An original translation by Michael Laudahn:

Le Monde

How was the 15 september Paris demonstration against the film Innocence of Muslims organised, which ended with 152 arrests? Beyond its spontaneous and ‘unofficial’ character, because non-declared with the préfecture,  AFP and the police report that the assembly near the american Paris embassy came about following mobiliser appeals sent via SMS [text message service], and through the social networks.

Contacted by Le Monde, Samir Amghar, researcher at the EHESS [Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales] and the Institut d’Etudes de l’Islam et des Sociétés Musulmanes, moreover assures not having seen appeals to this demonstration in the traditional french salafist blogosphere.

According to him, it [the demo] was rather the feat ‘of youngsters between 18 and 35 years of age, originating from the second generation of moslem immigrants, re-islamised and living in the quartiers populaires’ [ZUS, banlieue, ghetto, défavorisé, etc]. And who used the contempo methods to mobilise for a cause, among which, the appeals via Facebook and Twitter.

On Facebook, the ‘Manifestation à Paris contre le film Innoncence of Muslims’ page counted more than 4 000 subscribers in the morning of monday 17 september. Created wednesday 12 september, this page adopted the logo ‘Don’t touch my prophete’ [‘Touche pas à mon prophète’] as a profile image on 13 september, which is two days prior to the demonstration. It is a variation of the slogan ‘Touche pas à mon pote’ [Don’t touch my buddy] coined by SOS Racisme, and likewise the title of an ouevre written in 1985 by Harlem Désir, who then was its president.

This image can be found again on other sites, like ‘Tous contre le film Innocence of Muslims’ [everybody against…] or ‘Tous contre le film qui insulte et critique notre bien-aimé Prophète’ […which insults and criticises our much beloved prophet], which do not count of more than a few hundred subscribers (see the pertaining Facebook investigation), while it also shows up among the photos of certain private profiles (exampes here  and there). Finally, this watchword was shortly found again, saturday, the day of the demonstration, among Twitter’s Trending Topics, which are the subjects that have been the most discussed on this micro-blogging site (see all the pertaining tweets). This after the cue #TouchePasAMonProphete had been launched, thursday 13 september, from the account held by the Montraynaud mosque at Saint-Etienne

[Image text: Launching hashtag #TouchePasAMonProphete @RappelduJour let’s go?]

But beyond of this claim through profile images and TT (trending topics), the french Facebook pages cited further above have been debate venues, as early as the beginning of the wave of anger against The Innocence of Muslims, regarding the question how to organise a protest assembly. Primarily on the most important page, ‘Manifestation à Paris (…)’ and its 4 000 subscribers, where the question of the image that such a mobilisation may yield is the one most debated on that day, witnessed by 140 comments under this post made on 12 september:

[Image text: Demonstration in Paris against the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ [maintaining the original’s orthography and punctuation]

You know, the demonstration to happen is not a demonstration to rock the joint we will neither provoke trouble nor disorder. We must show the good image of Islam and you know that we will only demonstrate to show our disagreement and our dissatisfaction! this film is unacceptable it is irreverent to all the moslems of the world we must moobilise, so Umma let’s be solidary, the demonstration will be prepared inshallah if there are voluntaries don’t hesitate to contact me via message or through the facebook which I posted, continue to share the link of this page the more we will be the better our message will get across!]

But this page was also a site for questions about the place and time of the event: see the question asked on 12 september  ‘Do you have any ideas for the location where we could demonstrate?’, and this 13 september post: ‘So we’ve agreed on saturday? Everybody will be there?’ This, by the way, because getting into contact with the Paris préfecture, in order to obtain the authorisation to demonstrate, lasted longer than anticipated. Fx, on 13 september – thus two days ahead of the demonstration – we could read: ‘No use counting on the Paris mairie: the préfecture doesn’t respond! It’s not easy to get an authorisation… last solution: do it [the demonstration] without it, but I’m afraid that this may escalate! In this case, I would even pefer not to do it!’ And it seems in this case that the demonstrators of saturday 15 september had avoided the coordination desired by the page’s administrators, while these latter have been organising since last friday for an assembly on 22 september (potentially in front of the Paris grand mosque, wearing ‘Touche pas à mon prophète’ t-shirts and carrying microphones and flags, but also whatever is necessary to assure the event’s publicity and security).

The reaction on this page, taking into account the arrests made and the violence occurred on saturday, is without an appeal, in this sense: ‘After what they showed on BFM, do you think the préfecture will give us permission? Pffffffff, disgusted.’ Which makes suppose that those having appealed on the page to ‘do it rapidly’ and to profite of the ‘currentness’ [of the event] took these discussions as a support, when they decided to march into the streets of Paris on 15 september, without waiting for the more ‘official’ demonstration on 22 september (which could affect several french cities). Running the risk, consequently, that the developments of events could prevent the event as such. On Saturday, the Facebook page appealing to protests in Toulouse against the film Innocence of Muslims wrote this on saturday: ‘An organiser of the Paris demo has just received this text message: Following this afternoon’s events, our association has been informed that all religious demonstrations would automatically be rejected, threatening criminal prosecutions… So [our] demonstration [at Toulouse] has been cancelled, in order to avoid problems!! No commentary