![3.31: Call to Blockade Everything — Against the El Khomri Labor Law and its WorldPreface (Ill Will Editions): For weeks now, riots, barricades, and blockades of institutions have swept across France. The impetus for this wave of struggle is a new series of proposed neo-liberal labor reforms
that would slacken restrictions on mass firings of workers, introduce
more short-term contracts, lengthen the working day, circumvent
industry-wide labor protections by introducing case-by-case agreements,
and make it easier to cut wages, among other things. Being the hardest
hit by such a rollback, students and other youths have engaged in fierce
revolt, burning cars, blockading hundreds of high schools and university campuses and spilling into the streets, where their demonstrations have turned into wild, confrontational battles with police. Paris saw major days of action on the 17th and the 24th, with intense unrest in dozens of other cities, including Rennes, Toulouse, Nantes, Lyon, Marseilles, and elsewhere. Videos of the brutal police eviction of the occupied Tolbiac high school in Paris on the 24th, as well as the gratuitous beating of
a student from Bergson high school, both went viral online. Students
took swift revenge a day later, with high school students rioting in front of police stations.The banners, communiqués, and slogans that have issued from this wave
of actions give indications of a rupture whose potential consequences
are far more serious than a single labor law. In a particularly
inspiring communiqué (translated here in English), entitled “The World or Nothing,”
the young insurgents remind us that buried within the question of
“work” was always a more fundamental form of submission, that of a
“life” reduced to nothing but pure survival:“Ultimately, if we take to the streets against the labor
law, it’s […] because the question of work is the question of how we use
our lives; and as we see it work is the negation of life, life made
into shit.”This helps explain the clear unwillingness of these rebels to let
themselves be routed and pacified by socialist, trade union, and other
leftist forces of recuperation:“We are no longer in the 60s…No one among us believes we
will reach ‘self-realization’ at some job. That which we defend
ourselves against is the that the bit of life we have after work,
outside of work, does not get reduced to nothing. The little games of
the unions and parties to limit the terrain of conflict to a question of
the labor law, or negotiation with the government, is just a way to
contain our desire to live, to lock up all that escapes their stifling
sphere of scheming”On the heels of this rolling insurgency of proletarians and youth, a
callout has been made for a total blockade of French society this
Thursday, March 31. We have translated it below. The tactic of
autonomously organized and decentralized blockades has obvious resonance
with North American struggles against oil pipelines, fracking, and
Indigenous land expropriations. On the other hand, the link made by this
callout between attacking neo-liberal austerity and the indefinite
blockage of the economy has important implications for struggles in
North America. What will it take to transform the instinct of
indignation and protest into a habit of blockade and obstruction?3.31: A Call to Blockade EverythingThree weeks of blockades. For the past three weeks the
number of mobilized schools has continually grown, in Paris, in the suburbs,
and across the whole of France. Universities have been occupied, blocked and
put to new forms of use by students and workers. The youth have understood that
there is more than simply a law that at stake here, as labor laws like this
affect the daily life of the majority of people in France. That’s why we are
not just against this law, we’re against everything that has led to the current
situation. To us, victory would no longer mean simply the withdrawal of the
law, but a change of society, a change in the conditions of our lives.Cops prevent us from manifesting and don’t hesitate to beat
us in front of our schools and within our demonstrations. To take to the street
means to organize ourselves to hold the street. That’s why we blockade.We are calling for a total blockade of all institutions on
Thursday 31 March. We hope that everyone can make use of this date to think up
actions, and launch a strike able to prolong itself and hold out, since a
single day of blockades is far from sufficient. Let’s organize ourselves into
autonomous committees wherever we can. Let’s fight the union bureaucracies, let’s
remain truly independent of structures of classical politics, let’s critique
this law for what it is: a historical regression of our social rights and an
affront to the dignity of all the people it intends to subject to increased
pressure and new forms of suffering.What does this new law hold in store for us?→ Increased work hours for apprentices (10 hours per day and
40 hours per week)→ Overtime pay can be decreased by 5 times through a simple agreement.→ New possibilities for arbitrary dismissals.→ 10 to 12 hour workdays are now possible provided there is
a contract for it. → No more paid leave in cases of a death in the family
(mother, father, sister, etc.)→ An increase in the number of weeks where we can be made to
work 44 or 46 hours, provided there is an agreement.→No more minimum claims for unjustified dismissals. If we do not want our lives to be reduced to nothing but
waking, working and sleeping, condemned to nothing but survival, it is urgent we
spread this mobilization. We are the first to be hit by this law, so it’s up to
us to respond to it, and to reclaim the conditions of our lives.We call again on the youth to rally from now until Thursday,
March 31 in every way imaginable. Let’s block the factories, roads, schools,
universities, let’s block the economy, and demand the withdrawal of this
regressive legislation.Meet at 11 am at Place de la Nation (Paris) for a joyful and
determined demonstration!](http://web.archive.org./web/20160415135532im_/http://40.media.tumblr.com/0bdab12a93d1fee29c0832c1f27e8067/tumblr_o4rjfdf1EG1tvr0q1o2_r1_1280.png)
![NO SELVES TO ABOLISH - AFROPESSIMISM, ANTI-POLITICS, & THE END OF THE WORLD - K. AaronsThis text attempts to show that afropessimist theory is not simply at odds with, but in fact hostile to identity and privilege politics, whether Black or non-Black. Having extracted the afropessimist position from the politics of symbolic valorization or integration, the author argues that its deeper affinity is with those tendencies of anarchist, communist, and queer thought in which revolutionary practice tends to be understood as the immediate self-abolition of the existing conditions that produce our identities. It concludes with a series of preliminary practical proposals placing what has so far gone by the name “solidarity” on a different footing.From the text: ”We must call into question the entire framework of expropriation in the widest sense of the term: the expropriation of once-possessed land, of culture, of relational capacity and of labor from the hands of the State and the capitalist, patriarchal class. We must no longer envision the remedy for suffering as entailing the recovery of a lost wholeness, entitlement or plenitude of which one is presently deprived.”the author may be reached at everythingmustgo [at] riseup [dot] netREAD / PRINTEDIT (2/27/2016): The links above now point to a revised version of the text, which corrects a few important typos, rephrases some potentially ambivalent formulations, and adds a few new footnotes clarifying the position taken here.](http://web.archive.org./web/20160415135532im_/http://40.media.tumblr.com/881f332d974ca81985fc5ca03718b4fc/tumblr_o1zqmlrZwi1tvr0q1o1_1280.png)
This reportback
originally appeared on Lundimatin. Translated by Ill Will Editions, with
minor additions here and there. An English
version of the callout is here.
PONT-DE-BUIS, FRANCE, October 2015
We arrive together, we leave together.
Twelve armored caravans loaded up with large tents and a kitchen push on late into the night. The goal is to reach a field overlooking the Colisée de la Douffine, in the hills above Pont-de-Buis. 15 km and three breakdowns later, the procession stops, the night is quiet, and it is time to build up the camp.
It is the evening of the 22nd of October, and we are in the base of the Finistère region in Brittany, a short walk from the edge of NobelSport, the principal weapons factory in the region. Tomorrow we will march to the factory and blockade it. The local police chief has responded to our challenge with a promise to prevent us from reaching the site. At the same moment, 800 km away, the family of Remi Fraisse, who was killed by the police a year earlier on the ZAD du Testet, endure a series of public offenses and prefectural interdictions. It was impossible for them to honor Rémi without being accompanied by very people who took his life. The stage was set for this anniversary to go completely unnoticed: police kill, and calm reigns.
Friday, October 23, 2015
The number for the info-line is passed from hand to hand. Our objective is to reach the meet-up point in the center of town. The gendarmerie bar all access to the town except for the south-most entrance. For two hours, the protesters are busy bypassing the police checkpoints, and filter into the main square. It is 4pm, there is close to five hundred of us. Down below, water cannons are positioned behind fences that block access to the two bridges that lead to the factory.
The trap is set, just as it was a year earlier in the streets of Nantes: a riot fence serves as the only receptacle for the demonstrators’ determination, a white screen designed to reduce their anger to a mere spectacle. At that moment, the crowd, masked and partially equipped for battle, is confronted by its own contradictions. If we don’t want to bash our lowered heads against this wall, we must choose the time and place the confrontation would take place. We must initiate a crystallization point. A challenge that often presents itself to our strategies of struggle. True, there have been attacks substantial enough to pierce anti-riot apparatuses of this sort, however nothing justifies our working away furiously on it when we’re fairly sure to fail.
Some speeches by the Assembly of the Wounded prevent an idle mood from developing, and reinvests our presence here with meaning. A fire extinguisher paints the police fence-truck bright orange, and the demo departs again to try its luck elsewhere. A tip from local villagers leads us to a bridge guarded by a much lighter force. A surge forward, and the demonstrators begin taking over the bridge, before being turned around halfway. Another fire extinguisher soaks the gendarmerie’s shields with blue paint, as a volley of stones and a barricade-turned-battering-ram begin to push back the police: we are almost across the river. Yet our goal in the confrontation isn’t to reach it, as we are not trying to enter the factory. We’re seeking gestures that accomplish something other than simply precipitating a catastrophe. Our goal is to render the factory visible and to blockade its production, which this Friday has already accomplished.
Two days of discussion and action will offer us time to put our collective intelligence to the test. The No TAV slogan, “si parte, si torna, insieme” [we arrive together, we leave together] describes the ambiance of the weekend. After the Friday demonstration, we return to the camp and spend the evening partying and celebrating the results of our first day.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
The air is humid Saturday morning, s silhouettes slowly emerge from the
tents erected across the field the day before. The hill opposite us greets us
with the mechanical whirr of a helicopter circling in the sky above, and 110
hectares of forest that enclose the buildings of the factory. The four kilometer
fence around its perimeter extends half of the length of the village. One might
otherwise assume the site was the communal woods of the town, except that the
residents have never been inside them, claimed as they were long ago by the
weapons industry. A river marks out a frontier between the village and NobelSport,
dividing our camp and its target.
We gather under the main tent, the kitchen gets going serving food, a
pirate radio (“Gunpowder Radio”) broadcasts the first interviews from
the day before. The discussion program calls for a presentation on police
weaponry, followed by a presentation about an ambulance acquired by comrades as
a means to confront inevitable injuries, and more generally to introduce the
question of care into our struggles. Some locals tell the story of the factory
and its explosions, its industrial risks and accidents. They tell us of the
grip it maintains on village life, and share information on its operation, its
security protocols and weak points. We are reminded of the opacity enjoyed by
this type of industry. The discussion reinvigorates our desire to seriously
investigate these infrastructures, and perhaps one day to penetrate their
hearts during more decisive moments. We take the opportunity to fill our
address books, nourish the confidence we won the day before, and to
collectively imagine new opportunities for blockades down the road.
Later, there are discussions about struggle dynamics in Brittany, a
demonstration in Landivisiau on November 14, and the tractor convoys to the COP
21 summit in Paris. In the early evening, a torch-lit march is planned in honor
of those killed and wounded by the police. We know that we will find ourselves
facing down the same apparatus we encountered the day before. This march will therefore
serve as an opportunity to exorcise its attraction once and for all.
A fresco in homage to Rémi, some songs and readings, and we’re off. Three
hundred people descend slowly toward the gates. The crowd stops as it arrives
at the entrance to the bridge, with some folks sitting on the ground, others
pointing green lasers at the cops’ eyes. As the readings begin, the thick mood afforded
by the police barrier lightens somewhat. We are treated to stories of the daily
harassment meted out against gendarmes
on the ZAD at Notre-Dame-des-Landes following Operation Caesar, and stories from
the mountains of the Italy of resistance against the Lyon-Turin TGV line. We
talk shit to the rows of gendarmes to the rhythm of a narrative. Then it comes
time to arrange our departure: we release fireworks, rockets, rain down on them
with railroad ties, bolts and stones, as if attempting to shatter the screen
put in place for us. In the end, Molotov cocktails send it up in flames.
As we slowly return, clamps and grappling hooks are passed through the crowd, which at this point is proceeding directly alongside the outer perimeter of the factory. Pieces of fence are ripped down, others carefully cut from top to bottom. A portable angle grinder goes to work on a gated entrance to the factory. Tear gas begins to rain down, half of it bouncing off the inner fence, before falling back toward the bewildered cops. Rocks and torn-up concrete again showers the police, with the occasional burst of flames. Finally, the demonstrators come together at the intersection of the street leading back to the camp, with a common élan: we arrive together, we leave together.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
It’s the last day of the weekend, and the chief of police sets the tone:
a decree stipulates that from noon ‘til midnight the police will control and
search all vehicles exiting Pont-de-Buis.
At the camp everything is peaceful. As the tents are dismantled, we
discuss our response to this new development. A situated perspective begins to
take shape: plan are made to deepen our investigative work on NobelSport in
collaboration with all the locals we have met during the weekend, with an eye
to blocking the factory in the event of a police intervention against the ZAD. Plans
are made to coordinate these blockades across the region, the better to disrupt
the forces of order. It has often been speculated that an expulsion attempt on
the ZAD will have to mobilize so many cops that they will not have the means to
protect other sites elsewhere in the region. From this perspective, NobelSport should
be seen as a privileged target, along with the principal highway axes leading out
to the west.
A team remains on the camp to finish stowing away the structures, while
the bulk of the campers returns to the factory. This time we leave the anti-riot
gates behind us.
A stroll through the woods and along the railway tracks of a viaduct
bridge overlooking the Douffine, and we find ourselves on the other side of the
river, behind the apparatus we scoffed at the day before. This experimental little
countryside promenade allowed the three hundred or so of us to lay our eyes firsthand
on the narrow cut-throughs and footpaths by which one can reach the main
entrance of the factory unobstructed. At the entrance to the factory, as well
as at the intersection just down the street from it, heavy contingents of
police await us, ready to do battle. We circle-up in the middle of the field
opposite the main gates for an impromptu meeting. The wisdom of a strategic
retreat imposes itself on us, coupled with the affirmation that we will find
ourselves there once again in other circumstances. The circle of the meeting
then morphs into a line, and we rush the police as if on a medieval
battlefield, with a howling cry. The dazed cops shoot off tear gas, yet after
ten meters the advancing hoard abruptly stops, flips off and moons the police,
and turns around and heads back laughing. As we reach the last police
checkpoint at intersection nearest the main gates, the procession pauses for one
last confrontation. Fireworks, rockets, another volley of stones and bricks, as
blankets of tear gas fill the late afternoon sky. Finally, the long walk back
to the dismantled camp.
The day could have ended there, but the declarations made by the police
chief that morning encourage us to make our exit in slightly more flamboyant
fashion. We arrive together, we leave
together.
Our hundred or so vehicles form a line and exit the camp with rumbling engines. We wind our way through the village to the cheers of inhabitants: they understood that we will be back, and they seem amused by the idea. When the police do briefly attempt to block the procession further up ahead, passengers quickly begin pouring out of cars masked-up, and almost immediately, the path is reopened for us. The regional highway is only one kilometer away: if they block us, we will block it in turn.
Our long snake of headlights pauses one last time as it exits the village, just long enough to make sure everyone is there, and then the camp disappears into the distance. We arrive together, we leave together.
Videos:
the first day
first day; interviews in French only
the second evening
A few pictures:
The partisan ambulance
The friday march
anti-riot gate
anti-riot gate with decorations
More info and photos at: http://desarmonslapolice.noblogs.org/
A poem written by Jean-Pierre Fraisse, Rémi’s father, on the anniversary of his son’s death:
J’ai fait un rêve
J’ai fait un rêve Rémi, tu nous quittes dans un faisceau lumineux.
J’ai fait un rêve Rémi, la renoncule à feuille d’ophioglosse fleurit sur toutes les zones humides qui se multiplient partout en France.
J’ai fait un rêve Rémi, l’humour et le détachement de soi sont à l’intérieur de nous tous.
J’ai fait un rêve Rémi, plus jamais la France ne se mutilera avec des grenades offensives.
Que ta mémoire, Rémi, soit le gardien de l’interdiction de ces armes.
Je ne rêve plus.
