropriate,” he said.

Jarrier studied classical music and clarinet until he was 17 and is a self-taught conductor. His late father was a photographer and his mother is an archeologist.

The Guardian wrote that “French security forces, including the CRS riot police, were unimpressed.” It reported that CRS squads, often nicknamed “Robocops,” had been widely criticized for aggressive policing of recent demonstrations, particularly their extensive use of stun grenades, which emit a deafening explosion, flash-balls, baton charges and tear gas against protesters. The Guardian assessed that the CRS “seemed impotent to stop those looting shops and destroying public buildings.”

Jarrier said: “We are very angry about what happened.” He called the episode an “extremely serious shift in maintaining order” and said the government was not listening to demands and was responding with police rather than politics. In his view, making the incident about violent police repression diverted attention from demands for better public services and better lives. “We are not the martyrs, but the image of an orchestra being gassed should be an alarm signal,” he said.

The French Ministry of Defence and Paris police prefecture were asked to comment on the tear gas used at Place de la République but did not respond. The absence left Jarrier’s account of the sequence and the reasons for the continued use of tear gas without an official explanation.

After MSI reported that French police were pursuing suspects after weekend violence, this account focused on Jarrier’s allegation that CRS officers kept gassing musicians at Place de la République after the crowd dispersed. The earlier report centered on arrests, looting and damaged public buildings; this report adds the conductor’s firsthand account of an announced, peaceful performance and the absence of an official response.