Since I couldn't remember who you were (or maybe seeing you around), I went to see your info and from there proceeded on to the blog that your info links to. I read David Cass' (is that you, or your friend?) entry on being beaten up by youths, and I've got to say I'm sorry about this bad experience, I sympathise with his/your anger (I've been gang-beaten once in my life before, and I can confirm that it isn't exactly a thrill), and am sorry about the camera, but I disagree with some or all of the conclusions a heated-up reaction seems to lead to. Indeed I find it manipulative to talk about youths beating up people for attention, when you have no more than a hundred violent youths in a crowd of 700,000 people in paris. That's about 0.01%. In Toulouse I have not yet seen any violence against demonstrators (or any violence at all, in fact, but there have been a few police charges against people trying to climb onto the balcony of Town Hall, which I wasn't around to see).

The CPE is a complex matter, and protesting against it must not be dismissed as an absurdity just because of a sour experience.