Burning Equipment and Reflections Against Those Who Make Use of It

[This text from Indymedia Nantes deals with two attacks near Saint-Étienne, a small city near Lyon. The first targeted BTP Eurovia  and the second the Delmonico quarry. Links with pictures and mainstream press articles below.

[Although I don’t agree that workers are as responsible for the harm their work causes as the bosses and owners, or that all work is as disgusting as being a prison guard, this text still feels like a worthwhile contribution to a conversation about the limitations of a class-struggle centric analysis. Because this text is right on that if those with access to the means of production won’t destroy them, the rest of us are going to have to.]

We still remember skimming the assemblies, the furious streets, the blockades, the occupied squares. We remember diving into the posters, the leaflets, and the journals [1]. We were open in our words and encounters, avid and impatient to have it out with this world we were born into and that makes us die a little more each day. Raised on the morality of class, we approached the workers.Were they not our allies by definition? We dreamed of Haymarket, while most others dreamed of their buying power and a good retirement. We wanted to burn it down, they wanted to work better. We were too restless at work to not become disillusioned through contact with the exploited. This text is a distant echo of the nocturnal arson of May 14 and 16, 2019. These were attacks against work, of course, but also against all those who contribute to perpetuating it. Read the rest of this entry »

Paris: Chronology of solidarity actions with those accused in the burned police car case

Translated from paris-luttes.info

Post updated on October 8 2017 to include new actions and link to full English translations where available

The trial is ongoing for nine people accused of participating in the burning of a police car on May 18^th 2016 in Paris. Because solidarity attacks continue to occur throughout the French territory around the trial dates, here is an attempt at an exhaustive chronology of direct actions carried out in solidarity with those accused in this case.

All links in this article are to French-language communiques unless stated otherwise. All actions are in France unless a country is indicated. Since most of the texts linked to have not been previously translated, we opted to simply translate a sentence or two from each one to give a sense of the action, in addition to providing the link. All italics are translators notes.

Many of these actions specifically name Kara and Krem, two anarchists still in custody in this case. Krem was based in the Paris area prior to his arrest, while Kara is from the United States. Their verdict is expected on October 11, 2017. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobigny: Reportback on Saturday’s riot, for Théo and against the police (+commentary)

For some context on the assault on Theo and of the events leading up to this demo

Intro to the reportback

from Cette Semaine

Politicians on the mic calling for calm and pacifiers making part of the crowd sing the national anthem (while the rest jeered), which then took up the slogan, “we are all French”… This was also part of the solidarity demonstration in Bobigny in front of the court. The same “big brothers”, like the trendy rapper Fianso (Sofiane) and his pals, called for people to go home instead of confronting the cops, “so that the little ones sleep at home tonight near their mothers,” and “to not tarnish the image of blacks and arabs”. As well, this shameful slogan, “prison for rapists”, was chanted by the crowd, along with many others (Cops, rapists, murderers; everyone hates the police; Justice for Théo). All this fit nicely with Théo’s statements on February 7 from his hospital bed, aimed at “my city”, in the face of a mob of journa-cops and just before squeezing the filthy hand of François Hollande: “Boys, stop with the war. Let’s stay united. I have faith in the justice system. And justice will be done. So stop with the war.”

Of course, any deployment of pacifiers has its limits, and a section of the demonstration, more mobile and less into rallies, clashed with the cops at the end, pillaged a Franprix grocery store, a Decathalon sports store, a gas station or a Speedy, smashed up several banks and insurance agencies, a McDonalds, and some institutional buildings (notably the offices of the departmental government), trashed the Bobigny train station, torched a vehicle from the RTL media group, and attacked another from the Europe 1 network… This shows how rage often has its own reasons and can nimbly overwhelm any reasonable proposition. As for revolt, if it’s to spread, it will have to step over the bodies of the pacifiers of the moment and break the refrain of the good citizen that infects our brains. May all Justice die away (and its relationships: innocent, guilty, victim, impunity, prison, court…)! Read the rest of this entry »

Ile-de-France: Revolts this week against police violence

Cops, rapists, murderers

Revolts have been spreading throughout Paris’  northern suburbs in the past week, in reaction to an extremely vicious police assault on Théo, a 22 year-old black man, who is still in the hospital. What follows is a collection of excepts translated from different (movement) texts and (mainstream) news articles currently circulating to give a sense of this wave of rebellion.Although things seem to be quieting down a little, bus service is still cut through the neighbourhoods after another night of rioting and at this moment a hundred or so people are kettled in Paris demonstrating against the police. 25 more youth were arrested this morning for rioting. The first excerpt describes the assault and so involves descriptions of physical and sexual violence, as a heads up. All links are to source texts.
Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Paris: We’re still here

Reportback on the events of Thursday September 15 against the Labour Law
Snake marches before the big “joint” march, and another snake march after.  After all, we’re still here, ready to fuck shit up, everyone is down… [Lyrics from On est Encore là by NTM]

[Pics and links in the original post. Square brackets are translators notes]

Before

From 6:30 in the morning, high school students were already throwing down. Some short reports are available here.

At 11am, there was supposed to be a secret meetup with some high school groups at Nation square, but the cops found out about it: tons and tons of pigs all over the square. While some demonstrators got kettled, about 200 of us (mostly higschool students or youth) regrouped in front of Helene Boucher school on Cours de Vincennes and decided to take the metro to Lyon Station.

There had been a meetup called there for 12h by the general assembly of interpro/interluttes [across struggles] to collectively refuse searches and ID checks before the big union demo and to head over there as a group. But when we left the metro, we weren’t able to get to the meetup in hall 1 of the station: too many cops everywhere controlling the entrances. Read the rest of this entry »