Paris: “Back off, or else your friends won’t be released”

A first-hand account of an unpermitted march by the cops in Paris

Translators intro: This article really wants to insist on the actions of the police being illegal and on the problem being “police impunity”, not policing itself. But in spite of these weaknesses, it’s still worth reading and discussing. Although this kind of discourse is annoying, here the talk of legality can be understood a bit differently, because the police aren’t just any group of people. Of course, the police break the law all the time — the law is a weapon in their hands, not something that binds them, and as anarchists we shouldn’t uphold the myth of the just (or the accountable) cop. But it is worth noticing when a mass of police feel that they can openly break the law, disobeying the minister of the interior, to march armed on government buildings at night.

The police marches are, most immediately, a response to a molotov attack against some cops who were guarding a surveillance camera that had been getting destroyed. The police started rallying in front of the hospital where one of the injured cops was being treated and then leaving from there on marches. Similar rallies by the police outside of their union structure are being held in most big French cities

From paris-luttes.info

For the past four days, the police have been illegally protesting in the streets of Paris each night. On Wednesday (October 19, 2016), their meet-up was set for 9:30pm in Republic Square. Some friends decided to go down and show their opposition to the gathering. First off, we were very few, at most fifty, and not nearly enough to confront the growing crowd of police, from 200 to a thousand. Here’s the story of a strange night caught between the state of emergency and the scent of mutiny. Read the rest of this entry »

Montreuil: Oct 29-30 – Solidarity Weekend for Prisoners of the Social War

Solidarity Weekend for Prisoners of Social War
Saturday October 29 and Sunday October 30

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Blasphegme: An anarchist broadsheet on the walls of Paris

[From the first issue of Blasphegme: An anarchist broadsheet on the walls of Paris. It’s been getting pasted up around the city in the past month]

Introduction

“I spit on your idols, I spit on your gods, I spit on the homeland […] I spit on your flags, I spit on capital and the golden calf, I spit on all religions: they’re jokes, I don’t give a shit about them, I don’t give a damn. They only exist because of you, leave them and they’ll fall apart.
You’re resigned, but you’re a force —  you don’t even know it, but you’re a force nonetheless, and I cannot spit on you, I can only hate you… or love you. Beyond all my other desires, I want to see you shaken from your resignation in a terrible awakening into life. There is no future paradise, there is no future, there is only the present.”
Albert Libertad, To the Resigned, 1905

Blasphegme: A neologisme designating a blasphemy delivered in the form of spit (or phlegm) on all religions, whether monotheist or polytheist, whether  the religion of the state or of capital, the religion of work or of the ego.

The blasphegme spits in the face of all gods and of all prophets, with no distinction between the various collective delusions that poison us, that keep us in awe of a higher power before which we must kneel.

The blasphegme is the individual expression of non-resignation in the face of a society that leaves us no time to breathe, using the power dynamics between individuals to keep the cattle calm, too busy competing and acting out our frustrations, products of lives that have known only the coercion of laws made to regulate social life.

This journal aims to agitate, to spread anarchist ideas, to spread seeds of subversion in a daily life as boxed-in as graph paper.

We’re not trying to teach, rather we hope to spark debates on the ideas that matter to us and that seem essential for any individual seeking to liberate themselves, here and now, from all that shackles that keep us from soaring high. Read the rest of this entry »

Clermont: Revenge of the weeds: On attacks against schools

From La Bourrasque, an anarchist broadsheet of critique and agitation written in Clermont and the surrounding area. Issue 2, Juin-August 2016.

A little something for the back-to-school season…

Revenge of the Weeds

We still remember those nasty, horrible people who, in 2005, during the three weeks of rioting that rocked the banlieues (1), vandalized “their” schools. Groups of rebels smashed up this idea of schooling, blew apart the framework of social integration (2), set ablaze the whole democratic symbol of a national education. These images were seen around the world and many onlookers were deeply impacted by the scenes of civil war and the reactionary rhetoric of the journalist-cops. There had always been attacks against schools and they haven’t stopped since. Each year, we can count a good twenty of them that get ransacked. These revolts are less visible today than in 2005, but sometimes the ruckus still manages to reach us from the other side of the bars. If we were to really spend five minutes reflecting on what this institution represents, would we be so surprised to see it targeted by those who refuse to submit?

The school, with its perimeter wall, its yard, its cameras, and, coming soon, its metal detectors, is nothing but a reduced version of the prison. Its priorities — bow to authority, stay in your place, say thank you — must be fully internalized before stepping out into the real world. Discipline is strict and the child is brought into line using punishments or rewards. Education is a garden stake, straightening up the weedy plants they could grow into. Read the rest of this entry »