Word: gabriels
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...saying no to the tyranny of time, no to the merciless onslaught of the calendar, and yes to staying put in 2008," says a man who identifies himself as Marie-Gabriel, a militant member of the Fonacon group, which is organizing its fourth annual anti-New Year protest under the slogan "2009 Stays In Its Shell." "Last year we warned a mocking world that 2008 would be horrible compared to 2007, and we were right. This time everyone acknowledges 2009 will be terrible, so now is the moment to unite together and refuse this new, rotten year!" (Read TIME...
...seriously bleak as 2009 is expected to be, a call to mount barricades and bar the New Year's arrival sounds like a gag even in strike-happy France. That's because Fonacon's protest is decidedly tongue in cheek - though don't expect Marie-Gabriel to admit it. In videos on the group's website, fonacon.net, he dons the signature black balaclava of guerrilla commandos as he calls sympathizers into action...
...making a mockery of two particularly French traits: a penchant for protesting whatever navel special-interest groups happen to be gazing into, and the glorification of the chic, well-heeled soirée as an art form," says Marie-Gabriel, who in 2005 co-founded the Opposition Front to the New Year: National Organization Committee, devising the group's name exclusively so that its French acronym, Fonacon, would be homonymous with the phrase "telephone an a__hole." (Its year-end protest slogans are equally risible, including last year's motto, "It Was Better Right Now.") Fonacon and its futile protest...
...Marie-Gabriel says he saw similar potential in mocking the sparkling, de rigueur New Year's Eve festivities that many French admit to hating. "It started with me and another guy realizing most New Year's Eves in France are just really boring evenings people are forced into with others they neither know nor like," he recalls. "So we started holding anti-New Year protest parties for people wanting an alternative - and an excuse to demonstrate! Sure, 98% of France thinks we're losers, but the 2% who get it make it worthwhile...
...tearing up agendas, smashing clocks and otherwise attacking symbols of time. Another appeal to restless New Year's Eve souls in 2006 brought more than 1,000 to Nantes. Last year Fonacon attracted more than 10,000 people with its party-cum-protest in Paris. This year Marie-Gabriel jokingly boasts that he expects "between five and 50,000 people, give or take a few," but then confides that Fonacon's rendezvous point on the Vendéen island le Noirmoutier - chosen because it's a good place to attempt to halt the incoming tide, and thereby stop the earth...