A NIGHT WITH 'RIOTERS' WHO FEEL 'RAGE'

Friends from the Autonomy and Solidarity group have posted an English translation of an article from le Monde: A NIGHT WITH 'RIOTERS' WHO FEEL 'RAGE' by Yves Bordenave and Mustapha Kessous – click on the link to read it!

The original in French can be read on the le Monde website.

Communiqué from the Fédération Anarchiste

No Justice, No Peace!

The events that have shaken the French suburbs for almost two weeks now are definitely the expression of a rebellion with an undeniably political dimension. The riots are obviously against the representatives and symbols of a social order that is unequal, racist and oppressive, which considers young people from the popular neighbourhoods to be “trash” which need to be cleaned with “Karcher” and then sent to rot in prison. In this context, setting fire to a car, a public building or a business, is a political act. Even though we might question the wisdom of these actions, especially as they cause more problems for the people than for the bourgeoisie and those who are truly to blame for this situation, the fact remains that this is the only way that these young people can make themselves heard, for this society has nothing to offer them but servitude, frustration and cops. In order to be able to put in place repressive policies, and to criminalize the suffering of the suburbs, the social origins of this violence must first be denied.

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It is as if they did not know that human beings lived in these dormitory housing estates, built on the fly outside of the cities, where immigrants and poor people are kept as in warehouses. These housing estates are like a condensed version of all the bad ways to plan a city, and thus they include everything that makes life difficult. In these housing estates there is no social space to meet together. In these housing estates unemployment and suffering are the daily lot of the adults and the future of the children. One did not need to be a sociologist or a fortune teller to predict what is happening today. When the individual is negated to such an extent it is natural for him [sic] to rebel. When the politicians get indignant about how the young people in the suburbs do not respect republican institutions, they seem to forget that the republic has not cared about them for decades.

But after a series of electoral failures and provocations from a Minister of the Interior who “knows how to talk,” these marginalized, mistreated and scapegoated people have spontaneously rebelled. Only someone like the Minister of the Interior could actually believe that there is an organization behind this. Those who are to blame are those who allowed these “housing estates” to be built and those who let the living conditions for the people there deteriorate without providing them with any of the help or support that they needed.

The occupation of these neighbourhoods by the riot squads and shock troops from the police, of helicopters that hover overhead all night long, as well as the calling up of reservists… all of this is just a military bonus for the government, but it will do nothing but feed the fire and the anger. Thousands of arrests, over 700 prosecutions under often ridiculous pretexts and without any proof, all of this will do nothing to solve the social alienation of the suburbs and the youth.

The application of special legislation such as curfews, which originated during the Algerian war, is truly a provocation to these angry young people as well as a fundamental threat to public freedoms. The law allows prefects to simply decide whether or not to impose a curfew; it sanctions police raids by night or by day, forbids people deemed threatening from visiting the area or forbids them to leave their home, allows them to ban public assemblies, close cinemas, theatres, coffeehouses, meeting places, and also control the media – including the press, the radio, television or the internet.

Following the systematic repression of the social and trade union movements (the GIPN’s intervention against the postal workers at Bègles, the massive crack-down against anti-GMO activists, the assault of the GIGN and naval commandos against the mutinous sailors of the “Pascal Paoli”), the State is preparing to wage social warfare against the poor and against all those who resist this class society. The government is charging full steam ahead down the road towards fascism, and this should be enough to mobilize all sections of the social and trade union movements to organize in defense of our freedoms and our past social gains.

Yes, there are reasons to rebel, but setting fire to cars (which sometimes belong to people who are just as poor) and striking out at random does not do any damage and simply reinforces a narrow inwardness (whether nationalist or religious). Our rebellion should base itself on opposing those who are truly to blame for the entrenched suffering and poverty: capitalism and the State. And our rebellion will only become coherent by organizing against capitalism and its destructive effects, by organizing in the community against bailiffs, against high rents, for real public services (equal access, including free transportation…)

The Anarchist Federation demands the forces of repression be pulled out, the repeal of the emergency measures and special legislation, a stop to all prosecutions of the young rebels, the release of everyone who has been imprisoned as well as an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Ziad Benna and Bouna Traoré. The Anarchist Federation reiterates its support of the residents, the families, as well as the workers in the areas that have suffered social violence from rioters like the police. To put this fascistic arrogant and contemptuous government in check we need power on the ground. So we need to build a social movement without parasitical politicians and bureaucrats, built on a basis of libertarian federalism [translators note: in France the word “libertarian” does not have the right-wing connotation that it does in America; rather it has a similar connotation to the term “anti-authoritarian”] and direct democracy with the goal of bringing about a revolutionary transformation of society. This is what is necessary to bring about social and economic equality, which will also guarantee freedom and security for all!

Those who sow misery, will reap anger!
For a libertarian and egalitarian society
We still need to make a revolution!

Fédération anarchiste [Anarchist Federation]
Secrétariat of external relations
145 rue Amelot 75011 Paris
relations-exterieures(a)federation-anarchiste.org www.federation-anarchiste.org



Please note that the above text about the past 12 days riots in France comes from the Fédération Anarchiste (Anarchist Federation) in France and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French. Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the FA’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

Communique from the Mouvement de l'Immigration et des Banlieues*

“Die in peace my brothers, but die quietly, so that we hear nothing but the faintest echo of your suffering…”

Anyone who does not understand why people are rioting either suffers from amnesia, blindness, or both. For the past thirty years the suburbs have been calling out for justice. For twenty five years the rebellions, the riots, the demonstrations, the marches, the public meetings, and cries of anger have been making very clear demands. It is fifteen years since the Ministry of Urban Affairs was set up to deal with the poverty and exclusion of the so-called underprivileged areas. Ministers come and go with their promises: a Marshall Plan, Economic Free Zones, DSQ, ZEP, ZUP, Youth Employment, Social Cohesion, etc. … The suburbs serve as a dumping zone for the ministers, politicians and journalists with their deadly little sound bites about “lawless areas”, “irresponsible parents”, organized crime and other “consequences of Islamic fundamentalism.”

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The men and women and especially the young people who live in these areas are stigmatized and blamed for all the problems of our society. It doesn’t cost a lot to give civics lessons, point your finger at the “trash” and “savages” and throw them to the lions. And it can pay big dividends. The suburbs become a problem unto themselves, which have to be managed by the police and the courts. Today we are told about these “young people from the suburbs” (by which we are to understand “these Blacks and Arabs”) who burn things down as if they were foreigners who came to pillage France.

And yet from Minguettes (1981) to Vaulx-en-Velin (1990), from Mantes-la-Jolie (1991) to Sartrouville (1991), from Dammarie-les-Lys (1997) to Toulouse (1998), from Lille (2000) to Clichy, the message is plain and clear:

Enough with unpunished police crimes, enough with police profiling, enough with crappy schools, enough with planned unemployment, enough with rundown housing, enough with prisons, enough with humiliation! And enough with the two-tier justice system which protects corrupt politicians and consistently convicts the weak.

All of these cries have been ignored or covered up.

Just as they cover up the silent suffering of millions of families, men and women, who are subjected every day to social violence far worst than a burning car. With the curfew, the government is responding to this by collective punishment and special legislation that gives full power to the police. They put the lid on it; in our neighbourhoods we will remember this for a long time. There will no peace in our neighbourhoods until there is justice and real equality.

There are no pacification measures and no curfew that will stop us from continuing to fight for this, even when the cameras have gone away…

No justice, No peace!

The Mouvement de l'Immigration et des Banlieues, November 9th 2005
MIB - 45 Rue d'Aubervilliers 7518 Paris - http://mib.ouvaton.org/
EMail : m-i-b@hotmail.fr - Tel : 01 40 36 24 66

* The Immigration and Suburbs Movement


Please note that the above text about the past 12 days riots in France comes from the Mouvement de l'Immigration et des Banlieues in France and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French. Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

Twelve and Thirteen

As we near two weeks from the death of Zyad and Bounna, mainstream media seems to be suggesting that the violence in France is on the decrease. Time will tell if this is just wishful thinking – i remember they said the same thing almost two weeks ago!

At the same time, amongst politicians everyone has an angle on this, and everyone hopes to profit. What is clear is that the government counter-attack has started – it is unclear how or when it will end. Despite promises of money and jobs and support for immigrant youth, what stands out is how – above and beyond the repressive State of Emergency – the right-wing is seizing this opportunity to try and push through a number of anti-immigrant measures.


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Unless otherwise noted, the following information is all from the Nouvel Observateur. This is the latest from France:

Yesterday (November 8th 2005)

Fascism and Racism on the Rise:

• The National Front [a far right racist political party] has announced that it is organizing a demonstration next Monday, which will be attended by party president Jean-Marie Le Pen, to protest against the wave of urban violence.


• At a demonstration close to the National Assembly, Philippe de Villiers, president of the [far-right Catholic] Mouvement pour la France (MPF), has declared that “the army should be called in” to stop the “war in the suburbs,” and also that the “flood of immigrants” should be stopped.


• On Monday/Tuesday night an incendiary device was thown “towards the Moslem prayer room” in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie), without causing any damage, according to the Annecy prefect.


• [Prime Minister] De Villepin claims that “some social instability comes from an uncontrolled flow of illegal immigrants.”


• According to Jean-François Bernardin, president of the Assembly of French Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACFCI), the “culture” of the suburbs and of the business world are “relatively incompatible,” adding that bosses are already “bending over backwards” to give people a chance.


• Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy suggested to deputies, during a debate on the suburbs, that parents who are unable to control their children should perhaps have their state assistance benefits cut.


• Dmitri Rogozine, a government deputy and nationalist leader in Russia, calls for the arrest and expulsion from Russia of people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, as a preventative measure to avoid the kind of unrest currently gripping France.

Arrests Made:

• A thirty year old mason was sentenced to four months in prison by the Grenoble court. He was convicted of contempt and rebellion against public forces, committed during the rioting in the Grenoble suburbs.


• In Nantes two youths aged 18 and 21 were sentenced to 3 and 4 months in prison after last week end’s violence.


• Fifteen young people pass before the Bobigny criminal court on charges related to the rioting.


• In Belfort three young people aged 18 and 19 were sentenced to one and two months in prison for participating in the riots last week end.


• In Strasbourg, two adults are held in temporary custody and two youths are placed with the courts following fires set in Wasselonne (Bas-Rhin) on the night of Halloween, according to a legal source.


• In Toulouse, a rioter had his hand blown off when he attempted to throw a tear gas grenade back at the police who had just fired it, according to the police.


• Between October 27th and November 8th, roughly 1,550 people suspected of participating in riots had been arrested, according to the DGPN Michel Gaudin.

The State of Emergency:

• Sarkozy met with the prefects from the seven defense zones to set out how and when curfews will be imposed.


• Sarkozy announced that during the State of Emergency police will have the right to carry out raids if they “have reason to believe” people are stockpiling arms.


• The decision to declare a State of Emergency is denounced by human rights organizations, trade unions and left-wing political parties, who accuse the government of having “flat out lied” about the legislation, and noting the “horrible symbolic message that it gives, given the reference to the Algerian war.”


• Marine Le Pen –Jean Marie Le Pen’s daughter and herself president of the regional Paris National Front chapter – congratulates “Mr. de Villepin for having finally decided to declare a state of emergency, as we suggested” last week.


• [President] Jacques Chirac is to meet with Ministers this weekend to discuss a new law that would allow the State of Emergency to be extended beyond the 12-day period stipulated by the 1955 law, according to government spokesperson Jean-François Copé.


• The Somme prefecture has imposed a curfew in Amiens between 10pm and 6am for unaccompanied minors under the age of 16; it will enter into effect Wednesday at midnight.


• The UMP mayor of Orleans passes a municipal law imposing a curfew on minors under 16 years of age throughout the municipality.


• Jean Marsaudon , the UMP mayor of Savigny-sur-Orge (in Essonne), has announced that he will impose a curfew on all minors in is municipality between 10pm and 7am for the next month.


• In Montpelier the Herault prefect has banned the sale of gasoline to minors, claiming that this is “at the root of the serious disturbances.”


• The Director General of the National Police Michel Gaudin claims that there is an “organization of adults who are putting children on the frontlines,” following the discovery of an abandoned building in Evry where Molotov cocktails were buil and stored.


• The Prime Minister announced that “by January 2006” the Minister of the Interior will have a budget to hire “2,000 more officers.”

Prime Minister De Villepin states that he “understands how Moslems in France feel” following the “misunderstanding” around the tear gas fire at the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque.

There is a “definite decrease” in the level of violence in Seine-Saint-Denis Monday/Tuesday night, but rioting continued throughout much of France: schools were set on fire, as were cars. The heaviest confrontations took place in the suburbs of Toulouse, Lyon and Saint-Etienne.
And So Far Today (November 9th 2005)

The Curfews:

• Six of the twenty five prefects whose departments are affected by the unrest have imposed curfews.


• According to an opinion poll, 73% of people in France are in favour of the curfews, whereas 24% are opposed.


• The National Students Union (Union nationale lycéenne) condemns the State of Emergency – which it notes is a “measure full of warlike and violent symbolism” - accusing the government of having “contempt” for young people.


• The prefect for Alpes-Maritimes has imposed a curfew between 10pm and 5am throughout the 21 municipalities within its department. This curfew applies to unaccompanied minors, with unspecified “special measures” in effect in Nice and Saint-Laurent-du-Var.The prefect of Loiret has passed a law banning the sale or transport of gasoline in containers. More than 80 cars have been set on fire and fifteen people have been arrested in the department since Friday.


• Francis Idrac, the prefect of Gironde, has passed a law banning the sale or transport of gasoline in containers in he city of Bordeaux.


• The prefect for Seine-Maritime has imposed a curfew between 10pm and 5am in Rouen, du Havre and d’Elbeuf. This curfew applies to unaccompanied minors.The prefect for Eure has imposed a curfew on part of the Madeleine neighbourhood in Evreux.

Arrests:

• In Toulouse, two adults went before the criminal court and were sentenced to 8 months prison for setting vehicles on fire.


• In Nantes the criminal court has sentenced three young people to two to three months in prison for participation in the riots.


• Minister of Justice Clement instructs prosecuting attorneys to request that young people between the ages of 16 and 18 who violate the curfew be placed in closed educational facilities.


• Six people were arrested Wednesday morning in the Grande-Borne neighbourhood in Grigny (Essonne), where police were shot at with buckshot Sunday night.


• In Evry the prosecutor announced that a legal file was opened on Tuesday for “attempted homicide” in the matter of buckshot fired against the police in Grigny.


• One hundred and thirty adults have received prison sentences since the riots started on October 27th, according to the Minister of Justice.

Fascism & Racism on the Rise:

• Bruno Gollnisch, general delegate of the far-right National Front, holds a press conference in Lyon where he calls for all French troops to be called back from abroad, in anticipation of a deterioration of the situation in the suburbs.


• According to Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, 120 foreigners have been convicted of participating in the unrest. He states that they be immediately deported regardless of their legal status.


• In an interview with the BBC, National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has said that young people from immigrant communities [N.B.: i.e. not necessarily immigrants themselves] who take part in the unrest should be stripped of their Freench nationality.

Violence Abating?

• Slightly more than 100 cars were set on fire during Tuesday/Wednesday night in the Grand-Est epartments, which is a significant drop from the night before when 160 cars were set on fire.


• According to the authorities, there was a drop in violence overnight in western France, specifically in Nantes and Rennes.


• According to the director of Sarkozy’s office, Claude Guéant, 617 cars were set on fire during the night of Tuesday/Wednesday. According to the police only 558 cars were set on fire, 418 outside of Paris and 140 in the Paris region, and 240 people were arrested overnight.


• Belgian authorities admit that seventeen cars were set on fire during Tuesday/Wednesday night.

Rage in the Banlieue (Counterpunch)

The following is reposted from the Counterpunch website, where it can also be read:

Rage in the Banlieue
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
Montmartre, Paris.
The furious youth in the French suburban housing blocks known as the banlieue are expressing themselves by setting cars on fire. And not only cars: schools, creches, sports centers. So far, they are not using words, at least not audibly. So everyone else is free to speak for them, or against them, and offer his or her verbal interpretation of what these actions mean, or should mean. Since these interpretations differ sharply, there is a polarizing debate going on as to what this is really about and what should be done about it.
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I live on the northern edge of Paris, on the non-tourist backside of Montmartre. It is probably the most mixed neighborhood in Paris. It includes Barbès, the setting for Emile Zola's working class novel "L'Assommoir", which later became the main pole of North African immigration. More recently, there is a large and growing population of sub-Saharan African immigrants, as well as a considerable Tamoul community.The streets are full of life, lots of young children, African grocers, all sorts of shops and people, and despite a certain amount of drug dealing, I feel perfectly safe, even late at night.
This neighborhood is not far from the northeastern banlieue where the riots began. But the banlieue is something else. Its specific nature is one of the factors behind the current outburst of violence. But it is only one of the factors.
It's easy to pontificate on this subject, and the clichés all come easily to mind. But I would like to try to analyse the situation by examining one by one the factors and arguments relating to this crisis.
1. The rioters themselves.
Only the right, or more precisely the far right, would reduce the problem to the rioters themselves. The National Front is, predictably, describing the situation as "civil war" and calling for the government to send in the Army. This is a very minority position. So far as I am aware, its strongest expression has come from the United States, in an article by Daniel Pipes in the Jewish World Review charactizing the riots as an Islamic "intifada" as a "turning point" in a new religious war in Europe.
Who exactly are the rioters? So far, this is not very clear, since the hit-and-run arson attacks appear to be imitative but unorganized. The rioters are young males, mostly, it seems, in their mid-teens, who identify with the two teen-agers who were accidentally electrocuted last October 27 when, running from police, they scaled a wall and took refuge in an industrial generator. Ironically, in this crucial case the deaths were the result of fear rather than of direct police brutality. This widespread fear of police reflects gratuitous and heavy handed police harassment, but there is also the undisputed fact that in areas with 40% unemployment and large numbers of school dropouts, there has been a proliferation of drug dealing and various forms of petty crime, often in the form of forcing school kids to surrender such items as cell phones. Police toughness has had no visible success in stemming such activities.
The rioting youths seem to be predominantly, but not exclusively, of African or North African origin. They are certainly not all Muslims, and there is no indication that most of them are particularly attached to any religion. Muslim religious authorities condemn the riots, and one has gone so far as to issue a fatwa against the violence, but this seems to serve more to distance the Muslim authorities from the rioters than to influence them.
They are a minority in their communities, and their destructive action is overwhelmingly condemned within those communities, whose members are the ones whose cars or schools or buses are being burned. Nevertheless, there is considerable sympathy in these communities for the anger and hopelessness underlying this explosion of violence. After several nights of such troubles, parents and other citizens are organizing in various neighborhoods to dissuade kids from violence. This is likely to be more effective than the curfews on unaccompanied kids under 16 favored by the right.
2. Housing.
The apartment blocks of the banlieue of French cities are similar to those surrounding cities in most of Europe. They were part of the rapid urbanization that occurred during the economic prosperity of the 1960s. They were not built to be "ghettos" but to provide decent housing to the waves of immigrants, both from the countryside and from abroad, drawn by industrial employment. They replaced shanty towns and relieved the pressure on inner city neighborhoods, where working class families were crowded into unhealthy flats with no private toilet. For working people, the banlieue apartments are much more spacious and well equipped than those in affordable neighborhoods of Paris.
There are two things wrong with them. One is aesthetic: they lack the charm of the city, they are monotonous, and they are far away from the pleasures of urban life. But what has turned them into "ghettoes" is the deindustrialization of the past decades. The nearby factories have shut down, and the sons and grandsons of factory workers are jobless. It is easier for those with French names and French complexions to move up into the service sector, and out to other neighborhoods.
3. Racism.
Why this difficulty? Because, while racist attitudes are widely and vigorously condemned, and in social terms racial discrimination is probably less practiced in France than in other Western countries (as indicated, among other things, by an exceptionally high percentage of racially mixed marriages), those individuals who are in a position to hire employees, or to rent housing, are less likely to choose someone with an exotic name, or an exotic look, than someone who appears "normal". This is bitterly resented, and the fact that many second and third generation French youth of African origin have made successful careers is no consolation to those who are left behind.
4. The economy.
By any reasonable standard, this is the central factor. If jobs were not so scarce, qualified youth would not be unemployed because of their origin. If public funding for social activities in the banlieue had not been cut back by the current government in favor of a single-minded emphasis on "security", things might be slightly better. But essentially, it is the current worldwide economic model that is at the root of these troubles. Back to that later.
5. The Sarkozy factor.
As the whole world must know by now, Nicolas Sarkozy, former mayor of the opulent Western Paris suburb of Neuilly (nothing to do with the banlieue!), wants to be President of the French Republic. Not a day goes by without seeing him, as Interior Minister, rushing here and there in front of television cameras, busy, busy, busy. His naked ambition borders the pathological. His strategy, however, has been calculated, and until recently has looked ominously successful, as he managed to take over the UMP (Union de la Majorité Présidentielle), supposed to be the party of President Jacques Chirac, and turned it against him.
This strategy has included a move to win over the electorate of the National Front, which hates Gaullists in general and Chirac in particular. The key to this is, of course, emphasizing "security". But cleverly enough, Sarkozy has combined this with a bid to woo French Muslims, and other religions, by taking his distance from French secularism to call for dialogue with religious leaders. This fits with his pro-American neoliberal economic preferences -- full throttle privatization and deregulation -- inasmuch as the shelter of identity communities is the necessary substitute for the abandoned welfare state.
Enforcing the law is the job of an Interior Minister. But after withdrawal of the "proximity police", put in by the previous Socialist government in order to develop contact with the community (for too short a time to be tested), Sarkozy has favored spectacular raids by heavily decked out police squads that act as provocations. To grab maximum media attention, he has strutted through troubled banlieues announcing his determination to clean up the "rabble" (racaille).
This performance is surely a significant factor in the riots. It also provides a unifying theme for the left: Sarkozy must resign! The conservative government is virtually obliged for the moment to give a show of unity, but whenever it is convenient, one can be sure that both Chirac and his protégé, prime minister Dominique de Villepin, would be simply delighted to throw Sarkozy to the wolves.
6. The Middle East.
Sarkozy, by his choice of trips abroad, has underlined his desire for closest possible relations with the United States and Israel. This provides a second reason for him to be hated by youth in the banlieue, where identification with the Palestinians is widespread and daily images of violence in the Middle East and the war in Iraq have a considerable impact. Perhaps one can guess that had Chirac not refused to follow the United States into Iraq, the banlieue would have exploded earlier and more violently than today. The feeling of exclusion among youth of Arab origin is enormously exacerbated by the spectacle of Western aggression against the Arab world.
* * *
I come back to the economic factor. Dominique de Villepin, in competition with Sarkozy, has taken a more humanist line: restoration of social aids to the banlieue previously instituted by the Socialist government, plus yet another program for job-creation. But since such measures have been taken before without notable effect, one can doubt their efficacy now.
I would conclude by acknowledging that for ruling politicians, the situation is without immediate solution. Order may be restored, subsidies may be granted to neighborhood associations, but no short-term measure can solve the basic problem: the deep rupture between the "winners" and the "losers" in a cutthroat game of capitalist competition. In some ways, these alienated youth in the banlieue, however much they feel left out of French society, are very French in this respect: like angry farmers or workers, they go into the streets with their discontent. This is a gesture that the French tolerate and try to understand to a degree perhaps unequaled in other societies.
But then what? Soviet bloc communism collapsed because it failed to meet the demands for more freedom of the most privileged sectors of the population. American-style capitalism has triumphed worldwide, but it in turn is threatened with eventual collapse because it fails to meet the needs of the less privileged sectors. They are showing that they can retaliate by creating mayhem. The banlieue is not really an isolated world, European countries are more tightly packed than the United States, and there is not enough room for riots to go on without bothering society as a whole. The only real long-term solution must provide integration for all the population.
This fact is largely recognized. The question that is yet to be honestly faced, is: how? Alternating governments try to introduce incentives for private enterprise to provide jobs, but this is clearly not working. Meanwhile, privatization continues, and with it disappears the government's capacity to effectively provide social services and jobs.
The only answer is to call a halt to the privatization process and return to the mixed economy that was the basis for the European social model, currently being destroyed by so-called "reforms". France is selling off its utilities, from Electricité de France to the autoroute network. Such measures are likely to deepen the social disaster. Advanced industrial economies require governments capable of taking measures to provide a minimum of socio-economic equality, in response to democratic demand, and this is possible only if they possess the necessary economic resources to subsidize indispensible social programs and to stimulate job creation, including the growth of small private enterprise. One can only hope that the current crisis in France, which so far lacks a coherent political dimension, will hasten the political revolt against the neoliberal economic dogma which is plunging the whole world into chaos.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions published by Monthly Review Press. She can be reached at: maiilto://dianajohnstone@compuserve.com/

The Decision to Impose Curfews and the Prefects

[Prime Minister] de Villepin has decided not to call in the army (“We’re not at that point yet”), but intends to re-establish order by all means that the police can offer: “at ever step we will take the necessary measures to re-establish order very quickly throughout the nation.”
 
To do this he needs a curfew, so that the police should have the means necessary to act like a military force and treat civilians like enemies.

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The matter of whether or not to impose a curfew will be decided on a case by case basis by the prefects.

What is a prefect? It is a high-level bureaucrat appointed by the president of the Republic, who can dismissed and replaced whenever the President wants.

The prefect is not allowed to engage in politics nor can he leave his department. Most often they have graduated from the National Administrators’ School. The prefect is the highest level bureaucrat in each department: he is in charge of applying the government’s decisions, maintaining public order, holding elections, managing drivers permits, etc.

This means that the decision of whether or not to impose a curfew is decided on by the State structure itself, not even by elected politicians in a “democratic” system.

It is a decisive step towards fascism.

This shows that the proletarian class struggle has shaken the ruling class, and that the bourgeoisie is no longer in a position to exercise its power as before.

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) November 2005


Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.



Categories: fascism, france, repression, riot, maoism, translation,

Angry Youth, People from the Neighbourhood: Together Against the Government!

Chirac and the government are not budging. Far from responding to the crisis by emergency social measures, those in power have decided to increase the repression. Sarkozy continues his provocations. Revolted by the tragedy in Clichy, where two teenagers died, young people from dozens of housing estates across the country have been fighting the police for several nights. The anger of these young people – who are unskilled, unemployed (Citroën Aulnay just laid off 700 young temporary workers), victims of racism and discrimination – is understandable, but they are attacking the wrong targets when they set fire to their neighbours’ cars, schools, sports centers and day cares. The enemy is the government’s policies, and it is all together – angry youth and people from the neighbourhood – that we must struggle against Sarkozy and all of the policies that have destroyed the neighbourhoods over the past twenty years.
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The Government Created This Situation

The policies of [Prime Minister] de Villepin and [Minister of the Interior] Sarkozy lead to mass unemployment and poverty which feed into the ever-growing misery. On the boundaries of the large cities, the creation of actual ghettos goes along with ever-worsening discrimination. The public school system has been dismantled, which increases the rate of student failure. According to the logic of deregulation, social services in the community are left in pieces. More and more they whittle away at the budgets related to prevention. Everywhere social housing is sacrificed. This is the daily reality of large portion of this country’s population. And at the same time, in the National Assembly, the majority votes to reduce taxes on private fortunes and to give stockholders a tax break.

Sarkozy, the Pyromaniac Fireman, Must Go!

The daily police checks are becoming more vicious and violent, which is completely consistent with the government’s shameless class politics. Racism is spreading like a toxin, encouraged by Sarkozy’s provocations. Carried away by his desire to criminalize all young people, the Minister of the Interior has gone so far as to insult them, calling them “trash” and “gangrene.” In permanent election mode, hoping to attract some of Le Pen’s supporters, he has declared that every week he will visit a different suburb. The only effect this will have will be to increase the level of police repression in these areas and to make the situation even more explosive. And this climate of violence, which the people find intolerable, will only increase the number of problems people have to face every day. Definitely, Sarkozy, the arsonist of the suburbs, must go!

A popular mobilization is necessary! All together against the government!

It is not the out of control intervention of the police that will solve things, but rather the intervention of the people. The mobilization of progressive forces is key. The police provocations must stop; what we need instead are immediate measures to encourage solidarity within our neighbourhoods and our housing estates. Faced with the social disasters of years of neo-liberalism, we must demand that priority be given to long-term job creation, public services, schools, housing, and prevention. This government’s actions sow misery and hopelessness. The most important thing is to put a stop to it. This is what we of the LCR [Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, or “Revolutionary Communist League” – France’s largest Trotskyist organization – translator] are calling for.

Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, November 7th 2005

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois comes from the website of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, the largest Trotskyist group in France. It has been translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the LCR’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.


Categories: capitalism, clichy-sous-bois, france, repression, riot, social-democracy, trotskyism, translation,

Google & Sarkozy

The following article on Google and the France’s governing UMP political party is copied from the Apostate Windbag blog:


DINSDAG, NOVEMBER 08, 2005
Profitting from the riots
Most people when they see Paris and, as of last night, 300 other cities, burning on the news, they see a riot. The UMP, the France's conservative party and the party of Sarkozy, de Villepin and Chirac, however, see a marketing opportunity.If you type in the word 'émeute' (French for 'riot') into the Google.fr search engine, the first link that appears is entitled 'Violences en Banlieues' ('Violence in the suburbs') and is a sponsored link to http://www.u-m-p.org/. Underneath, the tag reads: 'Soutenez la politique de N. Sarkozy pour rétablir l'ordre républicain' ('Support the policies of N. Sarkozy to re-establish the republican order').

Refresh the page, and the tag changes to 'Soutenez la politique de N. Sarkozy pour faire respecter la loi' ('Support the policies of N. Sarkozy to ensure respect for the law').(image placeholder)Reuters is reporting that Franck Louvrier, Sarkozy's spokesman, said the company hired by the UMP to run the website paid for the link as a way to respond to the 'thousands' of voters who were e-mailing messages of support.Right...take out an ad on Google that is to appear whenever anyone looks up the word 'émeute' to tell the people who have sent a message of support to send another message of support?

Categories: france, media, other-blogs, riot,

Defy the Curfew

a Declaration by Olivier Besancenot
[spokesperson for the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire]

[Prime Minister] de Villepin’s decision, as announced last night on Channel One, is unacceptable. Instead of responding the social crisis, he has dug up a law from the colonial era, from the Algerian War, which gives prefects the power to enact curfews in part or all of their borough, and also to suspend many freedoms. E. Raoult, the mayor of Rancy – a city with 2,6% low-income housing – had already enacted such a curfew, as a repressive trial balloon. The LCR [Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, or “Revolutionary Communist League” – France’s largest Trotskyist organization – translator] is calling on people to defy the curfew by demonstrating wherever they are enacted, at night if necessary. The LCR invites all democratic and left-wing to help organize these demonstrations.

Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, November 8th 2005


Please note that the above text about the past 12 days riots in France comes from the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire website in France and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French. Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

Banned Blogs

According to a legal source, a judicial file was opened Tuesday after three people were arrested, suspected of having incited riots on their internet blogs.

Two of the three suspects, a French and a Ghanaian teenager aged 16 and 18, appeared before a judge in criminal court, charged with “using the internet to voluntarily provoking a dangerous degradation for people.”

The court has requested that they be held in temporary custody, a question that a release judge should rule on Tuesday night. They were arrested Monday at Noisy-le-Sec and Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis).

It is the first time charges have been laid in Paris regarding this crime, which is covered in the legislation regarding the press. Possible sentences range up to five years in prison.
The third suspect, a 14 year old, was picked up in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), and was released after his court appearance. He is not being prosecuted at the moment, due to a procedural error.

The three young people are suspected of having incited people to riot and having made threats against the police on their blogs, all of which were hosted by Skyrock radio.

These blogs, which were called "Nike la France" [“Fuck France”] and "Nique l'Etat" [“Fuck the State”] as well as "Sarkodead" and "Hardcore", encouraged people to participate in the violence in the suburbs and to attack police officers.

They were de-activated by Skyrock last week end. “Unite and smash the cops,” could be read on one of them.

An investigation has been launched to determine who the accused may be connected to and to determine whether or not their activities were part of an organized operation to spread the riots.

A police bureau which specialized in crimes using new technologies, the OCLTIS, as well as the Police Squad for the Repression of Banditism (OCRB) [what in the United States would be called racketeering – translator] are involved.

The Rebellion Spreads to Belgium

Belgium fears the spread of the people’s rebellion. Already over the week end there were several incidents in Liege and Brussels. Events that were covered up by the police and the media, in order to keep the people in the dark.

As the incidents are becoming more numerous, the media are beginning to let out information bit by bit.

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FROM THE MASS MEDIA:

The Vlaams Belang is Targeted
On Monday/Tuesday night, around midnight, a molotov cocktail was thrown against the secretariat of the Vlaams Belang in Bruges. The missile, full of gas, smashed against the front of the building bit did not do any damage. Three people were arrested in relation to this incident. It seems that a witness took down the license plate number of the alleged attackers. The charges against them will be decided this Tuesday.
[translators note: the Vlaams Belang is the far-right anti-immigrant political party formerly known as the Vlaams Blok]

Isolated Incidents in Liege
The police have pointed out that the events in Liege over the weekend and on Monday were isolated incidents and nothing indicates that they are connected. Liege is not in a crisis, the local police insist. It is true that glass was broken but the bus shelters were hardly damaged, the police say. Bottles full of gasoline were found under some cars but they did not have the proper mechanism to catch on fire. Though it is true that one window was broken. Finally, the police was forced to admit that yes some cars were set on fire over the week end and yes some rocks were thrown at a bus, but these were isolated incidents the likes of which are nothing out of the ordinary in a city like Liege. So far as the police are concerned, there is nothing to indicate that these events were all the work of the same people.

Events in Brussels
Some incidents occurred Monday night in the Brussels-Midi area, according to Jacques Simonet, president of the police college at Brussels-Midi. Some rocks were thrown at a police car. A couch was set on fire in Forest and a car was flipped over in Saint-Gilles. A car was also turned over on Mons hill in Anderlecht. The situation is under control, said Mr Simonet, who is also mayor of Anderlecht. The Brussels-Midi support services might intervene if the situation gets worst, but the police are trying to diminish tensions with the help of prevention teams.

Five cars were set on fire in the main Brussels station on Sunday/Monday night, but there have been no other incidents similar to what has been going on in France over the past 11 nights, said Belgian police on Monday.

“Five cars were set on fire in three different places,” explained Albert Roosens, the police spokesman, adding that there was no mass disturbance. “Don’t go looking for some connection with what is happening in France, because there isn’t any,” he said.
There have been no arrests and the events took place in a run-down area in the Belgian capital.

Workers Unite!
General Strike!

• Fire November 8th 2005, from Indymedia Paris

Please note that the above text about the past 12 days riots in France comes from the Indymedia Paris website in France and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

An Explosion of Anger That Demands Justice!

Declaration from the Africa Collective and the Autonomous Immigration Movement, November 6th 2005

One after another, across the country the popular neighbourhoods are burning! It was set off by the death of two teenagers who “were running from the police.” And then there was not a word of compassion for the victims, there were “two police grenades thrown into a mosque” and the insulting talk of “trash that needs to be cleaned with Karcher” from Sarkozy, the Minister of the Interior.
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From then on there has been an explosion of anger that has destroyed cars, buses, warehouses, businesses, schools, etc. Less widely reported are stories like the following: “They (the police) entered the building, broke down the neighbours’ door, and beat them,” says Salah, 27 years old and still shaken. “They were chasing them and they knocked on our door and my mother answered. She’s now at the hospital.” In the background the young man’s sister was crying. As night fell the CRS [riot cops] were beginning to withdraw but the residents’ anger was not subsiding. “They broke down our door, it is all destroyed,” sobbed a young woman. “Hey,” calls out a young man from his car, “tell them it’s Sarko [Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy] who is the pyromaniac. And this is a tinderbox.” (Agence France Presse)

Remember that dozens of young people, from Manoka to Riad, have fallen victim to “police errors” [the term routinely used whenever the police kill anyone in France] which are swept away with “suspended” sentences and talk that they live in “lawless” areas that all too often call for “lawlessness” on the part of certain police officers, etc.

They have names : Nicolas, Karim, Warren, Christophe, Mamadou, Jennifer, Astou, Virginie, Malika, etc. They are normally between 14 and 25 years old. Some of them are known to the courts, others are not. The angry young people are the same ones who took to the streets by thousands, by millions, on April 21st 2002 to “Stop Le Pen” at the second round of presidential elections. The angry young people are the same ones who went on strike against the FILLON counter-reform. The angry young people are the same ones who overwhelmingly voted NO in the May 29th referendum. The young people just like the adults are victims of the neo-liberal and pro-business policies put in place by one government after another. When the young people have acted in this way like citizens they have run up against the neo-liberal political blindness of the government that uses “security as a political strategy to stay in power.”

Sarkozy says clearly that “this government has had the right strategy for the past four years.” (Le Monde 6/7/11/05) But “right for who”? Sarkozy, who boasts that he has “significantly reduced insecurity,” has within days, by his own irresponsible behaviour, exponentially increased the level destruction.

Sarkozy does not care about the 30-40% of people out of work, the looting of public services in the popular neighbourhoods, the deterioration of housing, the discrimination against young people and immigrants, etc. He has nothing to say about these social realities, which are intolerable for values, republican order and social peace.

An arrogant government in the image of Sarkozy laughs at the people’s wishes, the demands of strikers and social struggles, and this leads to counter-productive actions and social divisions for some rebellious young people, to such a point that it becomes suspicious.

This contempt on the part of the government and bosses has led the sailors of the SNCM to take a boat, which had to be taken back by force by the GIGN commandos. On more than one occasion, this Sarkozien contempt pushed the undocumented immigrants to put their lives in danger by long hunger strikes to obtain a legal existence. In his presidential pretentions Sarkozy reminds us more and more of how [former Socialist President] Mitterand made political and media use of [National Front leader] Le Pen, a trick which allowed him to stay in power for fourteen years.

Sarkozy has indeed pushed Le Pen and [far right Catholic politician] De Villiers out of the headlines, but has also become a foil, making a “moderate right” look better than a “delinquent left.” How else can one explain the government’s united stand and its firm refusal of the young people’s clear demand that “Sarkozy does not respect us, he should go.”

The call for “curfews” to be imposed on our neighbourhoods, our young people, our children, brothers and sisters of all origins, of all cultures and all nationalities… this is another example of this horrible contempt and brinksmanship of this government that is unable to deal with the consequences of this “security” trap that it has used time and time again to win over that minority of National Front voters.

[Prime Minister] De Villepin talks about “firmness and justice,” our answer is “justice and equality.”

Written in Lille on November 6th 2005.



Please note that the above text about the past 12 days riots in France comes from the Mouvement Autonome de l’Immigration and the Collective Afrique in France and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, police, racism, repression, riot, translation,

Court Appearances, November 7th in Bobigny

The prosecutor consistently requested jail time, stating outright that an example should be set: “It is important that the accused and the other people in the courtroom all understand that these are serious charges and that the court has the intention of giving out heavy penalties…” Several times (and not only in this courtroom, it seems) the mere fact of having been in the street served as evidence against the accused. Anonymous denunciation was used as evidence for, according to the prosecutor, in this community “the population is afraid of reprisals.” Here was the tough stance called for by [Justice Minister] Clement :
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• 6 months suspended sentence for a student arrested in Montreuil, who admitted throwing a rock at a motorcycle cop after having been tear gassed on his way home. He was all beat up: a broken nose and bruises all over his face.

• 2 months jail time for a student who allegedly turned over a sports car in Montreuil. He was picked up along with a minor out of a larger group fleeing the police; the minor confessed, and so confession is contagious.

• A young man arrested outside his home in Blanc-Mesnil, who allegedly smashed up some trucks belonging to a business on the street, he was ordered kept detained. They could not show that it was him but there was nothing to be done, even though his family was there. What’s moe he denied everything and the testimony of people who worked at the business in question was contradictory, many of them could not identify him.

• Four months jail time for having allegedly set fire to a garbage can.

• A young many was officially identified by a police patrol as having thrown a bottle at their car, breaking the windshield – according to their notes this happened at 6pm. Two hours later they claim they spotted the young man in question and brought him in. Then, according to their testimony, he was surrounded by his friends and this led to a fight in which a window was broken. It turns out that this young man was working at 6pm according to testimony from his boss and that the attack in question amounted to two of his friends who brought him a sandwich! He is acquitted for having thrown the bottle, but gets 1 month jail time for breaking the window.

• In Villemomble the police identify a young man with a baseball cap in the middle of the night when he allegedly throws a rock which does not hit them (he must have been really far away). They fire back twice with their flash-balls [a gun that fires rubber bullets] and then go and get the young man. It turns out that he has to be treated for a dislocated shoulder, but who cares: three months, two of which are suspended. The main thing that aggravated his situation, as both the prosecutor and judge repeated several times, was that he did not want to give the name of his friend where he was spending the night.


• The last guy was from Aulnay, and he had the strange habit of keeping the following in the trunk of his car : a rag (oh no!), an empty container in case he ran out of gas (I swear, they went on about this for an hour!), and another container which (I am quoting the police notes): “was half full of a blue liquid on which was a label that read ‘coolant’”, and then one with (horror of horrors!) “a clear odourless liquid that we were not able to identify,” all of which was in the notes that were obviously taken by a cop who does not put a lot of water in his booze! In short, the investigators felt that all of this confirmed the anonymous testimony that someone with a similar car was selling gas to neighbourhood kids… All of which they said without cracking a smile! He managed to get released…

What I heard in the hallways :

• A young man was picked up in the streets where some molotov cocktails had been thrown earlier. He claimed he had not been there at the time. He has no gas on his hands or on his clothes, just on his shoes as must have also been the case with the cops who picked him up because the street had been full of it: he gets 10 months, 6 of which are suspended. And the courtroom was cleared as it was felt to be too rowdy.

In Montreuil an young man was picked up at his parents home early in the morning. He was accused of turning over a car the night before. His older brothers were worried he would be cold, and wanted him to take a pull-over with him [when he war arrested]: one got a broken hand and 3 weeks ITT [not sure how to translate this – it obviously is some kind of time in medical care], the other got 4 days ITT; everyone was outraged and indignant! Finally, after several hours, the first brother was acquitted: it turns out it was not him who turned over the car! Their father got to take two of his sons home, though they are also charged with contempt, the son who is the most badly beaten was kept detained but i am not sure why. They are supposed to show up today at 1:30pm. But the cops were not finished with them and so this morning the cops - from Bobigny this time – came to get the first son for a new car that he is accused of having smashed up as he left the courthouse (when his father was bringing him home). I left before this came before the court, the lawyer has some questions, perhaps i will have more information later…

- rossalinda (posted to Indymedia Paris)

Please note that the above text about the court appearances of people arrested during the past twelve days riots comes from the Indymedia Paris website and was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. I felt this was an important text as it gives the first indication of how the repression is actually playing out in the working class and immigrant areas affected by the rebellion. Unfortunately, it was written with a lot of slang and with terms and spellings that were not the usual, so it was difficult to translate, though i believe i got the meaning of everything correct The original document can be seen in French.

A few points can be ascertained from this report:

• All of the people arrested who this writer saw in court were men – which makes me wonder where are the women who live in these neighbourhoods? What is their perspective on this rebellion?


• Arrests seem arbitrary and unrelated to what one may or may not have actually done. Just a matter of being on the street at the time that the police decide they want to make an arrest. Police making up stories and passing it off as “anonymous testimony of people afraid to come forward.”


• Gratuitous police violence is an essential feature of what it means to “be arrested”


• Though one may be acquitted of the charges for which one was arrested, one may end up doing time for what happens after one is arrested – allegedly breaking a window, or not giving information, or giving your brother a sweater.

All of the above is very true for “normal” interactions with the police, and not only in France, so one imagines that much of this is simply the intensification of the same old daily shit.

Unfortunately, “Rossalinda” does not give many details about the people arrested, beyond that some of them were students. One imagines, given the description that has been given of Bobigny, that most of these men are from immigrant communities, and that this plays a role in who gets arbitrarily picked up. But this is conjecture, as such details were not included in the Indymedia posting…

Note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, prison, repression, riot, translation,

Day Twelve

OK, a few notes as we get the days started.

First off, yesterday over 3,000 people visited this blog, and i would guess at least ten times that many read the articles i have been translating as they were posted to various indymedia sites, alternative news sites, and other blogs (left, right and curious).

What started out as an attempt to translate some impossible-to-find-in-English left-wing accounts of the French riots and what has led up to them has snowballed into something i had not expected!

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has now pushed through his emergency legislation, and his cabinet has approved the introduction of curfews. It should be noted that this legislation has not been used since the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962), meaning that the French State is now implicitly acknowledging what radicals and people on the grounds have been saying for years: the State policy towards the immigrant population in France is essentially a colonial policy. The police are indeed a “foreign occupying force.”

At the same time, the riots show no sign of abating, and are in fact spreading outside of France. Showing that what is happening is not so much about two kids who were chased to their deaths by police, nor even about how immigrant communities suffer within France, but rather about a kind of structural racism that exists throughout the capitalist west.

I will continue to provide translations of what i deem to be important or interesting French texts for as long as i have time to do so. Please note that i do not necessarily agree with everything i am translating – though i obviously think it is all worth reading.

Today i am fairly busy with other plans, though i do intend to get a few texts done. I am also specifically requesting that if anybody has first person accounts of the riots, of how people arrested are being treated, and also anything from a radical perspective by radical women from the cités or involved in the communities effected, please let me know.

Alright then, on to translations…

2nd Quote of the Day

These people who judge us should take a city bus or a cab through the South Bronx, the Central Ward of Newark, North Philadelphia, the Northwest section of the District of Columbia or any Third World reservation, and see if they can note a robbery in progress. See if they recognize the murder of innocent people. This is the issue, the myth that the Imperialists should not be confronted and cannot be beaten is eroding fast and we stand here ready to do whatever to make the myth erode even faster, and to say for the record that not only will the Imperialist U.S. lose, but that it should lose.

- Kuwasi Balagoon, Sept. 13th 1983

Kuwasi Balagoon was an Anarchist member of the Black Liberation Army, an armed formation that fought for Revolution in the United States in the 1970s. He managed to escape from prison twice before finally being captured December 1981; he died in prison of AIDS on December 13, 1986.

Although the words above were written over twenty years ago in regards to the situation of Black people in the United States, i think that the past 11 days events in France show that they are – sadly – as true as ever, and do not only apply to Amerika.

For more information about Kuwasi Balagoon, please visit the Kuwasi Balagoon Memorial Page.

Should We Accuse Sarkozy and the Government of All Things Evil, Or Should We Dare to Radically Criticize the State?

After having used racism, capitalism has now decided to play its trump card to divide the masses : Sarkozy.

The people’s rebellion is turned into something all about Sarkozy.
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The shantytowns of the 1970s, the construction of the housing estates, the spread of the suburbs, the creation of well-fortified “rural-urban” bourgeois areas, all of this has been forgotten…

Also forgotten is the revolutionary mood of the past several years, which was powerfully expressed on the cultural level by the film “Ma 6-T ca crack-er” and its soundtrack…

Instead, the only cause of the rebellion is Sarkozy, the powerful wizard who need only utter the words “Karcher” and “trash” to summon up trouble!

It goes without saying that this is ridiculous.

Of course Sarkozy has attracted fierce hatred to himself, but this hatred is class hatred, one had better not turn it into an election strategy!

In the United States the same thing happened with Bush [translators note : the “Anyone But Bush” campaign], and now as if by chance Benoît Hamon, a Socialist deputy in the European Parliament, has called Sarkozy “the French Bush.”

The war in Iraq is supposed to be “his” fault, Bush himself is supposed to be an “idiot,” a “madman,” a “fascist” or “human scum” as Maradona recently said.

The only thing is, just as football is not just a matter of individuals, neither is history a matter of “great men.”

It is the masses who make history, and history is the history of class struggle.

Who needs to talk about Sarkozy, apart from those who wish to defend him and those who wish to replace him?

Who needs Sarkozy, except for those who count on elections, who want to make him out to be a boogeyman and thereby give themselves some legitimacy in the people’s eyes?

People’s power is not a matter of getting rid of Sarkozy the Minister of the Interior, but rather of getting rid of the entire State.

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, maoism, revolution, riot, translation,

The Union for Islamic Organizations of France Issues a Fatwa Against the Righteous People’s Rebellion!

Nantes, Lille, Orléans, Rennes, Lyon, Montceau-les-Mines... The righteous rebellion is spreading everywhere.

So what does the Union for Islamic Organizations of France do?

On November 6th it issued a “Fatwa Concerning the Troubles in France.”

Read more...


By doing so it has proven that it is an institution, an extention of the State, whose leader Chirac called for calm just a few days ago.

The UIOF is playing on people’s religious feelings to try and divide the people who are rebelling.

The UIOF explains that “In several verses of the Holy Quran, God condemns destruction and disorder and rejects those who carry it out.”

It quotes verse 64 of Sura 5 “Allah loveth not those who do mischief.”; and also verse 60 of Sura 2 : “do no evil nor mischief on the (face of the) earth.” (See also 2/27; 2/205; 7/56; 28/77; etc.)

Thus the UIOF is clearly calling on people to submit to bourgeois society.

As it cannot come out and say so openly, instead it is repeating what all of the bourgeois organizations are saying, that this is not a righteous rebellion but is instead “disorder”: “the need to express one’s distress or one’s unhappiness does not negate the rights of innocent people who have seen their cars and businesses set on fire”, “The grave events that have shaken the Parisian suburbs over the past days show the depths of hopelessness to which many young people have sunk, which leads them to feel that they have nothing left to lose.”

The UIOF supports the tranquility of bourgeois society, so far as it is concerned the events “are disturbing people’s peace, infringing on their safety and their property and could also put their lives in danger.”

Statements like these are simply attempts to defend the position of the comfortable middle class and people from immigrant communities who have been integrated into the structure of the State or the bourgeoisie.

Whether one is Moslem or not, from an immigrant community or not, what counts in France is class struggle, and this rebellion is a righteous proletarian rebellion.

According to the UIOF, “It is formally forbidden for any Moslem to seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others. To participate in such actions is forbidden.”

The class struggle does not strike blindly.

It is like a mole that tunnels, looking for its way, and which finally finds it.

Or as Rosa Luxembourg observed at the time of the Russian Revolution :

“Despite betrayal, despite the universal failure of the working masses, despite the disintegration of the Socialist International, the great historical law is making headway - like a mountain stream which has been diverted from its course and has plunged into the depths, it now reappears, sparkling and gurgling, in an unexpected place.

“Old mole. History, you have done your work well! At this moment the slogan, the warning cry, such as can be raised only in the great period of global change, again resounds through the International and the German proletariat. That slogan is: Imperialism or Socialism!

“War or Revolution! There is no third way!”
Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) November 2005

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, islam, maoism, translation,

If You Sow Misery, You Will Reap Anger

Yes, life in the housing estates is full of daily violence:

Read more...

• The violence of being refused a job even though you have all of the necessary diplomas, because of what your face looks like;


• The violence of having to take one temporary job after another, slave labour paid with crumbs;


• The violence of having already failed school before you have even attended your first class;


• The violence being crammed into slums because there is a housing shortage;


• The violence of living in a society where women are either pornographic whores or cloistered mothers;


• The violence of daily police hazing;


• The violence of a hypocritical society which offers no alternative to either seclusion or schizophrenia.

It is not the “youth” who are violent, but society itself. The media, the politicians, the pundits all say that we have to give young people structure. But what kind of structure? That of money and competition (and, thus, exclusion), the structure of might makes right?

These young people, they are our neighbours, our children, our sisters and our brothers. They are right to rebel, to refuse to continue to take it silently. Sure we can always discuss the methods, but we must not forget how the police manipulate and provoke things!

It is those who have nothing who are rebelling. It is their dignity that refuses resignation!

But in order to not stay with no way out, once the pressure lessens, this rebellion should organize itself, give itself a structure. To first become a Resistance, for today the enem is strong and powerful, and then ripen and become a Revolution. Because only a radical change in this society will be able to finally get rid of the injustices that have created our actual problems.

Interco Union, Paris North, CNT-AIT, November 6th 2005
Email: mailto:contact@cnt-ait.info


Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois comes from the Interco Paris North section of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-AIT trade union, the Frenc section of he International Workers Association. Confusingly enough, the CNT-AIT is not the same thing as the CNT-F, who released a communiqué with the same title on the same day as this one which i translated just an hour ago…

This text was translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Categories: anarchism, clichy-sous-bois, france, revolution, riot, translation,

Three People Arrested for Inciting Riots on Their Blogs

According to legal sources, one minor and two young adults were arrested in Aix-en-Provence and the Paris region Monday, accused of using the internet to incite people to riot and attack police.
The three blogs in question were hosted on the site owned by radio Skyrock, which deactivated them over the weekend.
“The sites were inciting people to participate in the urban violence and to attack police and police stations,” a parquet judge told Reuters in Paris.
The parquet is supposed to decide today whether or not to open a judicial file, having decided that an investigation in necessary to ascertain the political connections of the accused as well as whether or not their activities were part of a broader organization.
The accused could face up to five years in prison if the charges of “inciting assault against individuals” is upheld.

The above information is translated from French to English by yours truly. The original French text can be viewed by clicking here

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, repression, riot, translation,

If You Sow Misery, You Will Reap Anger

For years, the most poor and hated section of the people – destitute, often immigrant – has suffered from massive unemployment and poverty. The working class jobs their parents held have often disappeared, and school no longer offers any hope to young people. This society has nothing to offer them other than hanging out bored in the streets and stupid humiliating police checks. So nobody is really surprised that a fatal incident should set off violent reactions across the country.

Of course the teachers with the CNT, most of whom work in these neighbourhoods, do not call for the destruction of cars or public buildings, but nor do they call for resignation. For these young people, they demand more justice. In practical terms, this means secure jobs, decent wages, humane working-hours for the parents, adequate housing, an end to counter-productive police repression, necessary and adequate social services, and a truly liberatory school system. This is how we suggest our colleagues and the parents of our students struggle.

The federal secretariat of the CNT-FTE, November 6th 2005

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois comes from the teacher’s section of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union the Conféderation Nationale du Travail (CNT-F) France in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Categories: anarchism, clichy-sous-bois, france, riot, translation,

Quote of the Day

It needed more than one native to say ‘We’ve had enough’; more than one peasant rising crushed, more than one demonstration put down before we could today hold our own, certain in our victory. As for we who have decided to break the back of colonialism, our historic mission is to sanction all revolts, all desperate actions, all those abortive attempts drowned in rivers of blood.

- Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth

A Week of Rebellion Against Social Injustice (Alternative Libertaire)

Within a week the riots that started in Clichy-sous-Bois as a result of the deaths of Ziad and Banou have spread to other suburbs around Paris, and now throughout the country. This is the unavoidable result of five years of Sarko-show [a reference to Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy], eight years of security legislation, and thirty years of social decline.

Read more...


Ziad and Banou died of electrical burns in a power sub-station, and a third youth is in serious condition. They thought they were being chased by the police. Will we ever know whether this was the case, whether the police are guilty of non-assistance of persons in danger?

Whatever the exact details of how these two teenagers died, their death was the spark. Young people in the suburbs already hated the State which for years has only appeared as police, courts, and (increasingly) prisons.

People in working class neighbourhoods live in constant fear, both for themselves and for their children. They are afraid of humiliating identity checks, arbitrary arrests, unpunished police violence, and spurious convictions for “outrage and rebellion,” all in order to meet some police quota. Even recent official reports have called attention to this increasing lawlessness on the part of the police.

And what can one say about provocations of the Minister of the Interior, and even worst about the policy which sees the suburbs as territory that needs to be reconquered, all of which increasingly resembles colonial and military “peacekeeping.”

And so yes, we are sorry that this violence – this answer to the illegitimate violence of those in power – is so often paradoxically directed against the very people who are forced to live in these neighbourhoods, who already have to deal with State and ruling class violence. The logic of this spontaneous rebellion is somewhat understood by the population, but its legitimacy is hurt by the destruction of cars, schools and buses.

But at the same time, we must remember how the State responds when these young people and their families do choose other methods, such as filing complaints against the police which hardly ever result in convictions (remember the work of the Bouge qui Bouge group in Dammarie-les-Lys*). Or the Arabs’ march in 1980, which was broken by the Socialists who were in power at the time and recuperated by SOS Racism.

We support the rebellion against injustice, the sense of mass solidarity, the elements of political awareness amongst most young people. As such, we understand and are in solidarity with both the necessity and the reasons behind the direct action now taking place throughout the working class areas.

This week or riots expresses the hopelessness of the most marginalized section of a generation with no future. Yet it should also be seen as being connected to the government’s strategy of tension and current repression of the social movements (transportation, postal workers, students, anti-GMO activists…) All of these struggles bear witness to the same social insecurity.

We are not going to demand a return to “community policing” or building new sports centers so that young people can work out their frustrations in silence. Does anyone seriously believe that this will solve the social tension caused by the political and social violence of those in power?

We are not even going to demand that the Minister of the Interior resign, as has a section of the left. This is a side-issue, a politician’s issue, and it is scandalous when we remember that the Plural Left [1] also passed security legislation and even today has not broken with the dominant liberal-security model.**

There are certain to be more explosions of anger unless there is a redistribution of work and wealth, all the more certainly so if social regression, inequality, racism and marginalization continue unchecked.

“Prevention,” religious recuperation and repression will all be useless. Only justice and social and economic equality can solve things.

Federal secretariat of Alternative libertaire,

November 5th 2005


Footnotes

(*) Alternative libertaire n°110, septembre 2002 : “Dammarie-les-Lys,
Cité en deuil, cité en résistance” (to view the article in French, click here) [translators note: this 2002 article details an association against police abuse in the suburb of Dammarie-les-Lys, a group which came about specifically following the deaths of two men, one during a police chase and one shot in the head by the police]

(**) For instance, in the National Assembly on July 16th 2002 the [Socialist] deputy Julien Dray addressed the Minister of the Interior, who was at the time implementing a whole series of repressive laws. Dray said: “Sociey […] has no solution other than repression […] For the good of our country, I can only wish you success […] Your plan is in many ways in line with the strategy prepared by the previous [“Plural Left”] government.”

[1] Translators note: The “Plural Left” (later renamed “United Left”) formed the government in France between 1997 and 2002. It was a Socialist Party government with ministers from four smaller left parties: the Communist Party, the Greens, the MDC, and the Left Radicals.



Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois comes from the anarchist group Alternative libertaire in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Or see on my blog:

• Clichy-sous-bois: Youth Accuse the Police (Afrik, October 30th 2005)
• The Clichy Rebellion : Does it show the need for self-defense, or for people’s war? (PCMLM, October 2005)
• Riots Against Racism: Paris is Burning (Novmber 3rd 2005)
• Zero Tolerance in Clichy-sous-Bois (November 3rd 2005)
• State Violence in Clichy-sous-Bois: An Eyewitness Account (November 3rd 2005)
• The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy (PCMLM, November 2005)
• Should We Support the Popular Rebellion or Oppose It With Talk of “Islamicization” and “Disorder”? (PCMLM, November 2005)
• Communique from ATTAC Bethune (November 6th 2005)

Categories: anarchism, clichy-sous-bois, france, riot, social-democracy

Communiqué from ATTAC Béthune

I have a busy day ahead of me so i don’t really have much time to translate a longer text – plus i have found that increasing mainstream coverage coupled with bizarrely-scanty left-wing coverage from France actually means i don’t have a pile of stuff waiting to be worked on.

What i did find below was interesting for two reasons. First off, ATTAC is a social-democratic network of groups against globalization – not a place i would expect any kind of radical discourse. Second of all, apart from the gripe some sticklers might have that they are accusing “ultra-liberalism” instead of “capitalism”, i think this kind of statement is exemplary – no calls to vote for so-and-so, no calls for peace and calm, no “even-handed” condemnation of both sides, just a “public and unambiguous” declaration of solidarity.

One can find good things in the most unexpected of places!


Communiqué from ATTAC Béthune, November 6th 205
ATTAC Béthune Audomarois publicly and unambiguously declares its solidarity with the people in the poor suburbs, victims of the system of Mr Sarkozy and his friends. The logic of ultra-liberalism always leads to lies, suffering, marginalization and violence. Today we are seeing the results.
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE


Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, riot, social-democracy,

Should We Support the Popular Rebellion, Or Oppose It With Talk Of “Islamicization” and “Disorder”?

Who has rebelled in Clichy-sous-bois? 

Youth, just as in May 1968.

But this time it was not the student youth, but rather the most exploited youth, which on top of being proletarian is confronted by massive and widespread racism every day.

This rebel youth is the vanguard of the class struggle in France, it wants everything to change, it is the expression of the total antagonism between the proletariat and capitalism.

Read more...


The reactionaries are trying to cover this up, they are acting as if this rebellion has nothing to do with “French society.”

And then there is the weapon of racism, used to divide and rule.

This is the line about the “Islamicization of France,” to use the words of Philippe de Villiers [leader of the Catholic nationalist Movement for France] when he talks of “‘ethnic civil war,’ the key, the root cause: the bankrupt policy of massive and uncontrolled immigration.”

Having just joined up with Jacques Bompard (formerly of the National Front), they have gone to Seine Saint-Denis to form a “national collective of politicians of the Republic against allowing immigrants to vote.”

As for [National Front leader Jean-Marie] Le Pen, he thinks that “by attacking the agents and symbols of the State, it is France herself that is attacked, by hordes of people that the so-called anti-racist laws prevent us from calling foreigners.”

Here we can see what the fascists are up to: using racism to divide the masses!

This racist propaganda is also a part of the criminalization of the “dangerous classes.”

According to the reactionaries it is a matter of passing off the rebellion as part of the gangster tradition of claiming territory.

This is the catchphrase used time and again, the “gang territory” as Sarkozy said in Argeneteuil, where he was showered with rocks after his statements about “trash” and “Karcher.”

“The youth think that the city belongs to them and them alone. So far as they can see, the police are just another gang. Their mere presence is interpreted as an aggression.” (Sébastien Peyrat, a media sociologist)

“There are people who feel that this is their chance to mark their territory by fighting the forces of law and order. They use violence to control these territories.” (Alain Bauer, criminologist and president of the National Commission on Delinquency)
This kind of talk is meant to “scare people,” to ensure the hegemony of the middle classes.

This is what is behind initiatives such as the Seine-Saint-Denis UMP federation’s petition to “Stop violence - Seine-Saint-Denis demands peace," 100,000 copies of which were distributed.

This is why we find the same talk among the armchair revolutionaries of the far left which is tied to the trade unions.

The left of the “French Communist Party” agrees with Arlette Laguiller that “The main victims of this violence are the people who live in these suburbs” (Arlette Laguiller). “Lacking a political analysis (…) some young people are reduced to committing unacceptable attacks against the peace, the safety and the property of people who work for a living.” (the left wing of the “CP” – the PRCF)

Arlette Laguiller does not hesitate to say that the violence is being committed by “crooks”: “Perhaps it is true that the everyday violence in these neighbourhoods is the work of thugs or pushers. But there have always been thugs, so why do so many young people support them today? Why do these violent explosions directed against the police attract so many more young people than these small time neighbourhood crooks?”

All of these legalists are saying the same thing: “Instead of destroying the cars and homes of workers, pensioners and the unemployed, what needs to be destroyed is capitalism.” (the left of the “CP” –the PRCF)

“The population is very worried about the wave of rebellion and violence that is shaking the suburbs and popular neighbourhoods.” (LCR [Trotskyist])

All of which is nothing but an excuse to reject the struggle.

The cars that have been set on fire have been in areas where the youth feel they can struggle, without having to go into areas where they could be easily arrested.

Many of the cars that have been set on fire were in front of police stations, or belonged to government officials (both Communist Party and UMP mayors), police stations were attacked (in Aulnay, Antony, etc.) as well as post offices and Renault franchises; there were several shots fired against the police (in Courneuve), reporters were taken aside and their cars were set on fire, the Bobigny shopping centre was “vandalized”, etc,

So do we want a revolution or don’t we?

History is made by the masses, and one is either with them or against them.

Struggle is a fact and those who would prefer that it be “different” are simply showing how they fear it, or that they do not even want it.

To give just one example, the LCR has called for “all left-wing and revolutionary forces” to meet “to work out an emergency initiative such as a peaceful march from the suburbs to demand that Sarkozy resign and that the necessary measures be taken to guarantee a social and collective life based on solidarity”!

Is a “peaceful demonstration” part of an electoral strategy or part of a revolutionary struggle against the State?

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) November 2005


Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Or see on my blog:

• Clichy-sous-bois Riots : Youth Accuse the Police (October 30th 2005)


• Riots Against Racism: Paris is Burning (Novmber 3rd 2005)


• Zero Tolerance in Clichy-sous-Bois (November 3rd 2005)


• State Violence in Clichy-sous-Bois: An Eyewitness Account (November 3rd 2005)


• The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy (PCMLM, November 2005)

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, fascism, france, maoism, racism, revisionism, revolution, riot, translation,

Clichy-sous-bios Riots : Youth Accuse the Police

Police provocations and repression
Sunday October 30th 2005, by David Cadasse

Following the insurrectional reaction to the two teenagers who died of electrical burns in a substation as they tried to “run from the police,” young people in Clichy-sous-bois (a suburb of Paris) are accusing the forces of law and order of throwing fuel on the fire, knowingly provoking them and even shooting them with rubber bullets for no reason. Afrik has obtained a video in which one can see this police violence, and has also collected several accounts during a meeting, Sunday, between the mayor and neighbourhood youth.

Read more...


Sunday, 3pm, Clichy-sous-bois. The mayor has organized an informal meeting with young people from the neighbourhood, all of whom are very disappointed and upset by the attitude of the police the night before. Yesterday the city had organized a silent demonstration in honour of the two teenagers, Ziad and Banou, who were burnt to death last Thursday in an electrical substation after being chased, or at least thinking they were being chased, by police. But if, after two days of rioting, the tension seemed to have subsided, the youth accuse the police of fanning the flames and keeping people’s hatred alive by committing more and more provocations, abuses and needless repression.

“Everyone has made tremendous efforts to calm things down. The demonstration was peaceful, but that night the CRS [riot police] made a point of harassing the youth, provoking them,” admitted a municipal official who requested anonymity. In the parking lot at city hall, over 150 youths, almost all of African origin (Black and Arab), came to listen to the mayor. The mayor made a point of reminding them that all of the damage that has been done will be paid for by the city, which means by the taxpayers. He suggested that the solution should be between people in the city and seemed to leave aside the question of the police. Everyone expressed themselves quite freely.

In the crowd everyone was talking. Little groups formed here and there to discuss the events of the night before. Everyone condemned the provocations and abuse of the police. Many people witnessed or were themselves victims of abuse.

Jeremy, fed up, explains: “They [the police – Afrik] are more hot-headed than usual, they are provoking us more. The brother of one of the dead kids was with us, as usual, in front of his building when the police came by with their flash balls [a gun that fires rubber bullets – Afrik] and started checking us out, finally telling him ‘you, go home to your mother.’ He took a few steps towards the cops to talk to them when one of the cops told him ‘Stop or I’ll shoot you.’ We ran in and up to the tenth floor, and they started shooting gas into the lobby.”


Mothers Insulted As They Leave The Mosque

“They all say shit, especially the journalists,” says Youcef, looking over at the Capa camera crew (Le vrai journal) surrounded by young people, taking pictures and getting quotes. “First of all, they started by attacking the reputation of the victims, when today even the prosecutor from Bobigny admits that the police had not ever suspected them of anything bad. The media wants us all to look like trash, whereas it is the police who provoke the youth, trying to get any excuse to hit or shoot.”

With barely contained anger, Morad tells us this: “We were leaving the mosque when the police surrounded us with their flash-balls drawn. They took us aside, but what really shocked us was when they started insulting the mothers who were leaving the prayers: ‘Get out of here you gang of whores and keep a better eye on your kids!’”

Morad does not seem like the type who would look for a confrontation with the police, but not everyone is so cool-headed.

Forces of law and order… or disorder?

You can feel the tension in the air. All the more because three police cars are stationed just 50 meters from the town hall. One of the officers has his flash ball in his hand with his finger on the trigger. The crowd takes this as yet another provocation. Tempers are rising. Two people start shouting that the crowd should attack the police: “Come on, we out-number them, we’ll all go together and smash them up,” says one of them. Luckily, calmer heads prevail, and manage to disperse the line of youths that had formed in front of the police.

“They are provoking us too much, I have friends who had been shot at, just like that, for no reason, with plastic bullets. This can only lead to more violence. Everyone is angry. Now if it’s going to explode, it’s going to explode. I am not afraid of them and their weapons. We will get to a point where we will get weapons . It’s going to get like in America here,” predicts Jonathan.

“The police stopped me at 4am. I was alone in my car. They searched the car and found a baseball bat in my trunk. When they asked me why I had the bat, I told them that there is no law against having a bat in your trunk. They answered me, saying ‘Well is there against a law against me ramming it in your face?’ Then they started going on saying ‘This isn’t Beirut here’ and calling me a ‘little faggot.’ One of them really wanted me to cry. He came right up to me and shouted ‘Cry!’ Luckily, just as this was happening some reporters drove by. I called out and they stopped. Before they got there the cop said he didn’t like reporters, but there was nothing he could do and he had to leave me alone.”


Nicolas Sarkozy Supports The Police

There are two different versions of the dramatic events at Clichy-sous-bois, regarding whether or not the police were chasing the teenagers after their soccer match. The police say one thing, and the young people from the area say something else. The problem is, there are witnesses. One of the young people who were chased explains that he hid while his three friends ran straight to the power substation. Even without this testimony, some people just don’t understand how the police version makes any sense. “Why were some young people arrested if they were not being chased, seeing as they all ran away?” “Why else would the teenagers have decided to climb a 3 meter high wall with barbed wire on top?” Just more questions that the police sweep aside.

Sunday at 8pm, the Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy stated on channel one that, according to the information he received, “The police were not chasing the youths.” If he does intend to “tell the truth to everyone,” he also made a point of paying “homage to the remarkable work the police have been doing” and to “congratulate them” for the arrests they have made. A law-and-order discourse that many people feel leads to a dangerous conclusion – that those who have been arrested [during he riots] are all thugs – and which gives the police carte blanche to do what they please with impunity.


A damning video for the forces of law and order

Once again, Nicolas Sarkozy repeated that he will maintain a policy of “zero tolerance” towards urban violence. Discounting community policing, he insists on the need for more and more arrests. “Real young people” will have nothing to fear from the police. In the meantime, on Sunday a security force of over 400 CRS [riot police], guardsmen and police took up positions throughout the city.

Can the police, supported by the Minister of the Interior, do as they please? A video, recorded with a cell phone, is circulating throughout the neighbourhoods. A file called “Sarko’s new keufs” [keuf is slang for police] was given to Afrik, and part of it can be viewed online. We see a police car parked with its door open. We think we can make out that someone has thrown something at the police. The response is immediate. We can clearly see plainclothes police firing again and again with heir flash-balls. We see them chasing the young people, calling out “Come back you bastards!”

“Some of the rubber bullets are even signed,” says Kader. “There is a guy who was hit by one that had ‘Boum boum on your ass, see you soon, Luc’ written on it.”

There seems to be a great divide between the police and the youth. Between the politicians who approve of the police’s behaviour and the media, which is accused of distorting and falsifying reality, the hostility and exasperation are feeding feelings of hatred that may unfortunately lead to worst.

To view the video please click here (you will need QuickTime)



Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of Afrik in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the author’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Or see on my blog:

• Riots Against Racism: Paris is Burning (Novmber 3rd 2005)


• Zero Tolerance in Clichy-sous-Bois (November 3rd 2005)


• State Violence in Clichy-sous-Bois: An Eyewitness Account (November 3rd 2005)


• The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy (PCMLM, November 2005)


• The Clichy Rebellion : Does it show the need for self-defense, or for people’s war? (PCMLM, October 2005)

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, police, racism, riot, translation, video

The Clichy Rebellion : Does it show the need for self-defense, or for people’s war?

There is a rebellion in Clichy Sous bois.
A rebellion that has as its moral basis revenge, after two teenagers died of electrical burns in a power substation.

A night of rioting, “another one” as Sarkozy said.

The socialists say that this “is proof of the climate of tension that reigns and of the escalation of violence.”

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According to [former Socialist President Laurent] Fabius “the government and its right-wing predecessor seem to be far less interested in prevention than repression, whereas both are needed.”

And [former Socialist Minister] Dominique Strauss-Kahn complained on channel one that “There are less police in the suburbs, there is no more community policing, prevention programmes have been dismantled (…) The results are there to see: more violence than we have ever see before.”

According to some people, who firmly oppose the racist policies of the French State, this is one more argument in favour of community self-defense in popular areas, to protect against State attacks.

But “self-defense” makes no sense, as it is not a minority but all the popular classes that are targeted by State violence.
If you think in terms of self-defense, you are thinking in the same way (but inverted) as Joaquin Masanet, the spokesperson of UNSA-Police, the trade union of the majority of riot police, who has stated that the live ammunition fired against the riot police is “very serious” because it is aimed at a “symbol of the Republic” and proves that firearms “continue to circulate in the suburbs.”

All of which is just a way of “relativizing” the violence, of saying that it is qualitatively different in different areas… whereas it is only quantitatively different.

The massive police presence in the suburbs is in no way different from the repression of the « free partys » organized by young people who want to listen to music without going to commercial discos; it is in no way different from the little bosses’ surveillance in the workplace.

Capitalist social violence is the primary aspect.

“Of the two aspects of a contradiction, one is necessarily primary, the other secondary. The primary aspect is that which plays the dominant role in the contradiction. The characteristics of things and phenomena are mainly determined by this primary aspect of the contradiction, which holds the dominant position. But this situation is not static; the primary aspect and the secondary aspect of the contradiction change into one another and the characteristics of things change as a consequence.”
- (Mao Tse-Tung)
[translators note: i could not find the exact text of this quote in English, so i translated it myself – my apologies to Mao!]

This is the reason why the fires of revolution spread so quickly in the popular neighbourhoods.

For it is these neighbourhoods that the most exploited sections of the proletariat are brought together, many of whom are victims of racism.

A racism that is widespread throughout French society with “second class citizens” and a criminalized population accused of every evil.

Even young teenagers are prevented from going to school because of their alleged “dangerousness.”

This is why the masses who have nothing to lose but their chains are joining the revolutionary rebellion.

How else does one explain the fact that every night in France dozens of cars are set on fire?

How else does one explain how quickly the “violence” spread to neighbouring communities and the city of Montfermeil?

How else does one explain the fact that the Action police CFTC trade union requested that the army be sent into Clichy-sous-Bois?

The truth is that a single spark can start a praire fire.
And the rulers are all afraid.

Summing up a report released by Le Figaro [a very right-wing French magazine] on Thursday October 27th, the director general of the national guard (DGGN) lists “high-risk suburbs” where the guard is called to intervene, which shows that some medium-size cities can also be sparks (such as Rillieux-la-Pape in Rhône, Vitry-le-François in Marne, Villefontaine in Isère, Méru in l'Oise, etc.)
The entire bourgeoisie is trembling with fear because it knows that this is the calm that comes before the storm.

The masses want revolution, and every day they dare to go more and more in this direction, against the daily capitalist barbarism.

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) October 2005


Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Or see on my blog:

• Riots Against Racism: Paris is Burning (Novmber 3rd 2005)


• Zero Tolerance in Clichy-sous-Bois (November 3rd 2005)


• State Violence in Clichy-sous-Bois: An Eyewitness Account (November 3rd 2005)


• The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy (PCMLM, November 2005)

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, maoism, police, revisionism, revolution, riot, translation

A Translation Question: “classes populaires”

While translating these texts on the riots in France, i have used the term “working classes” to translate “classes populaires”, even though a more literal translation would be “popular classes.”
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This is because the word “populaire” has the connotation of “the people” as in “the masses” or “the oppressed” or “the lower classes” whereas in English “popular” does not normally have this connotation.

That said, “working classes” is also inexact, as the way this is translated into French is “classe ouvrière.”

I am not sure if there are distortions as to one’s line that might flow from this question, but given the heat generated by such questions as “how many Stalinist angels can dance on the head of a Trotskyist pinhead?” i am sure here is potential…

So please be forewarned that when you see “working classes” or “popular classes” in any of these translations, that there is room for some ambiguity.

And if any other left-wing translators out there have any advice as to how i should handle his thorny issue, please let me know at info@kersplebedeb.com!

Categories: translation,

The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy

Clichy, Aulnay, Blanc-Mesnil, Bobigny... It is right to rebel
The far left should talk about what’s going on in Clichy

The nights of rebellion continue. A popular rebellion taking aim at the State, which is completely overwhelmed by what was easy to see coming.

But even if you see it coming, a popular rebellion cannot be crushed, for history is the history of class struggle.
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Chirac can say “People have to calm down,” but what difference does it make?

The police section of the CFTC trade union, which represents 20% of the unionized police force, can ask for “a curfew to counter the civil war which is being waged in numerous French ghettos,” as “tomorrow it will be 700 out of bounds suburbs that will join the civil war,” just as it previously asked for the army. (see our document “La révolte de Clichy, expression du besoin d'autodéfense ou celui de la guerre populaire ?”) But what difference will it make?

None of this will change anything, for it is the masses who make history, and these seven nights of rebellion already have their place in the revolutionary history of France.
There rebellions are the proof that the class struggle is not over, even though certain people tried to suffocate it with electoralism and the campaign to vote “No” against the European constitution!

The popular rebellions taking place right now are sweeping away opportunism and this is a good thing.

They are showing that revolution is both possible and necessary.

They have silenced the electoral far left; it was several days before they dared to speak about what was going on, all of their strategy of having the working classes submit to the peace-loving petit-bourgeoisise just fell apart!

And yet when the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that “Israel must be wiped off the map”, the “French Communist Party” spoke up immediately, saying that this statement provoked “legitimate emotions and indignation.”

Apparently the popular rebellion creates less emotions… especially when we know that it is taking place in many suburbs with Communist mayors!

For the French Communist Party “Calm should be restored as quickly as possible and everyone should learn what they can from this”, “Community policing had allowed us to make important progress, but it was scrapped. Community groups carrying out extremely important work on the ground are seeing their funding cut.”

All of which amounts to the same as what Georges Mothron, the UMP [the ruling political party] mayor of Argenteuil has said: “This is the first time i have had to deal with this shit personally. My car was torched my house attacked. I have never seen anything like this! I was born in Argenteuil and I have always been able to wander around at any time of day, but here we are at a different level. That said, it is no good waving the stick without the carrot.”

The [Trotskyist] Revolutionary Communist League is saying the same thing: so far as it is concerned, the rebellion is only about “anger,” an expression of suffering and hopelessness. They consider Sarkozy to be a “pyromaniac firefighter.”

Much of the far left thinks this way: for them struggle exists on an organizational level, nothing else exists.

“This kind of ‘revolutionary’ says the same kind of thing as the Trotskyists, verbally kissing the workers’ asses even when they are completely ideologically backwards and screaming about anarchism as soon as some windows get smashed in a demonstration. We Maoists like it when windows get smashed. And the worker who is sorry to see the windows break is an idiot who needs to be politically educated.” (“Vive le léninisme,” Communist Party (Marxist-Lenininst Maoist) April 2003)

It is right to rebel!

Communist Party (Marxist-Lenininst Maoist) November 2005

Please note that the above text about the past week’s riots in Clichy-Sous-Bois come from the website of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) in France and is translated by yours truly. I have a “fast and loose” translation philosophy, meaning that when there is a choice between readability and the original phraseology i tend to favour the former, provided that the meaning stays the same. The original document can be seen in French.

Please also note that i am translating this as i have not been able to find any radical accounts of the riots or the police racism that provoked them in English… i do not necessarily agree with the PCMLM’s point of view, nor do they necessarily agree with mine. Si quelqu’un a un meilleur texte à suggérer, svp envoyez-moi le!

For background to the riots, including a timeline, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Or see on my blog:

• Riots Against Racism: Paris is Burning (Novmber 3rd 2005)


• Zero Tolerance in Clichy-sous-Bois (November 3rd 2005)


• State Violence in Clichy-sous-Bois: An Eyewitness Account (November 3rd 2005)

Categories: clichy-sous-bois, france, maoism, revolution, riot, translation

U.S. Troops Gang Rape Filipina Woman in the Philippines

this forwarded from the very worthwhile Freedom Archives mailing list:

News Release Nov. 3, 2005
For reference: Berna Ellorin, Public Information Officer, BAYAN USA, ny@bayanusa.org / phone: 646-479-1605 http://www.bayanusa.org/

NO IMMUNITY: CASE OF US TROOPS' GANG RAPE OF FILIPINA WOMAN MUST BE SURRENDERED TO PHILIPPINE JURISDICTION

New York/San Francisco The national alliance of Filipino organizations in the US known as BAYAN USA and its supporters strongly condemn the recent and brutal gang rape of a 22 year-old Filipina woman by at least six US Marines stationed in Subic Bay, Olongapo City two days ago last Tuesday, November 1.
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The six suspects are currently being held in the Philippines under the custody of the US Embassy in Manila. BAYAN USA spokesperson Berna Ellorin asserted, "this heinous crime against the Filipino people at the hands of the US military troops commands nothing less than comprehensive justice. This can only mean all efforts must be exerted by both the US and Philippine authorities for a full investigation of the alleged perpetrators. Absolutely NO IMMUNITY must be granted to the six suspects under US jurisdiction. They must surrender to Philippine jurisdiction be tried and held accountable to the Filipino people and its legal system. The Macapagal-Arroyo government, if it is one with its people, must facilitate such a due process. Anything else is NOT justice."

According to the unidentified female victim, the group of six US marines invited her to join them in a rented van after a night out in a karaoke bar. A few hours later, as reported by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), witnesses said they saw the unconscious woman's body being dumped from the van on a road.

SBMA Chair Feliciano Salonga confirmed that the six US servicemen-- Keith Silkwood, Daniel Smith, Albert Lara, Dominic Duplantis, Corey Barris, and Chad Capent-- were "identified by the driver of the van."

Ellorin zoomed in on a vague claim by the US Embassy and US Charges D'Affairs Paul Jones that the US would "cooperate" with the Philippine authorities in an investigation of the incident.

"There is a century-long history of US military atrocities committed against Filipinos in the Philippines that were never brought to justice," Ellorin stated, citing previous examples including the shooting of unarmed civilian Buyong-Buyong Isnijal by US Soldier Reggie Lane in Basilan back in July 2002, the shooting of Aetas (an indigenous people) near Subic back in the eighties by US troops who claimed to have mistook them as wild boar, and countless human rights violations and sexual offenses against Filipino women.

"In all cases, Philippine government surrendered its criminal jurisdiction to the US. US soldiers, as protected by provisions under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) are seldom surrendered to Philippine authorities much less tried under Philippine law. They are totally untouchable under US jurisdiction, despite crimes they can commit against Filipinos on Philippine soil. This means they can get away with anything from murder to gang rape, and not have to answer to the Philippine government," Ellorin explained.

Ellorin cited the unconstitutionality of the Visiting Forces Agreement in the first place, stating it directly violates Philippine national sovereignty. "The VFA should be repealed at once, for the rights and welfare of the Filipino people.

Jones, on the other hand, refused to disclose the exact whereabouts of the six US rape suspects, who were among the 4,500 US servicemen in the Philippines for the Talon joint military exercises since several weeks ago.

BAYAN USA called for increased national action in indignation and demanding justice for the victim. It reiterated its call for the total and unconditional withdrawal of US troops and US military aid from the Philippines.

For news reports on the gang rape, visit the following links:

http://wcbstv.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

BAYAN USA is an alliance of progressive Filipino groups in the U.S. representing organizations of students, scholars, women, workers, and youth. As the only international chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. Members of BAYAN USA include: ANAKBAYAN (Los Angeles & Seattle), Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (Oakland, Bay Area), Habi-Arts (Los Angeles), New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NY), League of Filipino Students (San Francisco), Pilipinos Organizing Workers for Empowerment and Respect (Los Angeles), and Critical Filipino and Filipino Studies Collective.

To receive official BAYAN USA statements and press releases please join the bayanusanews list. Just send a request to info@bayanusa.org.


And if you are in San Francisco you may want to check out this protest today:

EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT!

U.S. TROOPS GANG RAPE FILIPINA WOMAN IN THE PHILIPPINES

DEMONSTRATION TO DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIM, AND NO IMMUNITY FOR THE PERPETRATORS

Today, Friday, November 4th, 4:30-6pm San Francisco Federal Building 450 Golden Gate Avenue (Cross Street is Polk) San Francisco, CA

DEMAND JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY US TROOPS!
JUNK THE VISITING FORCES AGREEMENT (VFA)! US TROOPS OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES, MIDDLE EAST, & EVERYWHERE!

Organized by BAYAN USA, babae, League of Filipino Students, Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines For more information contact: info@bayanusa.org or call 415-412-8915 or 510-914-4461

Categories: imperialism, philippines, united-states-military, violence-against-women