A Mutual Radicalization? Analyzing the Interactions between Police Officers and Protesters during the Spring 2016 Social Movement in France

France has known in 2016, for three months at least, a broad social movement against the « El Khomri law », accused of tearing apart French work legislation. This movement has constantly included violent clashes between anti-riot police and some protesters, known as the « head procession ». This proposal aims at describing what has been understood as a renewal of violence by both protesters and police officers. This contribution will show that these events took place at the crossing of two broader transformations in the environment of violent actors: the growing tendency of some services of the French police to engage in face-to-face confrontations on one hand, and the construction of clashes with police as an end in itself among some of the radical left-wing protesters on the other hand. By doing so, the sociological work will provide an analysis of the social processes of interaction between violent actors, their environment, and furthermore, a comprehensive study of the collective work of construction of both social groups facing one another as foes.