A-Infos (en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #292 - antifascism, Lyon facing the far right: hold the line (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]

The choice of Lyon to hold a union initiative against the extreme right was imperative in 
view of the strength of fascist networks in the city. The day ended with the prospect of a 
new unitary day in April. ---- This Thursday, February 14 was held at the Labor Exchange 
of Lyon a union meeting, as part of the unitary campaign " against the extreme right, his 
ideas, his practices " CGT-FSU-Solidarity-UNEF-FIDL-UNL . ---- Let us first recall that 
this unitary campaign was initiated on January 29, 2014 at the Paris Labor Exchange, with 
600 unionists then meeting a few months after the murder of Clément Méric, a young 
antifascist at Solidaires Étudiant-es. A documentary film " Today as yesterday, fight the 
extreme right. The crossed history of unionism and the extreme right " , produced by the 
Social History Institute of the CGT, was then projected in this day's introduction to 
reappropriate the involvement of unions in the history of the anti-fascist struggle .

A unitary union campaign since 2014
The inter-union then launched a " national observatory of cities run by the extreme right 
", with, since 2015, several meetings of union teams in Beziers, a laboratory city managed 
by Robert Ménard ; near Hayange where former CGT trade unionist Fabien Engelmann became FN 
mayor ; in the Vaucluse, where the Bompard clan of the Southern League has taken root in 
several communes; in Courrières, a neighboring municipality of Hénin-Beaumont, which 
became a FN / RN municipal showcase run by Steeve Briois. Each time, more than a hundred 
trade unionists met to get out of the stagnation and isolation, to establish an inventory 
of the various anti-social policies led by the mayors of the far right, which allowed to 
unmask their pseudo-social imposture and to highlight the local union and associative 
responses. These meetings then gave rise to written reports relayed in particular on the 
site of the association Vigilance and anti-fascist trade union initiatives (Visa) [1], 
systematically associated, and which publishes parallel since 2014 regular columns " 
Lights on brown town halls" ".

Lyon: a laboratory city for the far right
The choice of Lyon was essential in the pursuit of this unitary union dynamics, because 
this city has become for years a real laboratory of the far right, firmly established and 
regularly operating. Several facts relating to the particular context of Lyon have been 
usefully recalled: several figures of the far right have gangrenous Lyon's university 
community, such as Bruno Gollnisch, Pierre Vial, Bernard Lugan and Robert Faurisson ; the 
influence of traditional Catholic networks in Lyon and the region, and the offensive of 
the proponents of the moral order, culminating in the Manifs pour tous in 2013 ; the 
congress of the FN in Lyon in 2014 and the prevention of the anti-fascist demonstration by 
the prefecture and the municipality of Gérard Collomb, which slowed down the attempt to 
remobilise and coordinate anti-fascist networks at the national level ; the opening of 
many premises in the historic center of Lyon by the French Action, the PNF, the GUD, the 
Identitaires: bars, tattoo parlors, boxing clubs (see the complete cartography prepared by 
the CGA-Lyon and the Committee Vigilance 69 on the Horde site) [2]; the proliferation in 
recent years of fascist, racist, homophobic attacks by right-wing activists in Lyon ; the 
opening in September 2018 of the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences 
(ISSEP) by Marion Maréchal Le Pen in the district of Confluence.

The recent news in Lyon gave a particular relief to this meeting: fascist attacks of 
premises of the CGT, the CNT, the PCF ; closure of the local " Social Bastion " ; Violent 
attacks of trade unionists and antifascists by fascist groups in the context of the yellow 
vests demonstrations in February in Lyon ...

Perspectives of antifascist struggle
The Lyon Labor Exchange therefore welcomed on Thursday 14 February more than 150 CGT, 
Solidaires, FSU and UNEF trade unionists from Lyon, the South-East (Var, Marseille, 
Hautes-Alpes, Savoie ...) and the Île region. -de-France, with union militant press 
tables, Visa, La Plume black bookstore.

Several themes were then discussed in the plenary: reception of migrants and migrants, the 
extreme right in Europe, the school of Marion Maréchal in Lyon, the " social strongholds " 
and identity groups, the fachosphere and social networks, the struggles feminists face the 
extreme right.

Several testimonies of trade unionists and migrants have focused on local mobilization of 
concrete solidarity: squats of Amphi Z of the house Mandela in Villeurbanne ; Solidary 
union maraudes in the Hautes-Alpes bringing together Solidaires, CGT, FSU, CFDT and the 
peasant Confederation.

The debates also focused on attempts by the extreme right to infiltrate the mobilization 
of yellow vests and the necessary organization of progressive and antifascist processions 
in Lyon and Paris, in order to face the fascist attacks and to wear demands for equal 
rights and wealth sharing in the face of austerity and social breakdown policies.

From words to deeds, in Paris as in Lyon on February 2 and 9, the fachos did not have the 
right of city in the yellow vests demonstrations. Thanks to the determined and united 
mobilization of the anti-fascist forces.

Finally, the debates focused on the massive feminist struggles and mobilizations in France 
and Europe for the rights of women and against the moral order. The day ended with the 
prospect of a new unitary day in Lyon in April with Pinar Selek, a sociologist and Turkish 
feminist activist living in exile in France.

With the approach of the European elections, the popularization and the massification of 
the fight against fascism imposes itself with an international networking, articulated 
with the social struggles.

Gabriel L. (AL Paris North East)

[1] https://www.visa-isa.org

[2] http://lahorde.samizdat.net

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lyon-face-a-l-extreme-droite-tenir-la-ligne
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en