If you don't like thuggery then I'm sure revelations about the behaviour of the British (and French) police will put you on the side of the protestors.
So join a picket line! I went over to Paris for the mass protests in 1995. It was phenomenal. Strangely wild cat strikes were known as the English disease on the continent, until the 1990s - inspired by the strikes in the 1970s that meant the gap between the rich and poor was at its narrowest at...