30/8/19:

List of unhappy moments for the cops

29/8/19:

France, Nantes: solidarity shown with Exarcheia in attack on Greek consulate

24/8/19:

France, Bayonne: G7 clashes (video)Cost of G7 conference: 36.4 million euros. Amount offered by G7 to fight Amazon forest fires: a bit over 20 million euros. The G7 fiddles everyone whilst the Amazon burns. They sit around wagging their fingers at Bolsonaro, a man far more destructive of humanity than a Gadaafi or a Saddam Hussein or an Osama Bin Laden. But being democratically elected, he won’t be facing a peace crimes tribunal in Nuremburg or elsewhere, because if they put him on trial they’d also have to put themselves on trial. Because France – and other countries – are burning forests on almost  as grand a scale as Bolsonaro in Africa.

3/8/19:

France, Nantes: clashes over manslaughter of young man by cops

See entries for 29/7/ and 27/7 here

1/8/19:

France, Oise: fire attack on mayor’s house; 6 vehicles & 2 empty buildings torched

29/7/19:

France, Nantes: body of Steve, murdered by cops, found in river See 27/7/19 below for context of this. “Sadness, anger, and bitterness,” this is how Steve’s friends summarise their feelings on Tuesday night, as they gather at the foot of the huge yellow crane on a wharf…. where the body of the young man was found Monday afternoon. It’d been 38 days since they’d waited for news of Steve, that they’d moved heaven, earth and social networks by asking this nagging question “Where is Steve?” ….”When the IGPN [General Inspection of the National Police – in part, the state’s organisation that pretends to police the police – ie inspects cops who have maybe broken too obviously the law of the rulers they protect; a bit like the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission, though without the pretense of independence] says that there is no connection between the police intervention and the death of Steve, it is not possible, they are really not ashamed… It could have been my son…”.  In the afternoon, several members of the group who’d been  mobilized since the beginning to shed light on his disappearance put a black armband on the statues and poured blood-red dye into the water of the fountain of Place Royale. “This fountain symbolizes the city, it is the allegory of the Loire and its tributaries. This is our way of saying that a crime was committed in the Loire”, explains Quentin, who took part in the action…”Seeing this blood in the fountain, it upsets me completely”, sighs Marie-Anne, a 65 year old from Nantes. “Here is a happy place where the whole city meets and these black armbands and blood red water bring us back to a terrible reality. We cannot remain indifferent….” Demos planned in some towns and cities on Wednesady 31st July, though main demos are planned for Saturday 3rd August. See this.

27/7/19:

France, Perpignan: local offices of governing party trashed and torched on yellow vest demo (videos) This action was directly linked to the “disappearance”  of a young man  forced by the cops to jump in the river in Nantes (hundreds of miles from Perpignan) during the festival of music, the night of June 21st – 22nd. (Who dares continue repeating, as they dogmatically select only those facts and interpretations that rigidly confirm such a take on this mish-mash of a movement, that the yellow vests have only intensified reactionary attitudes?). Since his body has never been recovered, it’s classified as a disappearance, but obviously he’s dead. Apparently neighbours complained about the loud music, the cops arrived telling them to turn it down, they didn’t turn it down enough (or weren’t given time to), the cops started beating and using their usual weaponry, the group – 15 or so in all – jumped into the river to try to escape, and all but the one have been accounted for. See this.

20/7/19:

France, Montpellier: more yellow vest clashes as at least 700 demonstrate in sweltering heat (video) According  to a friend, the cops severely cracked the head of a 71-year-old.

15/7/19:

France, Essonne: police station attacked following Algerian football semi-finals qualification win – car and bin burning in 7 other areas “…the police station of Ulis was targeted by rioters which had already happened during the previous night. About 50 people then attacked the national police and municipal police by throwing Molotov cocktails, heavy-duty fireworks and stones. Four police cars were badly damaged. The police made five arrests at Ris-Orangis after being stoned. At Tarterêts, in Corbeil-Essonnes, the police were attacked by 50 to 80 people throwing breezeblocks and glass bottles. The same scenes of violence in the district of Vieillet in Quincy-sous-Sénart. At Chilly-Mazarin, four rioters were arrested after firing heavy-duty fireworks…Several hundred supporters also found themselves around midnight in the street to celebrate the victory of the Algerian football team. Cars and two-wheelers blocked the traffic on the N7 at the crossing of Athis-Mons or in the city center of Corbeil-Essonnes where clashes also took place in the district of Tarterêts. …For a week, violence had spread to districts of the department. During the night from Friday to Saturday, two police officers were slightly wounded by fireworks in the Grigny-2 district of Grigny. On the night from Saturday to Sunday, twenty-four cars were burned throughout the Essonne. Another worrying event was the “abnormal sale” of hydrochloric acid reported Saturday by several DIY stores that saw their stocks disappear in one day. This corrosive liquid can be used to make homemade bombs.

14/7/19:

France, Paris: Bastille not stormed French riot police fired teargas to disperse masked protesters from the Champs Élysées after the annual Bastille Day military parade ended in Paris on Sunday. A few dozen men — some masked and dressed in black — briefly tried to block roads near the Arc de Triomphe by dragging metal security barriers and setting fire to bins….The men involved were not wearing the signature yellow vests of the anti-government gilets jaunes protests of the past eight months….Earlier on Sunday morning, before the traditional annual military parade, some 152 people – including yellow vest protesters – were arrested as they tried to stage a separate demonstration….No one with a yellow vest had been allowed past police barriers to watch the parade. A few had slipped into the crowd and instead inflated yellow balloons. Some had booed and jeered the French president Emmanuel Macron as he travelled down the Champs Élysées in an open-topped military vehicle.” …  Seine-St.-Denis: police station attacked with heavy duty fireworks by about 30 youths Short video hereclashes with cops in 6 towns follwing Algeria’s win the semi-final wqualifications for the Africa Cup of Nations

12/7/19:

France, Paris: brutal state attack on undocumented “black vests” being evicted from brief occupation of Pantheon (includes video)Another video here

29/6/19:

France, Lille: yellow vest clashesRennes: the same

28/6/19:

France, Eure: police station attacked during the night by 30 hooded youths

22/6/19:

France: clashes on yellow vest demos in 4 towns

15/6/19:

France, Toulouse: further yellow vest clashes (videos)… Report on use of anti-riot weapons by cops

27/5/19:

France,Alpes de Haute-Provence: mayor’s car torchedGuadeloupe: admins of primary school and middle school torched

8/6/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in Dijon and Montpellier

6/6/19:

France, Isère: rooftop CCTV camera torched

4/6/19:

France, Oise: cops stoned by youths in drug-selling crackdownToulouse: bank windows & Lidl windows smashed, tagged with GJ (i.e. yellow vests)Haute-Vienne: signal control box for railway line supplying nuclear material for nuclear power plant torched

31/5/19:

France, Hauts-de-France: clashes as bins burn, etc. during yellow vest demo

28/5/19:

France, Lyon: cops stoned, forced to abandon their car as 30 youths smash it up

27/5/19:

France,Alpes de Haute-Provence: mayor’s car torchedGuadeloupe: admins of primary school and middle school torched

25/5/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in Paris and Amiensand in Lyon& Toulousereport in French & photos from Amiens

19/5/19:

France, Paris: about 500 ‘Black vests’ occupy part of Charles de Gaulle airport to demand documents for everybody “France does not belong to the French! Everyone has a right to be here!” one of the demonstrators shouted into a loudspeaker….The protesters called for ‘papers for all,’ a meeting with Philippe to discuss asylum policy, and a meeting with the leaders of Air France to demand they stop “any financial, material, logistical or political participation in deportations.”

12/5/19:

France, Val-d’Oise: molotovs thrown at cops after they’re ambushed; cop van torched Police officers who were on night patrol on rue Malcolm X, Goussainville…were blocked by a car obstructing the street and whose occupants fled on their arrival. The police who had left their vehicle were then attacked by about twenty individuals who threw stones and three Molotov cocktails at them. The officials managed to escape and call for reinforcements without serious injuries, according to the newspaper. An investigation for “attempted murder of a person holding public authority” was opened.

11/5/19:

France: yet more clashes in 5 towns on repetitious yellow vest demos More here in English…Tours: a dozen cars torched during riot in popular area

10/5/19:

France, Rennes: riot in migrant detention centre A dozen people held in the detention center of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande, near Rennes, rebelled in the night of Thursday, May 9 to Friday, May 10, when the police entered to seek a foreigner to be returned to his country. Premises are unusable and the capacity is decreased from 40 to 25….About ten men, detained because they were in an irregular situation in France, took mattresses and clothes out of two buildings. They lit the fire with toilet paper. Some rioters managed to climb on the roof of one of the buildings to express their anger….The police…managed to extinguish the fires, which burned the two buildings. …Both rooms were seriously degraded by thick smoke, caused by fire to the mattresses. They have been closed and are currently unusable. Reinforcements were needed to restrain rioters who did not want to get off the roof. …The volunteers who help the detainees were not surprised by this renewed tension in Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande. The legal retention period has been increased from 45 days to 90 days. …”There have never been more riots in the CRA in France than in recent months,” said an observer who works for undocumented foreigners. The police have a hard time restoring calm and a spark can easily start a fire.”

8/5/19:

France, Toulon: clashes between “casseurs” and cops Interesting to see, in a town dominated by its military presence and noted for being right-wing, a hooded yellow vest carrying a a placard saying “Get rid of the political system!”. A friend told me that on a previous yellow vest demo there, where she was wearing black with a little hood (though not in fact part of any black block), a man turned to her to say “Here we’re white block not black block”.  Despite its National Front reputation, there are clearly signs that not everybody is a nationalist.

4/5/19:

France: yellow vest clashes  in 3 towns

1/5/19:

France, Paris: head of sell-out CGT union attacked by black bloc  See “The CGT – sheepdogs in wolves’ clothing” for a critique of this racket…State and media resort to the Big Lieeyewitness accountBesançon: yellow vests try to break into police station

27/4/19:

France, Strasbourg: yellow vests attack EU headquarters “Smoke canisters were hurled about outside the EU headquarters, with demonstrators holding placards and flags that warned eurocrats not to “forget 2005”, a year that saw three weeks of violent riots that included assaults and the burning of cars and public buildings.”

20/4/19:

France, Paris: further yellow vest protests Marching from outside the economy ministry, protesters calmly carried French flags with slogans against Macron written on their yellow vests, such as: “Macron, you take from the poor to give to the rich.” Some carried banners slamming the “hypocrisy” of wealthy billionaires pledging a total of more than €1bn (£865m) to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral, saying business leaders had done nothing to address low salaries and the plight of people who couldn’t make ends meet. “Humans first, €1bn for the gilets jaunes,” read one banner.“Millions for Notre Dame, what about for us, the poor?” read a sign worn by a demonstrator. “Everything for Notre Dame, nothing for Les Misérables,” read another sign that evoked Victor Hugo’s novel.”Toulouse: and more clashes“A little after 7pm, the prefecture of Haute-Garonne counted two wounded “in relative urgency”. Seventeen people were also arrested, in particular for throwing projectiles, violence against people in charge of public authority or outrages…. Without a defined route, the demonstrators circulated several hours in the streets of the center of Toulouse, avoiding the Capitol Square, which was prohibited from 10am to 9pm by a prefectural decree. “I’m scared but it’s not going to stop me from coming,” says Claudine Sarradet. … “We get millions for stones, but nothing for people, it makes me very angry,” says Sarradet in reference to donations, mostly private, for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame. “Notre Dame v  Notre Drame” [Notre Dame v. Our Drama] or “Rehouse Quasimodo and the homeless with him”, could be read on posters posted in town by the demonstrators. The tension rose in the late afternoon, shortly before 5pm, near the War Memorial. Protesters clashed with security forces who advanced to block them, firing tear gas and stun grenades.

17/4/19:

France: report showing that 875 churches were vandalised in 2018   See also this

15/4/19:

France, Paris: conflagration of sickening hypocritical bullshit erupts “Thousands gathered at the scene on Île de la Cité, and sympathy-scenes around the world, to gasp, to gape, to weep, to mourn, and to pray that the rocks upon which this church was built– ignorance, superstition, slavery, degradation of women, child abuse, and landed estates– might be saved from the fire….”

Spot the difference:

         Notre Dame, Paris, 2019                                                              Grenfell Tower, London, 2017

  On top of this outpouring of sickening crap indicative of the contradictions we are all forced to endure, the reification that has colonised people’s heads so much that things are sacred, human lives profane, it’s worth pointing out this bit of hypocrisy: about 3 weeks before this fire, Macron held a banquet in Nice for Xi Jinping, China’s increasingly totalitarian President, the man who has presided over the deliberate destruction of hundreds of mosques, including one, like Notre Dame, from the 13th century.


14/4/19:

France, Loire-Atlantique: arson attack on army recruitment car

13/4/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 5 townsLyon: 6 people try to escape detention centre – 3 of them succeed; others riot after screws do virtually nothing to stop a detainee killing herself

6/4/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 9 townsMontpellier: major motorway blockaded on both side by yellow vests for an hour

31/3/19:

France, Val-de-Marne: 80 prisoners refuse to return to their cells, protesting against lousy hygene conditionsDijon: 5 molotovs thrown at prefecture

30/3/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 12 towns

28/3/19:

France: MPs propose withdrawal of social security benefits for “casseurs” Val-de-Marne: a critique of culture? – cultural centre torched by stolen car set on fire, a day after cops were stoned by locals

23/3/19:

France: clashes in 13 towns on yellow vest demos Montpellier: yellow vest clashes as 4,500 demonstrate  The cops used a new type of teargas this day far stronger than before. One person I know was totally blinded and debilitated for 5 minutes because of this (and she hadn’t been sprayed directly in the face). Lots of stuff was smashed, as usual. And also as usual, an eclectic mix. Hundreds of people on the demo often shouted anti-capitalist slogans, but, as far as I could see, they didn’t confront those people wearing a black t-shirt, with the words “Strength and Honour” and a skull in yellow, one waving a flag with the same logo – indicative of a military/fascistic mentality. The dominant tendency, though ‘anti-capitalist’, was “though we may disagree with lots of different ideas expressed here, we’re united for the moment around this issue” – an excuse to avoid arguing or confronting people with very nasty ideas, and, I assume, a practice to match. Though we’re living through a very very different epoch, I’m reminded of aspects of Weimar Germany, when – in the 20s and early 30s – “Communists” and Nazis often fought the cops side-by-side. We can see where the attitude “Though we may disagree with lots of different ideas expressed here, we’re united for the moment around this issue” led to. This is certainly not to take a resigned and depressing  abstentionist attitude towards this movement, which is merely a way of remaining an intellectual spectator; there are definitely aspects which are worth supporting and encouraging, but avoiding challenging the elements extremely dangerous to a libertarian perspective only encourages our enemies, whose future is significantly more hopeful for them than it is for a libertarian revolution. However, there were some tags which, though not at all imaginative, included “Down with the state, the cops and the fascists” amongst others. Nice: Xi Jinping on fire  A fire – almost certainly arson – of a dozen or so cars in a car park under the hotel where Xi Jinping was staying in Nice on Saturday 23rd. Not sure that it was directly under the hotel but certainly very close. This was shortly after a yellow vest woman, amongst about only 30 yellow vests who’d decided to demonstrate despite the ban on demos there on the eve of Macron’s visit with XJ, fell and cracked her skull following a crazy charge (against 30 unarmed peaceful demonstrators) by riot cops (she’s now in a coma). No-one’s talking about the fire as an attack on XJ (in fact, the fire’s hardly been talked about at all) but it seems like quite a coincidence. 

16/3/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 7 cities Video of Paris here and here  Report in English here

Restaurant for the rich overcooked, Paris

11/3/19:

France, Grenoble: another night of fire More here At 10pm, police officers in the Mistral district of Grenoble were targeted by several people throwing Molotov cocktails…Several cars were deliberately set on fire…Projectiles were thrown from the roofs onto the police. No one was hurt. In total, five vehicles went up in smoke and no arrests were made. See entries for 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd & 2nd this month

10/3/19:

France, Grenoble: report on last 3 nights of events “… while the Yellow Vests were passing through the Mistral district shaken by riots for a week after the deaths of two young people, Fatih and Adam, pursued by the cops, the premises of an agricultural nursery, ‘Artis La Pousada’, located on rue Anatole-France, suddenly caught fire. According to firefighters and cops who intervened around 2:20 pm, the intentional nature seems obvious since three  areas where the fire  started were noted on the first floor of this building housing corporate offices. “The flames then spread into the false ceiling of the building, destroying part of the premises. At the moment the fire broke out, the neighborhood was crossed by a procession of “yellow vests”…Very soon after the first smoke escaped from the building, the CRS stood in front of the premises to secure the intervention of the firefighters. Their oppressive presence immediately revived the conflict in the Mistral, with multiple bin burnings on the main artery running through the neighborhood,  stones thrown in response to  tear gas grenades… On Sunday morning, the riot police were still guarding the building out of fear of a new arson. This is the second fire in 36 hours against this set of offices that had already been targeted on the night of Thursday 7 to Friday 8 March in clashes between young people and police. The flames had time to devastate the entire ground floor of the structure, putting some 100 people out of work….On the evening of Sunday, March 10, Lionel Beffre, prefect of Isère, went to the Mistral district to support his cops mobilized to (try to) restore order since Saturday, March 2. “But as the representative of the State arrived on Rhine-Danube Avenue,  unrest resumed in the area, a group of young people attacking a car. Police and CRS had to intervene and were targeted by projectiles “. He recalled that since the beginning of the riots, 11 people have been arrested. Marseille: CCTV cameras wrecked, burning barricades, bank window smashed, insurance company ransacked during carnival at La Plaine and elsewhere

Above: tag put up opposite church in Marseille: “The only church that enlightens is one that burns”

Below: the Arc de Triomphe in Marseille was covered in graffiti. This one says “…that the walls fall and the borders burn”

9/3/19:

France: clashes on yellow vest demos in 11 towns

6/3/19:

France, Grenoble: 5th night of riots The Mistral district in Grenoble experienced a brief moment of peace Wednesday to pay tribute to the two young people killed by scooter trying to escape the police, before the violence resumed in the evening. The disturbances began around 9 pm when several cars were overturned and burned while stones and molotov cocktails were thrown from the roofs of buildings onto the policeMaine-et-Loire: screws’ cars burnt &/or damaged parked against prison wall

5/3/19:

France, Grenoble: only 18 cars burnt on 4th night of riots as state swamps area with cops and helicopter surveillance

4/3/19:

France, Grenoble: 3rd night of riots  Originally confined to the  Mistral area of the city (where the 2 youths came from) the riots have spread to 7 other areas of Grenoble.

Last bus home

 3/3/19:

France, Grenoble: molotovs thrown as youths riot following death of 2 teenagers in ‘accident’ during cop car chase  More here Several fires broke out: garbage and car fires. A hundred young people faced the police. At around 1am, about 40 of them attacked a nearby CRS barracks, CRS 47, with projectiles and insults. They then burned two cars thirty meters from the gate and tried to climb it. A CRS policeman came out of the police station and pointed his assault rifle at them, while his colleague threw tear gas and called for reinforcements. The individuals left but continued to light garbage and car fires in the Mistral district until 5am. A police source says: “As far as I can remember, there has never been such an open attack on the CRS 47″….”It’s true that the neighborhood is known to be tense, but we never had this level of intensity.” – Alexander, a witness This riot, in fact, started in the late evening of the 2nd March, continuing into the night of Sunday early morning. A second riot  began on 3rd March, Sunday evening: see here  Youths set up barricades and threw petrol bombs at police and set fire to cars in the centre of the city. Tensions were high for a second night running on Sunday in the Mistral district of the city where the teenagers lived. Locals accused police of a blunder and one relative told an AFP reporter “you can write that the police were responsible for their deaths”. Around 15 vehicles, including two construction vehicles, were torched while the ground floor of a council department building was destroyed by fire, local media report.

2/3/19:

France: clashes in 8 towns on yellow vest demos

25/2/19:

France, Essonne: cops stoned and molotoved in ambush The vehicle was blocked in an alley by vehicles parked on the taxiway. Police managed to maneuver and move forward, but the time lost allowed a group of young people to organize. There were ten to block the road, on foot, …They began to throw a rain of stones on the vehicle whose front window was broken by two impacts. …To escape, the police backed up, but were blocked by a parked car that they hit during their U-turn. A Molotov cocktail exploded right next to the patrol. …No attackers were arrested. Four policemen were very slightly affected by shards of glass. “This defiance of the state will continue until human resources are sufficient”.

23/2/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 17 towns  I wasn’t in Montpellier this Saturday, but a friend told me that on the route of the march an enormous amount of ATMs, parking meters and especially CCTV cameras were wrecked. A breakaway group of about 50 ‘yellow vests’ headed for the main shopping precinct of the city and before they got there the whole building was closed, to would-be shoppers and demonstrators alike.

22/2/19:

France, Paris: nearly a thousand, mainly adolescents influenced by Swedish 15-Year-old, march against climate change“Warm hearts, not the planet”Led by a large number of police officers, the young demonstrators left the Place de l’Opéra, carrying placards “the future begins here”, “Save the Earth, eat a lobbyist”, “Water is coming” and chanting slogans “we are warmer than the climate” or “join us, do not look at us”.Last week for the first mobilization, there were about 200 high school students and students blocking traffic in front of the Ministry of Ecological Transition.” Unfortunately there were also some politicians involved, like the mayor of Paris and an MEP.

16/2/19:

France: clashes in 12 towns

9/2/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 16 towns 

In Montpellier, this leaflet was distributed and it was generally well-received, though, ironically, those from the so-called anti-authoritarian milieu were the most critical. Those least addled by oppositional ideology seemed to like it, though it’s hard to know whether this was politeness or that they hadn’t had time or space to read it all or whether they genuinely found it interesting and pertinent.

There were some remarkable acrobatic-tactics – like 2 people climbing up to the 2nd floor on the outside of  2 buildings, without ropes or any other equipment,  to put up some banners. One was simply “Social ecological emergency –  Stop capitalism”. The other was “Police – don’t obey orders – obey your ideas!”, to which lots of people clapped. An almost unbelievable naivety (a friend pointed out that a large percentage of cops vote for Le Pen, so that if they obeyed their “ideas” things would be even worse). I shouted out “But these shitheads have no ideas, otherwise they wouldn’t be cops” but without any response.

The demo was largely peaceful until the cops in front of the prefecture responded to fireworks (not being thrown at them, but merely lit on the large traffic island in front of the large building) with teargas and teargas-laced water projected through large hosepipes.  As evening descended the cops fired more and more teargas until much of the centre of town was filled with it, the main square becoming a thick fog of the stuff. At one point, plain clothed cops from the BAC got teargassed by other cops who mistook them for black blockers. A few bins started to be torched, stones were thrown and at one time a strange firework that took a 5 meter length 2 meters high form right in front of the line of cops about 3 meters behind it.  I only had one second to appreciate this curious display before the cops started firing massive amounts of teargas. Running off, my eyes burning for a short while from the gas, I followed about 200 people, amongst whom were some wheeling a very large wheelie-bin with its contents on fire, which they took down a long flight of stairs down to the tramway where they left it to burn. The clashes continued into the night but I was knackered, after having walked round town for about 6 hours.

5/2/19:

France: several high schools blockaded as General Strike is called by unions, leftist parties and yellow vests Paris: wildcat yellow vest demo teargassed  (includes video)…bank, currency exchange place and MacDonalds smashed Apparently (at least in other parts of the country, though probably also in Paris) the unions and their followers stuck to the officially designated routes, whereas many of the yellow vests insisted on wildcat demos going all over the place…Meanwhile the ruling class vote in extra cop powers against demonstrators

3/2/19:

France, Dunkirk: town hall torched – true Dunkirk spirit affirmed yet again

2/2/19:

France: 80,000 cops mobilised as yellow vest protests continueclashes in 14 towns

anti-cop brutality banner, with photos showing many of the permanent injuries inflicted over the last 11 weeks

26/1/19:

France: yellow vest clashes in 18 towns

25/1/19:

France, Var: supermarket petrol station completely destroyed in arson attack increasing calls (by unions, Leftist politicians and sections of the ‘yellow vests’) for an indefinite General Strike beginning on February 5th

24/1/19:

France, Grenoble: not an act of God   Communiqué in English  here

23/1/19:

France, Val-de-Marne: 4 cop cars torched 

21/1/19:

France, Val-de-Marne: mayor’s car torched   This is the third time in a month that the mayor or his family has been put under such stress. The window of the car of the mayor’s wife was broken a few weeks ago. Nothing had been stolen…. At the end of December, the offices of the political association of Franck Le Bohellec were broken into. Pallets and a fir tree were found in theroom on Sevin Street, suggesting that the intruders were preparing to start a fire.

19/1/19:

France: ‘yellow vest’ clashes in 21 towns  Please note that even if things get smashed up it doesn’t automatically mean for the best of reasons; nowadays in France, there are even sections of the far right who call on people to smash things up. Equally, there’s no reason to dogmatically dismiss everything that goes under the ‘yellow vest’ label as being automatically reactionary.

7/1/19:

France: the dictatorship of the marketplace takes its  mask off Prime Minister Philippe said  the government would support a “new law punishing those who do not respect the requirement to declare [protests], those who take part in unauthorised demonstrations and those who arrive at demonstrations wearing face masks”….Known troublemakers would be banned from taking part in demonstrations, in the same way known football hooligans have been banned from stadiums. The onus would be on “the troublemakers, and not taxpayers, to pay for the damage caused” to businesses and property during the protests….“Those who question our institutions will not have the last word,” Mr Philippe said.”

6/1/19:

France, Val-de-Marne: yellow vests denounce xenophobic attitudes of RungisEncouraged by the hooting of motorists in solidarity, about sixty yellow vests gathered this Sunday in front of the town hall of Ivry. An open-air general meeting organized by the Yellow Vests of Val-de-Marne to record each ones’ proposals. …”If I’m here, it’s because people have to choose between eating and heating!” says a resident. And to denounce the attitude of some yellow vests around the country, shocked by the fact that on blockades (note: this was the case in Rungis) we let French trucks pass but not those of foreign drivers. The bosses put us in competition, but we must unite! “ To get some idea of what’s been happening in Rungis, see entry for 24/12/18. According to someone I know, this article does not “make precise the fact that the Ivry yellow vests, which are made on the same model as those of Montreuil, Saint-Denis, etc., in towns in the suburbs of Paris, whose mayor is Communist Party, are just active members of the Front de Gauche [“Left Front”, a mixture of members of the French CP, ex-members of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and others], supported by the NPA. At the General Assembly of Yellow Vests in Ivry, January 6, people I know immediately raised the problem of housing immigrants, while the town hall promotes more and more gentrification, as elsewhere in the immediate suburbs of Paris . Answer: “It’s not on the agenda of the first General Assembly” which “must remain apolitical”!”

5/1/18:

France, Paris: minister forced to leave ministry as courtyard gate is smashed open with a forklift truck and ministerial cars and windows of ministry are smashed by about 15 ‘yellow vests’  More here   …protesters threw rocks at police and officers used a water cannon to disperse the crowd. Scooters and a car were burned along one of the capital’s symbols of wealth and prestige, the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Protesters and police clashed on a pedestrian bridge linking the two banks of the Seine, a span heavily visited by tourists. Underscoring the seriousness of Saturday’s protests, President Emmanuel Macron reacted sharply and quickly on Twitter. “Once again, the republic was attacked with extreme violence — its guardians, its representatives, its symbols”. Should be pointed out that an attack on the ministry is not necessarily indicative of radicality, as in the past ministries have been attacked by the right. In this specific case, it’s not clear who did itclashes in 22 townsMore here in EnglishMontpellier: fires and clashes on ‘yellow vest’ march 

In fact this report minimises what happened. First of all, in the morning there was a small demo of about 200 to 300 that got teargassed repeatedly even though it was totally peaceful and even though they sang that wonderful dirge “The Marseillaise” (perhaps the cops misheard the refrain “Aux armes citoyens” – “To arms, citizens!” as “Aux larmes citoyens!”  – “To tears, citizens!”). At least 2 yellow vests had “Macron – we’re not fucking you up the arse – sodomy is between friends” written on the back of their yellow vests. There were several people with home-made placards showing bad wounds from the cops’ flashballs  from the week before, and today one guy got hit by a teargas canister which badly burnt part of his head (the canisters contain several teargas ‘bombs’ which are ejected by an explosion from the main canister). Then later, in the afternoon, the demo got larger with about 2000 people (always hard to tell how many, but at one stage it was quite large), and a couple of banks got their doors, windows and ATMs smashed up. At one point I shouted out near someone with a French flag, “Down with France!”, and a guy from the anti-authoritarian milieu that I was with ran off. Clearly opposing authority for him didn’t involve commitment to taking the slightest risk. I continued shouting “…Down with the UK, down with all nations! Down with borders!”. On the plus side, nobody seemed  bothered; on the negative, no-one seemed interested.  That’s part of the problem with this movement – very little interest in discussion or in critical ideas beyond opposition to unfair taxation. One woman shouted at me about how wrong it was to invest so much in foreign aid, and so little for the French. Unable to understand that so-called foreign aid helps the French bourgeoisie exploit other countries, she was too agitated to listen to my critical response.  Emotions run high but not backed up with independent thinking. Clearly potential fodder for political demagogy.

The main station got closed by the authorities, with passengers and staff locked inside. So some people on the demo managed to pull open the gates to the main part of the station just through 5 minutes forceful shaking, and the crowd went up to the glass doors, also locked, and started to smash them open. As soon as they did so, teargas was thrown from within the station to prevent people entering through the thick fog of gas. However, it seemed like the only people actually effected by this gas would have been staff and passengers locked inside the station. Then, just outside the back of the station 2 very large wheelie bins were set on fire before the CRS started to approach under a hail of missiles. A car  and some small bins were torched. For the next couple of hours the demo, constantly trying to get to the prefecture, was teargassed repeatedly. 

At one point, whilst talking to someone else,  Richard Greeman (see this  and this) came up to me. I’d met him about 16 years ago, but hadn’t spoken with him much since then, apart from last April when I bumped into him at an occupation of part of the University, where he’d agreed with and later reproduced much of my text on the CGT. I said I really disagreed with his text, not only about the RIC (Rassemblement pour l’Initiative Citoyenne – a demand to have constant referendums on specific subjects, like happens in Switzerland, easy prey to the manipulations of various political rackets) but the danger of minimising the significant contradictions in this movement.  I elaborated with the other guy, whilst RG just stood there looking non-plussed and couldn’t find a single word to say in response. An embarassing silence before he turned away and walked off.

My conversations with people were varied, but often I focused on the national flags that were around (mind you, not that many considering there were about 2000 people – perhaps 10 national flags and 2 or 3 regional ones). Some people said they were internationalists, others defended the use of the flag as somehow meaning “equality, liberty and fraternity”. I made a critique of one guy carrying the tricouleur, saying it implied unity between bosses and those exploited, that Macron also waved the flag, that it implicitly excluded migrants, that the struggle was international. He didn’t seem to be annoyed by this and said I had a point, seeming to consider it.  I don’t know how much this was just politeness, or a genuine reflection on his part.  Someone walking with him certainly agreed with what I said.  It should be obvious that people who have never participated in a movement before hold stupid ideas that can sometimes break down with the influence of meeting people they’d never normally meet or reading things they’d never normally read. It should be obvious, but unfortunately there’s a tendency to fix and categorise people as if this isn’t a fluid situation.

I left at about 5pm, but I heard later that some rednecks in the evening round the prefecture started singing an anti-semitic song. Wonderful! 

PS I recommend this text for those wanting to understand French nationalism in its historical development, and how its universalism colonises people of all classes in submission to and identification with the nation state and the ideology of the national economy. However, it’s written in translatese which sometimes reads like Google Translate.  Also it’s a bit over-general and tends towards a rather formulaic attitude.

4/1/18:

France, Saône-et-Loire: clashes with cops as yellow vests try to blockade Amazon

1/1/19:

France, Strasbourg: cops attacked with projectiles, cars torched in 5 different parts of townParis: 277 vehicles torched in capital and surrounding counties; Minister of Interior, unusually, refuses to release figures of vehicles torched nationally on New Years EveBouches-du-Rhone: tollgates in 2 areas object of arson attack once again  I passed (for free) through this twice over the last 2 weeks. It had some graffiti which at least shows that this cannot simplistically be described as a reactionary movement. There was an A in a circle, a tag saying “Here it’s not like on the telly” and a 70 kph sign had been carefully re-painted with “68” on it instead (not that what’s happening can in any way  be simplistically compared with ’68, but ’68 was obviously opposed by reactionaries). This movement is very confused and confusing, which is no surprise given the counter-revolution of the past decades, and in France particularly since 2006. There are few genuinely searching attempts to unravel this confusion, because it’s far easier to resort to already well-developed attitudes pre-existing this movement, whether simplistically for it or simplistically against it or simplistically ‘neutral’. Few people try to unravel attitudes which justify and minimise this confusion; few try to unravel how people tolerate the intolerable in this movement; and, on the other hand,  few try to explain why there are far too many good people who tend to dismiss the whole thing as simply “interclassist” and “reactionary”. The desire to say it’s all inevitably confused represses the attempt to try to clarify the contradictions. The desire to exaggerate what seems to be radical represses consciousness of the extent of fascist participation and elements of statist ideology (not at all exclusive to the right) amongst many ‘yellow vests’. Whilst the desire to see everything in black and white, to see it all as simply an expression of the ultra-right, represses any connection to what does not fit this characterisation, represses consciousness of the nuances.  Such perspectives have partial truths contained within them, but hardly any of them usefully contribute to helping provoke something better. They are not attempts to help a movement move but freeze what is going on into fixed “positions”, positions which once publicly adopted will search out anything that confirms them and occlude anything that contradicts them because proving  themselves ‘right’, and defending a theoretical role, takes priority over trying to influence or be influenced. These generalities will obviously have to be made more concrete.

31/12/18:

France, Alsace: clashes and fires  13 bins burned…At least two cars were burned, and at least three were damaged by the fire spreading… a police car was smashed…Police officers were then hit with more projectiles, including stones and street furniture, particularly interior doors. Two other vehicles were damaged, but no police officers were injured…. police mobilized for the night…used about thirty teargas grenades, and resorted to  flashball…In the vicinity of the city of Bartholdi, around 4am the gendarmes had identified three bins burningAmiens: at least 10 cars and some bins torchedBordeaux: access to major bridge blockaded by ‘yellow vests’ before being dispersed by water cannon

30/12/18:

France, Val-de-Marne: prisoner escapes under fire Around 3.30pm, Sunday, December 30, 2018, a 28-year-old prisoner escaped from the Fresnes prison in the Val-de-Marne. He managed to climb the walls of the penitentiary center, despite being shot at by guards…the guards fired three times with their service weapons from the watchtower. But that was not enough to stop him. It’s likely he would have hurt himself on the hand because of the barbed wire….He was in prison for burglary. According to our colleagues, he had already tried to escape while he was being tried in the court of Créteil, and was therefore subject to special surveillance. A search is still in progress to find him.Charente Maritime: 10 cars torched

29/12/18:

France: ‘yellow vest’ clashes in 15 towns Paris: a dozen or so cars torched outside offices of mainstream newspaper

“At last roundabouts have some use”

Bordeaux: journalists chased out of square by ‘yellow vests’ More here Rouen: ‘yellow vests’ clash with copsBanque de France door torched (video)Montpellier: railtrack blockadedNimes: demo outside main police station This is an over-simplified take on the movement (e.g. minimising any critique of flag-waving or the singing of the Marseillaise), but interesting.

28/12/18:

France, Vaucluse: TGV rail line sabotaged, the 2nd time in a week

25/12/18:

France, Indre-et-Loire: a day after the imposition of a curfew for adolescents, youths organise the burning of 15 cars

24/12/18:

France, Dordogne: town hall torched…Paris: 1st hand account of ‘yellow vest’ blockade (sent by email) – 

As you probably know, the Halles de Rungis site has for several weeks been subjected to filter blockades at the main access gate, the Thias Gate. Taking my courage in both hands, braving the wind and rain, I got up at 4 am, took the subway, then the bus, and after a depressing more than 1 hour trip to the industrial areas south of Paris,  I found myself facing  dozens of yellow vests that filter the entrance, just to take the temperature of the apparent “blockade”  myself.   

I already had some suspicions, given the interviews conducted, about the content and purpose of these brilliant “direct actions” (says “Paris Lutte Info”). But I admit, in all modesty, that the atmosphere  exceeded all my expectations. I was  faced with bands of vulgar nationalist nags, both sexes, one of whom was from the French West Indies and accepted because he “was French too”: “We are not racist”, proudly affirmed the leader of the group… They were there, in their words, “to save French peasants and traders” from the “unfair competition” “organized by the  Europe of bankers represented by Macron”. After a few attempts at awkward approaches and some attempts to get me to wear the famous yellow uniform, which I refused with a lot of courtesy (for fear of maybe getting my face broken), I innocently asked the question: “Which bank is Macron the representative of?”.   I was told by the leader, with strong nods from her acolytes: “Well, the Rothschild bank, of course.” I  therefore focused on the eminently revolutionary nature of their opposition to finance capital, which, as is well known, has been in the hands of rabbis since time immemorial.   

To expand somewhat on the scope of this communication that had begun so well, I timidly evoked the role of   Macron’s brilliant second-in-command, the so-called Philippe whose origins are not from the banks but from  nuclear power – in this case, Areva . To which the chief replied that she did not care and that besides she was a partisan of French nuclear power and hostile to all the “Parisian bohemian bourgeois ecologists who want to deprive us of electricity.” A position which was so typically popular it was also shared by her groupies.   

I began to feel somewhat lonely and tried to reach a conclusion, before clearing off, about these interesting modes of “direct action” that “Paris Lutte Info”  had loudly proclaimed.  I was not disappointed: these remarkable saboteurs of “European trade” had first filtered exclusively foreign trucks for 30 minutes, and then very soon after, for the sake of justice probably, French trucks for 15 minutes and then foreign trucks for 45 minutes. They did not even realize that, because of the European agreement, French trucks can carry foreign goods and vice versa. In the final moment of my visit, their last exploit consisted of delaying for almost three hours one of the Spanish trucks, threatening the driver, who was transporting oysters, French molluscs in fact, from Oleron to Rungis. Which led the Rungis wholesaler to throw them in the bin. No comment. 

Merry Christmas !

23/12/18:

France, Vosges: clashes between cops and ‘yellow vests’ as the latter try to blockade toll gates

22/12/18:

France: ‘yellow vest’ clashes in 18 towns and citiesToulouse “Garbage cans that blaze at the corner of boulevard de Strabourg and Jean-Jaurès alley but also rue Remusat, rue de Metz, rue du Langedoc … Shattered bus stops, billboards tagged, ATMs “exploded”, a Caisse d’Epargne and a Crédit Agricole, in the devastated Carmel district, bars packing away their terrace furniture at top speed, shops forced to pull their shutters amidst torrents of tear gas throughout the city center… 48 hours before Christmas Eve, Toulouse sank into chaos yesterday between 4pm and 7pm. An outburst of violence that police and gendarmes tried to contain but they met again a lot of difficulties facing groups of mobile individuals, determined “to show Macron that nothing has been settled,” warns a man… eyes reddened by gas….The watches were at 3:15 pm and  fireworks were flying in the sky accompanied by the applause of the yellow vests. The temperature very quickly hotted up. The fireworks no longer went into the sky but horizontally towards the police. The first salvos of tear gas fell on the heads of the demonstration where  those who were the most virulent, masked, hooded and ready for a conflict were gathered. The face-to-face lasted about fifteen minutes. The wind helped, sending the gas back to the police, the atmosphere taking a festive “red and black” color….tear gas fell from the sky en masse, causing a huge crowd movement and the real start of the mess and violence. The water cannon truck chased after the irreducible ones and the incidents multiplied. Often violent. Even acid had been thrown at the forces of order according to the prefecture. …”We will not give up. We have nothing. What can we lose? It is a shame the way we are treated”, cried a young woman, supported by her companion.” …. Paris video –

21/12/18:

France, Mulhouse: 13 ‘yellow vests’ arrested as cops remove burning blockade of fuel system companyHaute-Garonne: horror shock as WWI Supreme Allied Commander loses his head, over 100 years too late

20/12/18:

France, Lot-et-Garonne: 9th ‘yellow vest’ death –  by large lorry; state blames ‘yellow vests’Loiret: Town Hall torched“The damage is mainly on the ground floor, the smoke has blackened the entrance and all the offices caught fire,” said the mayor of the town who has been there since the middle of the night, warned by firefighters….Tires were placed against the front door and ignited part of the building.”

19/12/18:

France, Alès: 2 cops hurt by ‘anarcho-libertarian’  ‘yellow vests’ during blockade of sub-prefecture

17/12/18:

France, Var: toll booths burned down250 toll booth areas vandalised or destroyed during this ‘yellow vest’ movement   The damage amounts to tens of millions of euros for the operator, not to mention the shortfall in toll payments. In some places, motorway tickets are no longer distributed and there are no more barriers at the exit”.

15/12/18:

France, Paris: further ‘yellow vest’ clashes, though a lot down on previous Saturdaysstate had been prepared to use knock-out chemical gas“…some of the 14 armoured police cars deployed at the weekend contained “a radical device” that was only to be used as “a last resort” against their own citizens… the “debilitating powder” has the same power as 200 tear gas grenades and can knock people out immediately. The weapon which is mounted on top of vehicles, has the ability to spread across an area the size of six football pitches in ten seconds.

Strange femen-type ‘event’ – bare-breasted Mariannes, though apparently not femen (femen would not normally be seen wearing a French flag)

More clashes in NantesLorraineLyonBordeauxPerigueuxToulouse: banks & shops attackedNarbonne (tollgate torched)BesanconDijonSt.Brieuc Nancy & LunévilleBeziers – tollgate torched

14/12/18:

France, Guadeloupe: high school students block roads, attack cops with stones, home-made ‘bombs’, burn binsReport on high school clashes here over the last 3 days….report on strikes called by unions throughout France For a critique of the CGT union see this.

13/12/18:

France, La Reunion:  burning barricades and burning bins during clashes at high school, as movement on island expandsGuadeloupe (another French department, this time in the Caribbean): high school students clash with cops Thursday’s protest shut down schools and some roads across the island as students burned debris and threw rocks at police….The government also has temporarily banned businesses from selling gasoline to anyone seeking to fill jerry cans or other types of containers.Essonne: high school students clash with cops

12/12/18:

France, La Reunion: headmaster hurt during clashes between high school students and cops

11/12/18:

France: 450 (out of 4000) high schools blockaded; ‘disturbances’ at 170 of them details in French about 16 of the towns involved in these disturbancesMontpellier: 9 schools blockaded; lively wildcat demo involving about 350 meandering through the centre of town Some of the variety of homemade placards: “Power makes us mad – let’s hospitalise Macron”, “Macron, Macron – we’re not fucking you up the arse – sodomy is between friends”, “The state pisses on us, the media says it’s raining”, “French people, foreigners – same studies, same rights” (reference to a new law making foreign high school students pay money to go to school), “Shoot at children, steal from the poor, burn the planet”, “Run Emmanuel – the sea is rising” (with a picture of the planet and a thermometer showing very high temperatures). And there was a massive banner referring to the kids in Mantes-la-Jolie who, on 6th December, were forced to kneel with their hands behind their backs, which said “A class on their knees – Montpellier stands up!”, and about 100 teenagers imitated what those at Mantes-la-Jolie had been forced to do and then everyone stood up together in a roar of defiance.Paris: 6 cars belonging to Town Hall torched  Communiqué:

Paris: Attack for a black December

You’re waiting for the Revolution! Granted ! Mine began a long time ago! When you are ready – God, what a long wait! – I won’t feel disgusted by going a little of the way with you!

But when you stop, I will continue my mad and triumphal march towards the great and sublime conquest of Nothingness! Every Society you build will have its margins and at the margins of every Society will roam the heroic and bohemian vagrants, virgin and savage thoughts that can only live by preparing new and formidable rebel explosions! And I will be among them.
Pretty words – there must not be more than words.
I do not want to run behind the masses. It is said that this time it is the real thing, that the insurrection has arrived … Mine arrived a long time ago and it is an individual revolt.
In the early hours of December 11th I set fire to six  of the cars belonging to Paris’ Town Hall , rue Corvisart (13th). It was not the Socialist Party specifically that was targeted, any more than Macron or any other. All powers have to be destroyed.
In order not to forget the companions who have left us. For Mikhail, Zak, Sebastian, Mauricio, Alexis and all the others.
For those who are in prison. One thought in particular for Krème and the defendants of the case of Scripta Manent in Italy.
For a black December!
A black hood on your  head, a new world in your heart”

10/12/18:

France – high school student movement – Beauvais: clashes with cops Creil: cars overturned & burnt.(video here)..Compiegne: street furniture trasheddetails in French about 37 of the towns involved in these disturbancesLoire-Atlantique: 8 schools involved, various clashes, improvements to property, etc.Montpellier: bins burnt on tramlinesHauts-de-Seine: 6 high schools blockaded….up to 10% of high schools throughout country blockadeduniversities blockadedDisneyland blockaded by ‘yellow vests’ A little anecdote: apparently staff working at Disneyland used to call it Mauschwitz because of the miserable working conditions. Management threatened them with the sack if anybody continued referring to it like that (specifically online). Within half an hour workers started calling it Duckhau……Nouvelle-Aquitaine: prefecture bricked up within hours of Macron’s speech Three aspects of his promise to increase the minimum wage by 100 euros per month not mentioned by the international media is that, firstly, an increase of 28 euros, paid by the boss,  had already been decided before the ‘yellow vest’ movement. Secondly,  the rest is an allowance paid by the state but not by the bosses; more importantly, this ‘minimum wage’ is conditional – if your partner gets above the minimum wage, the average of the 2 wages is taken into account. Thirdly, all this is not an increase in the minimum wage at all but in fact an increase in the activity premium, paid by the state’s Family Allowances Fund (the ‘CAF‘). This increase was already planned for the entire five-year period for which Macron was elected, so it just accelerates the process. yellow vests enable cars to drive at 300mph without being caught in a speed trap (more like “News of Opposition to all sense”)

8/12/18:

France, Paris: preventive arrest used in advance of any actual “crimes” to contain protests Arrest without the slightest evidence of a crime already shows how readily the diaphanous gown of legality tears when confronted by the necessity of keeping the boutique districts intact. However, despite the massive deployment, TV news has said that there was more damage than on December 1st, with looting (particularly of jewellers) etc. being carried out away from the thoroughly policed centre. On December 1st 3 ‘arrondissements’ (Parisian boroughs) were involved, but today there were 7 arrondissements involved). See this The sector concerned by the incidents was much larger. With fewer barricades, the protests were more dispersed so many more places were affected by the violence…There was much more damage yesterday than there was a week ago.Toulouse: looting, clashes, etcBordeaux: burning barricades in pedestrianized street decorated for ChristmasSt.Etienne: cop car torched, looting…Clashes in: DijonLyonCaenAvignonToursBourg-en-BresseNantesMarseille: armoured trucks and teargas during clashes as 10,000 march for the climate Hundreds of young people, mostly masked or hooded…were dispersed around 5pm by jets of tear gas launched by the police…In the surrounding streets, small groups of protesters confronted the police in the middle of thick fumes caused by tear gas and garbage fires.A blue armored vehicle of the gendarmerie intervened as reinforcement, followed by several mini-cars of the police force, while a helicopter flew over the area. The police prefecture said it had conducted eleven arrests in the department of Bouches-du-Rhone including 7 in Marseille, stating that the march of marchers for the climate that gathered 10,000 people on the Old Port early afternoon was dispersing. In the morning, 2,000 “yellow vests” had also marched peacefully in the center of Marseille. …video here

Marseille, 8/12/18

7/12/18:

France, Herault: disturbances outside high schools in 5 towns in this countyNimesLyonMulhouse: masked motorcyclist deliberately runs down cop at high school blockadeclashes at high school student demos in 35 townsarmoured cars to be deployed in Paris “A government official said 89,000 police and gendarmes would be mobilised across the country, 8,000 of them in the French capital, alongside a dozen VBRG armoured vehicles….Staff at the Bastille Opéra were reported to have locked the orchestra’s instruments somewhere safe fearing an assault on the building.” There have been calls for people to arm themselves against the state, others are hoping to occupy the Elysée Palace tomorrow. But before you get all excited, the probability is that these calls are coming from the ultra-right…or maybe sections of the state trying to frighten people away from Paris for fear of people starting shooting all over the place. A strange atmosphere, not easy to get to grips with either emotionally or intellectually, and not at all like the more lighthearted, and more clearly class-conscious, epoch of the anti-CPE movement of 2006.

6/12/18:

France, Beziers: clashes as 500 high school students take to the streets; 2 cars overturned, bins burnt, etcclashes in 29 townsvideo of cops humiliating youths at a banlieu school700 high school students arrestedAriege: at least 10 vehicles, a hanger and the ground floor of the management building belonging to Enedis, national electricity company – all burnt

St. Ouen: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Incendiary at Auguste Blanqui high school

“Why… in spite of the virtues and talents for which they are so noted, are the academies generally centres of intellectual repression, stupidity, and base intrigue? That question ought to be proposed by an academy: there would be no lack of competitors.”

5/12/18:

France: clashes between high school students and cops in 22 townsblockade of 2 Paris universities. This is a more balanced take on the situation than most texts. In France, there are principally 2 tendencies amongst those who claim to want a revolution: those who tend to opportunistically over-emphasise the radical aspects of what’s happening and those, partly in reaction to this tendency, tend to exaggerate the bad aspects. We live in confusing times and trying to unravel this confusion is not helped by trying constantly to impose more classical proletarian ways of thinking and categories onto a movement that involves lots people who have never confronted this society before. People are trying to break out of their isolated individualist responses to intensified misery by trying to come together but with a whole load of other baggage from the past and present of this society colonising their brains and habitual discourse. These people have lived through a period of intensified ignorance of the contradictions and obstacles we have to confront and trying to help ourselves and them clarify the significant changes in both the composition and consciousness of ‘the working class’ will be part of overcoming such ignorance. Which involves neither opportunist cheer-leading demagogy involving intellectual contortionism of the most spurious kind nor impotent laments that the course of class struggle is not running smoothly according to notions developed through over a hundred years of previous movements. This epoch could lead to a kind of totalitarianism very far from classical fascism (though reflecting aspects of it) or to a genuinely subversive movement with the potential to create serious problems for all forms of capital, not just the current neoliberal form. Remaining content to merely comment on these tendencies will inevitably ensure the victory of the former.

4/12/18:

France: unions announce unlimited lorry drivers strike from next SundayThere are also rumours of post office workers going on strike soonhigh school students clash with cops in 22 towns in protest against the reform of the ‘Bac’ and increased limits on university accessNice: 2,500 high school students block many roads throughout townabout 200 high schools blockaded or partly blockaded throughout country

Bins and pallets burning in Blagnac, where the fire spread to the entrance of Saint-Exupéry high school and caused significant damage to the project of conditioning that goes under the absurd name of ‘education’. The high school closed for 48 hours for ‘security’. 24 schools in Toulouse were blockaded, amongst which a dozen were blockaded with burning bins and pallets. A young demonstrator was seriously wounded in the face by a flashball.

Below: outside a high school in Bordeaux

3/12/18:

France: over 100 high schools blockaded in protest against the reform of the BaccalaureatSeine-St.Denis: some looting etc. during high school protest Protesters burned garbage cans, destroyed street furniture, and attacked businesses that were looted. Several vehicles were burned.On images broadcast on social networks, we see police fleeing from dozens of “casseurs”.clashes between cops & high school students in 14 towns Though this was for the most part initiated by the high school union, obviously in many cases they went beyond the limited protest the union envisaged.Paris: ambulance workers clash with cops …ambulances… blocked a bridge leading to the National Assembly in Paris on Monday. Lines of riot police officers stood in the rain to prevent the ambulance workers from getting too close to the building. Ambulance drivers were also pictured facing off with officers during a demonstration at the Place de la Concorde.Cote d’Azur: increasing problems of getting petrol due to blockadesReport on how ‘yellow vest’ blockades are effecting work in UKLa Reunion (East Port): heavy clashes between ‘gilets jaunes’ and cops as state tries to unblock blockade of port According to the prefecture, “nearly a thousand customs-cleared containers are awaiting delivery: fresh products, wheat for bakeries, raw materials for the manufacture of animal feed, medicines and medical equipment intended for hospitals and hospices for the elderly …other Yellow Vests invaded the university campus of Moufia. Taking over the amphitheatres, they presented their demands to the students.”

Cops on La Réunion, backed by 2 armoured trucks, remove part of port blockade

2/12/18:

France, Narbonne: night of rioting as Vinci building-cum-police station, toll both etc are torched Last night dozens of “casseurs” burned buildings around the southern toll booth of Narbonne on the A9 motorway. Buildings and cars on fire, barriers broken, panels torn off, toll booths attacked with pickaxes… Events took a violent turn in the night of Saturday to Sunday….Near the toll booth, all the buildings were evacuated, including the premises of the gendarmerie highway platoon. There were 8 gendarmes and 6 policemen inside… …A group of vandals went to the headquarters of the General Society in Croix Sud and attacked the windows with projectiles. At the toll booth, the extent of the damage is considerable…The few policemen and gendarmes present on the spot received Molotov cocktails launched by a horde of 200 people and saw their premises set on fire. …The operating premises destroyed during this arson attack included those of the district and the security police.

1/12/18:

France, Paris: far left and far right clash with cops in ‘yellow vest’ protestslots of luxury cars & cop car torched; also a restaurant More here “…masked protesters fought running battles with police, torched cars, set fires to banks and houses, and burned makeshift barricades on the edges of demonstrations against fuel tax. Near the Arc de Triomphe, one of Paris’s best-known monuments, masked men burned barricades, set fire to buildings, smashed fences and torched luxury cars on some of the most expensive streets in the city as riot police fired teargas and water cannon. Then, by early evening, rioters spread around Paris in a game of cat and mouse with police. Luxury department stores on Boulevard Haussmann were evacuated as cars were set alight and windows smashed. Near the Louvre, metal grilles were ripped down at the Tuileries Garden where fires were started. On the Place Vendôme, a hub of luxury jewellery shops and designer stores, rioters smashed windows and built barricades….Anti-Macron graffiti was scrawled over the Arc de Triomphe near the tomb of the unknown soldier and protesters burst into the monument smashing up its lower floors before climbing on to the roof. More than 250 people were arrested and at least 100 injured – including one protester who was in a serious condition on Saturday night…It was later revealed that the cops ran out of teargas.


So long, Marianne – it’s time that we began to laugh
and cry and cry and laugh about it all again: a smashed statue of Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, inside the Arc de Triomphe (some suggest that this may have been done by right-wing monarchists, but given that there were all different strands of the political spectrum, including anarchists & ultra-leftists, round the Arc de Triomphe, this is pure speculation). Protesters smashed other statues in the monument and destroyed the gift shop…On the other hand, some ‘yellow vests’ protected the tomb of the unknown soldier – a symbol of militarism – from those who wanted to attack it.

Can all this seriously be simply reduced to just petit-bourgeois populism and nothing but? This is not to underestimate the growth of ultra-right populism, but it’s clear that there’s a lot more to what’s happening in France than just that. It’s a weird difficult-to categorise mix of people…Possible state of emergency to be declared. The government has asked all the other main political parties to have a meeting with them. Marine Le Pen asked Macron if he wanted to be the first president of the 5th Republic that had ordered the shooting of protesters. But during ’68 at least 2 people were shot dead by the cops towards the end of the movement (and several others either disappeared or turned up to have apparently died in car accidents). Moreover, in 1961, also under de Gaulle, something like 200 Arabs were killed, most of them thrown into the Seine. And in ’86 an Arab was killed by the cops, though not shot. But for the daughter of the torturer of Algerians, these incidents are obviously irrelevant.

See this Crimethinc article for an account of the day.

This round-the-clock French TV station gives constant news (but also about different things)….I’m tempted to say “Watch this space” but, apart from the fact that you can probably get more information elsewhere at least until Monday, it also implies you should just “watch”….clashes in 17 other townsNantes: airport invadedPuy-en-Velay: prefecture burned downThe media presents this crowd as being callous & bloodthirsty, indifferent to the fact that this was full of workers as well as the prefect; hard to know if their being constantly subjected to teargas had made them blind to the situation or that it was the media, indifferent to most people’s real lives, typically doing their worstMarseille: looting as 3 demos converge (CGT, ‘yellow vests’ and those protesting 2000 people evacuated following collapse of buildings 4 weeks ago)Thirteen people were arrested in the evening… including for the looting of a phone shop and the burning of a police vehicle on the Canebière.

….An 80-year-old woman killed by a teargas grenade fired at her face (the official version is that she died because the hospital made some medical mistakes)