PARIS — Suzanne, prim with neat snowy hair, gray anorak and white shirt fastened at the collar with a blue brooch, glanced furtively up and down the subway platform bustling with out-on-the-towners.
Slowly, the station emptied; the coast was clear. Spinning on her heels, a mischievous glint in her soft blue eyes, she whipped a red wax crayon from her handbag and, wielding it like a sword, scrawled her fury across a billboard advertising home appliances.
"TOO MANY THINGS, NOT ENOUGH POETRY!" she wrote.
Pow! Thus another blow was struck in a fight raging in France against advertising. The attackers are a small but determined band of campaigners for whom ads are a plague. Their battlegrounds are the tunnels and platforms of Paris' subway, and bus stops in other towns. Their targets: companies that make capitalism tick.
Organizing over the Internet, hunted by the forces of order, these urban guerrillas are focusing debate on advertising's power. Is there too much of it? Should we fight back?
For Suzanne, 63, a political militant since she first threw stones at police during student riots that shook France in 1968, the answer to those questions is yes.
"Capitalism needs consumerism to survive," she said. "If we get rid of advertising, we get rid of consumerism, and that will get rid of capitalism."
It's hard to envisage the foundations of the global economy toppling anytime soon. But the anti-advertising movement has provoked a counterattack from French advertising giant Publicis and Paris' public transportation operator, the RATP.
Joining forces, the two firms are taking 62 anti-ad militants to court, seeking $1.2 million in damages for destruction wreaked on billboards.
Suzanne is not among the 62, but the threat of fines scares her enough that she won't give her surname. Nevertheless, she campaigns on, riding the Metro with a band of like-minded teenagers one recent Saturday, trailing destruction in their wake.
Pssssshhhhhh. Louis, 16, worked quickly but efficiently with a can of black spray paint. "ADVERTISING NUMBS YOU" read his still-dripping slogan on a billboard for the movie "Shrek 2."
"Walt Disney. Hollywood. Big budget. No good," he muttered by way of explanation before sprinting down the platform to attack another billboard before a train pulled in.
"It's joy," he said, describing how it felt to spray. "It's a real pleasure to finally be able to resist."
