May Day

Lily-of-the-valley (muguet in France) is France's traditional May Day flower (la fête du travail, or labor day over here). It has a very light scent used in perfumes and is highly poisonous--the flower, that is, not the holiday. Muguet is traditionally sold tax-free on May Day, principally by labor organizations but also by anyone who sets up a table or booth on any street.

Muguet et sucre.

It's also traditional in France to hold May Day protests and demonstrations. This year's actions promised to resume expressing the nation's vast dissatisfaction with the recent change in retirement age from 62 to 64. As of 5 pm local time, there have been reports in Paris of dozens of arrests and at least one seriously injured police officer. Water cannons and tear gas were used to disperse protesters at Place de la Nation in the 11th Arrondissement. In Marseille, the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel was briefly "occupied" by about 200 protesters.

The CGT, one of the main unions, reports about 2.3 million people turned out for demonstrations, about half a million in Paris alone. The Interior Ministry has not released its full estimates, but the Paris police reported about 100,000 protesters in town. So the tradition of wildly varying headcounts also continues.

As usual, though, all is quiet in the 16th Arr. And poisonous or not, the scent of muguet is definitely preferred to the stench of tear gas and burning trash. 

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