đŸ Archived View for library.inu.red âș file âș filippo-argenti-nights-of-rage.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 09:52:08. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âĄïž Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Nights of Rage Author: Filippo Argenti Date: 2007 Language: en Topics: france, Elephant Editions Source: https://archive.elephanteditions.net/library/filippo-argenti-nights-of-rage Notes: Original title: Le notti della collera Sulle recenti sommosse di Francia Translated by Barbara Stefanelli tempo di ora / Italy / 2006 Elephant Editions / London / 2007
There is something knocking and knocking impatiently at our door. Sooner
or later we will have to open... Many stay hidden, not only the cowards,
but also those who are too calm or too refined. They do not want to get
involved. But they are involved as the stream continuously drags them
and their blinkers are useless. Even language fails miserably, language
inherited from the old world, with its old sacrifices, its old images,
and its embellishment of another era. Nothing is as it was before; old
words fall on one another because they can cling to nothing new. There
are heights that no joke, no witticism and no wisdom can reach. The
bourgeois era is coming to an end. No one knows what is coming. Many
have a dark premonition and so they are mocked. The masses also have a
dark sensation about it but they are unable to express themselves and
are (still) suppressed. The Old and the New, the insoluble opposition
between what is and what will be, are gently fighting each other, and
armed to the teeth they throw themselves against each other. A seaquake
is hitting the earth. It is not just economics; it is not just a
question of eating, drinking and making money. It is not just a matter
of how wealth will be distributed, of who will work and who will be
exploited. No, what is at stake is different: it is everything.
Kurt Tucholsky, WeltbĂŒhne, March 11 1920.
This booklet is a modest contribution to understanding the recent
revolts in France. Needless to say, it is not sociological or, in a
nobler sense, theoretical insight. Revolts can only be understood by
those who have the same needs as the rebels, that is to say by those who
feel they are part of the revolt. After a brief chronology, in fact, the
pages that follow pose the question of how the events of November in
France concern all of us, and also try to give a possible answer.
We would like to highlight a few points in this short introduction.
If we take a quick look at the various revolutionary theories circulated
in France, Italy and in the USA in recent years, we can see how these
revolts were not at all unexpected or unpredictable. Some comrades are
talking of civil war, of explosions that are difficult to identify with
the places where capital concentrates and controls the exploited and of
their total exposition to merchandise. Not by chance have the nineteenth
century theses on the barbarians, on the collapse of any common logos of
the exploited, and the ambivalence of the concept of nihilism, etc.,
been revised. Certain concepts express, even if in an embryonic and
confused way, needs that go beyond the individual. In this sense, there
exits a direct relation between these revolts and revolutionary theory.
It is a kind of dialogue from a distance. According to French comrades,
any attempt at a direct encounter has so far failed. Common hostility to
the police or practical solidarity to the arrested has not been enough.
Evidently these revolts are in themselves a theoretical suggestion, a
reflection on the world. But what do they tell us? Certainly not that
the insurgents want to manage this world, control production and
technology from below. They do not tell us about hard-working multitudes
nor of âZapatista marchesâ carried out by intellectual labourers for a
democratic Europe. The flames in France have destroyed all social
democratic illusions of integrating the poor into the society of
capital.
Walter Benjamin asked himself how in 1830 the Paris rioters shot at town
clocks, in different parts of the city and without coordinating the
action; for our part we cannot fail to reflect on why wild youths of
today are burning cars. In fact, what does the car represent in
contemporary society? We leave the question unanswered.
If the claim of putting forward great revolutionary analyses that
explain everything and that the proletarians only have to apply
diligently has now disappeared, it is time that revolutionary action
itself was conceived in a totally different way. Instead of the mission
of taking the flag to where the first fire breaks out and the first
barricade is erected, there is now the chance to put up barricades or
start fires elsewhere, as an extension of the revolt, not as its
political direction. In fact, the lamentations of those on the side of
the insurgents who complain about the lack of any political programme
are quite pathetic.
To extend the revolt, however, does not mean to put oneself at the level
of existing practises and multiply them (cars are burning, so we are
going to burn them too), but it means deciding what must be struck, and
how, to uphold the universal significance of the revolt.
At the same time, to transform the angry youths of the suburbs into the
new revolutionary subjects would be equally pathetic. It would be great
to think that the students in struggle against precarity had taken the
baton from the insurgents of November. It is not quite like that. Even
if there were lots of slogans for freedom for the rebels held in jail
since November (most of them underage) in the demos and meetings of
March and April, actual encounters have been very few. And there have
been not a few problems. During the demo in Paris on March 23, for
example, a few hundred âyouths of the suburbsâ attacked students, stole
money and mobile phones, beat them and insulted them. Moreover they also
attacked those fleeing from police in the middle of fighting and police
attacks. These facts cannot be ignored. Territorial identities,
attachment to commodities, contempt for âprivilegedâ students, etc. are
effects of the problems that new social conflicts will carry with them
as inheritance of a rotten society. No ideology of revolt will erase
them.
In order to examine the relation between the riots of November and the
movements that appeared all over France against the CPE (contract of
first employment) it is necessary to intertwine tales, testimonies and
texts. That is why we decided to prepare two different pamphlets. If we
want to avoid journalistic simplification and ambivalent rhetoric we
have to grasp the living element of the experiences of struggle. For the
time being we are simply offering an outline of the facts.
First of all we want to clarify one banal point: the expression âpeople
of the suburbsâ does not mean a thing. First, because the Paris suburbs
alone have over 9 million inhabitants (and the day millions of
inhabitants revolt, it will be quite another story!). Then, the cités
(roughly: whole housing estates with their yards and squares) within the
boundaries of the big cities were also involved in the riots. Many
âyouths of the suburbsâ study in the cities (both in the lycĂ©es, which
are secondary schools, and the universities, which are much more
attended in France than they are in Italy). In this sense, a great
number of young and not so young people who took part in the demos,
blockades and fighting in March and April were the same as those who set
the French nights on fire during the autumn. According to reliable
assessments, the insurgents in November were 50,000, whereas a few
million people participated in the movement âagainst the CPEâ. Many
âyouths of the suburbsâ in fact had a pacific attitude, while other
âmore privilegedâ young people resolutely raised the level of the
fighting. Statistics that explain revolts on the basis of income are a
matter for sociologists. In some provincial towns (Rennes for example)
the encounter between students and the so-called casseurs was quite
effective from a strategic point of view, which caused Sarkozy and his
men to be extremely concerned. In Paris a lot less. Obviously there are
precise reasons for that. Many âyouths of the suburbsâ find it hard to
reach the demos in the capital: if they are not stopped before boarding
the trains of the hinterland (Rer), they are beaten by anti-riot cops as
soon as they get out of the tube. If they manage to reach the demos they
are kept out by the security services of the unions, cheered by many of
the students. It is petrol on the fire. Furthermore, the ones belonging
to the younger groups, who are not so expert as regards direct fighting
with the police, are isolated during looting and fires, and consequently
they are easily arrested. Of course this does not justify their
indiscriminate hatred towards the other demonstrators, but it is
evidence of different social situations and ways of life. Those who
experience suffocating controls by the anticrime brigade, which often
end up in beatings in the streets or at police stations, find it quite
strange to see marches going on with police escorting them everywhere...
In other words, without ourselves falling into simplification and
bearing in mind some remarkable exceptions, we can say that at present
in France certain wild youths are facing practically alone a kind of
struggle never seen before (since November, as well as the arson, a
number of violent thefts have occurred, with gangs of youths attacking
security vans with baseball clubs, ...). For the revolutionaries who
publicly stand on the side of revolt against the side of the State it is
not so easy to be up to the situation, even in a movement of struggle
that proves as radical as that of the latest months.
An example will clarify this. At first the struggle was centred on the
CPE, but it soon became aware that precarity does not depend on a
specific contract; on the contrary it is the product of a whole social
system, and cannot be reformed. Even if the movement were to finally win
its specific objective (as everybody knows the government retracted the
bill in question), it knew that it was still on the defensive. The step
beyond was not so easy. The main slogan of the movement, which was
proposed first timidly and then almost officially (that is through
motions voted at the studentsâ meetings) became: letâs block everything.
So was it. Stations, roads, universities, bus garages, and motorways:
the flow of men and goods was massively interrupted, amid an atmosphere
of popular complicity. Those who were not ready for fighting the police
found their mode of action in the barricades, following the joyful
complementarity of actions that characterizes all real movements. The
angriest, however, those whose day to day existence is a life sentence
between police and iron gates, concrete buildings and shopping centres,
regardless of the CPE, donât just want to block everything but also tout
niquer (destroy everything). Revolutionary rhetoric, stingy with courage
and sterile in organisational capacity, has practically abandoned them.
There need to be many more experiences, many more fires and a lot more
looting. But the road is open.
This booklet and the coming one (âNights of Rageâ will be followed by
âDays of Refusalâ) are a small contribution so that these experiences
are adopted, discussed, and spread in Italy. Whatâs happening in France
today is a sort of âweapon millâ with which to sharpen our ideas and
practices, in the night as well as in the day.
May 2006
an objective account of events that occurred in France during the revolt
of the âscumâ between the end of October and the first weeks of November
2005; not only because of the sources that have been used (newspapers,
press agencies, police reports, websites, and âblogsâ on the internet,
which sometimes are real collections of collective memory), but also and
mainly because the sense of a chronology lies not so much in the
presentation of past events as in the lines that such events can trace
in the present.
Two teenagers, Ziad, 17 years old, and Bouna, 15 years old, are
electrocuted and die after taking shelter in a power station while
fleeing police in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denise). Another youth,
Metin, is seriously wounded. At first police, the prefect and the home
secretary deny that the youths were being chased. A second official
version released later states that the youths were probably committing a
theft in a yard and were therefore escaping. This version is not
confirmed by the surviving boy who, according to the investigators,
âdoes not remember anythingâ. The local investigating magistrate claims
that the youths âwere not criminalsâ as their police records were clean.
Later he also confirms that they were running away from a routine
identification and therefore they were not committing any theft. The
escape, which also involved other boys, was due to the fact that some of
them did not have identity documents, including Metin (who was waiting
for his status to be recognized).
As the news spreads, âuncontrolled gangs of dozens of youthsâ (to quote
the words of fire brigade officials) give vent to their rage. They pelt
firemen, who have come in aid of the electrocuted youths, with stones;
then they destroy a few bus stops, set fire to 23 cars (including police
cars and council vehicles) and skips, attack a commercial store, a
school, a post office and the city hall. 300 police officers try to deal
with the youthsâ rage for a few hours.
About 400 youths fight with police by throwing Molotovs and stones in
ChĂȘne-Pointu (where Ziad and Bouna lived). Shots are fired at a CRS
vehicle (French anti-riot brigade). During the night a dozen policemen
and a journalist are wounded and about thirty cars and many skips are
burnt. 19 people are stopped, 14 of whom are held in custody. The police
union ask for more power, on the pretext of shots fired at police.
Sarkozy announces that all police cars will be equipped with video
cameras.
On Saturday October 29 500 inhabitants of Clichy-sous-Bois organise a
silent march in memory of the two electrocuted teenagers. Some
demonstrators wear white t-shirts with the names of the two victims and
the words âdead for nothingâ. In the night skips and cars are set fire
to but no fights with the police occur. A dozen youths carrying hammers
and petrol cans are stopped.
Objects are thrown against police in the ForestiĂšre area. The CRS shoot
a teargas cannister inside a mosque where a group of women are praying.
As they leave the mosque, the latter are abused by the policemen: âGo
home bitches and look after your childrenâ. A Muslim resident in Clichy
claims: âIf this had happened in a synagogue they would have said it was
a scandalâ. As a result of the fighting, 6 policemen are wounded and 11
people are stopped.
On October 31 the two dead boysâ parents refuse to meet home secretary
Sarkozy, who had called the youths of the suburbs âscumâ. The same day
three youths (one French, a Moroccan without documents and a refugee
from Cote dâIvoire), who had been stopped the previous days in
Clichy-sous-Bois, face summary trial and are sentenced to 8 months, two
of which to be spent in jail, on charges of assaulting police. Another 5
youths are arrested and awaiting trial. âYou are locking us up without
any evidenceâ, they scream as they hear the news of their arrest. Groups
of adults organise rigorously Muslim (Le monde) social service units, in
order to try to avert further violence. The rebels have no intention of
following their suggestions as they trick them and manage to attack
police with stones and Molotovs. More cars are set on fire and skips set
alight: the fire brigade and police are punctually welcomed with stones
from the surrounding streets and estates when they turn up. Police then
shoot teargas and flash-balls (rubber bullets). The metropolitan police
garage in Montfermeil, close to Clichy-sous-Bois, is also set fire to
and more fires occur in other parts of the region resulting in a total
of one hundred burnt out cars.
The revolt spreads all over France. 228 cars are set on fire throughout
the country, most of which in the Seine-Saint-Denis area where many
police cars and fire engines are also burnt. According to the
government, this is the result of âa normal dayâs urban violenceâ. In
other departments involved in the revolt direct battles with police are
quite rare. The strategy of the rebels, in fact, consists in forming
small groups that move rapidly and light fires, avoiding frontal battles
with police.
Home secretary Sarkozy claims: âWe wonât be soft with those who disobey
the law so that we can better help all the othersâ (Le Parisien).
Roughly 400 vehicles are set on fire all over France. In the suburbs of
Paris not only are cars set alight but there are fights with police and
attacks on a police station, a commercial store and a prĂȘte-a-porter
shop. A few cars are burnt just outside the palace of the prefecture in
Bobigny. In other departments (Hauts-de-Seine and Aulnay-sous-Bois, both
in the north) Molotovs are hurled at police stations. Three journalists
of France 2, the State television, have to abandon their car in flames
in front of dozens of rebels: soon it is only a burnt out wreck. A few
police officers are wounded; a fireman suffers second-degree burns as he
is hit in the face by a Molotov bottle. A Renault car showroom, a few
schools and a bank (in Sevran) are also set fire to. Gunshots are fired
at the CRS and the police in La Courneuve and Saint-Denis. Furthermore
in La Courneuve Molotov bottles are launched against the site of
Eurocopter, whereas in Clichy-sous-Bois a fire station is attacked. A
regional railway line (Rer) is disrupted owing to continuous hurling of
stones at the train.
Sarkozy declares that this violence âis not at all spontaneousâ, on the
contrary âit is perfectly planned. We are trying to understand who is
behind itâ.
Roughly 900 vehicles are set on fire all over France, 519 of which in
Ile-de-France (an area in Paris) and 250 in the department of
Seine-Saint-Denis alone. Five policemen are wounded by hurled objects.
Seven cars are also burnt in the centre of Paris. All in all direct
fights with police do not occur. Le Nouvel Observateur states that owing
to fights and arrests that occurred the previous days the âscumâ have
chosen to act outside their territory. The same paper acknowledges that
symbols of authority are mainly hit, along with some private interests.
In fact many buildings of public authority are hit, especially schools,
council buildings and police stations (with Molotovs in various areas).
In Val dâOise, where 105 cars are burnt, a supermarket is also looted.
In Seine-Saint-Denis a sports shop is looted. Public transport is
suspended in many areas for security reasons. A massive fire broke out
in a carpet depot in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Other depots are set on fire in a
number of areas. A few Molotovs are hurled at the court building in
Bobigny. Gunshots are fired at vehicles of the CRS in Neuilly-sur-Marne.
The communist mayor of Stains witnesses his car being set on fire while
talking to a group of youths. Many buses are also set on fire: in
Trappes (Yvelines) 27 buses are destroyed in a fire that is started in a
bus garage. In the night about 250 people are stopped by police all over
France. In Sevran a disabled woman is injured during an attack on a RATP
bus.
Prefect Cordet claims: âLarge gangs are disappearing as violence is now
being perpetrated by a great number of small groups that move very
quicklyâ. Home secretary Sarkozy declares that the government is
determined to adopt a tough attitude. Marine Le Pen, Jean Marie Le Penâs
daughter and vice-president of the neo fascist party Front National,
asks the government to adopt emergency measures. Philippe De Villiers
asks the premier âto strengthen the reaction of the government towards
what appears to be an ethnic civil warâ.
754 vehicles are set on fire during the night and 203 people are stopped
by police all over France. During the afternoon a great number of cars
are burnt in an underground parking area in Bobigny: many of these cars
belonged to the court situated in the area. A bus garage is set on fire
in Aisne: two vehicles are completely destroyed and another two are
seriously damaged. Other attacks against Renault car shops occur. A
Molotov is hurled at a police station in Paris (in Place des FĂȘtes, XIX
arrondissement). A court is ransacked and set on fire in Ile-de-France.
A great number of schools are also destroyed and set fire to. A massive
fire -flares up in a textile depot in Aubervilliers; a car shop and a
supermarket are burned in Montreuil; a nursery school is set on fire in
La Courneuve. In Seine-Maritime unknown people stop a bus and set it on
fire after letting all the passengers out.
A few hundred citizens organise demos for the end of violence. During
the night the Paris area is controlled by a helicopter equipped with
spotlight and video camera; a further 2,300 officers are mobilized
besides those already on duty. Attorney magistrate of Paris Ives Bot
declares to Europe 1 that the âviolence is organisedâ. Romano Prodi
claims that similar explosions of violence will also soon occur in
Italy.
1,295 vehicles are set on fire, 741 of which in Ile-de-France, and 312
people are stopped by police. Objects (stones, bike wheels and trolleys)
are hurled at police from buildings in Yvelines. There is an attempt to
set fire to a council oil depot. The windows of a McDonaldâs store are
destroyed by a car used as battering ram in Corbeil-Essonne. The store
is eventually set on fire. In Grigny, south of Paris, about 200 rioters
engage in fights with police and a few pump-gun shots are fired against
officers: dozens of policemen are injured, 2 quite seriously. In Evreux,
Normandy, about 60 vehicles are burnt in the night as well as a
commercial store, a post office, the council hall and two schools;
officers are injured during the fight. Still in Grigny two schools are
set on fire. In Noisy-le-Grand (Seine-Saint-Denis) a big school and many
cars are also burnt. Sabotage and fire occur in electrical plants
belonging to EDF in Grand Vallauris (Maritime Alps department). A Korean
journalist of TV Kbs is assaulted in Aubervilliers. 13 cars are also set
on fire in the III, XIII, XIX and XX arrondissement in Paris; 30 people
are stopped, 11 of whom are âcaught in the act of making incendiary
devicesâ. Fires also break out in areas of France that have so far been
relatively calm (Bretagne, Alsace, Lorraine, Auvergne, Limousin and Cote
dâAzur): it is mainly burning of cars caused by launching of Molotov
bottles by small fast groups that act in spite of the presence of
numerous helicopters. Bus garages are burned in various areas. Even if
direct fighting with police does not often occur, the latter are
punctually targeted with stones when they pass. Incendiary bottles are
also hurled at police and the fire brigade in Loire. Two policemen are
injured following the explosion of a skip hit by a gas cannister in
Grenoble. About 150 Molotov bottles are found in a depot in Evry.
It is the climax of the revolt: 1,408 cars are set on fire, 395 people
are stopped by police (83 have been arrested since the beginning of the
riots), and a great number of officers are injured. âIt is a new kind of
urban guerrilla, which moves very rapidly and sets fire, destroys,
attacks, avoiding direct fighting with police and able to use all modern
means of communicationâ (LibĂ©ration). The first fights occur in a âhot
areaâ in Toulouse, where rioters fight against police. A Molotov bottle
is hurled at the electoral site of MP Pierre Lellouche in Paris. A great
number of cars are burnt in Rouen where a car is also used as battering
ram against a police station; the same method is used against a police
station in Perpignan. A nursery school is set fire to in Saint-Etienne
where public transport is interrupted owing to the numerous attacks. The
site of a TV station in AsniĂšre-sur-Seine (Haute-de-Seine) is destroyed
by fire in the night. Fires also break out in Lyon (where three nights
of fighting had occurred before the revolt started as an Arab youth was
beaten by police), Lille, Orléans, Nice, Bordeaux, Strasburg, etc. A 13
month old child is injured in the head in Colombes following an attack
on a bus. In Rosny-sous-Bois a juvenile recreation centre is attacked; a
motorbike shop is also attacked in Aubervilliers, as well as a nursery
school in Saint-Maurice, a treasury office in Trappes and a
pharmaceutical depot in Sur. Molotov bottles are hurled at a church in
SĂšte, without causing serious damage. A 61-year-old man dies after being
assaulted as he attempts to secure his car.
The French Committee of Islamic Organisations launches a âfatwaâ that
condemns the violence under way. The major of Raincy (Seine-Saint-Denis)
organises civilian security units to patrol the town. Justice secretary
Pascal Clement declares: âIt was just urban violence until last weekend.
Now it is a real uprisingâ. The home secretary announces that majors and
attorneys will be allowed to impose curfews and that an emergency law
that was applied in Algeria on April 3 1955 (when the country was a
French colony) will be restored. Sarkozy also announces that massive
searches will be carried out wherever the presence of weapons is
suspected. De Villiers claims that the army should intervene and that
all immigrants should be arrested. Meantime three âbloggersâ are
arrested (two from Paris and a minor from Aix-en-Provence) accused of
instigating attacks against the police through the internet.
1,173 cars are set on fire, 12 policemen are injured, 330 people are
stopped by police and 226 French towns are involved in riots. Again
public buildings, schools and buses set fire to; two Italian journalists
are attacked in Clichy-sous-Bois. Rioters stop a bus in Toulouse, let
all the passengers out and set fire to the vehicle. The paper Hal
reporter del popolo spreads the news that a boy is seriously injured in
one hand after attempting to throw back a tear gas cannister. All in all
riots are diminishing in the Paris area but continue in the provinces.
Muslim organisations vent their anger against violence once again. In a
few areas it is forbidden to sell petrol and gas bottles to minors. A
bus explodes in Bordeaux after being targeted with Molotovs. In Lyon the
underground night traffic is interrupted owing to various incidents and
the continuous launching of molotovs on to the tracks, whereas nine
buses parked in a depot are destroyed. A 53 year old man is injured
after being hit by a handle thrown from a building. Michel Gaudin,
general director of the national police, declares that rioters are
animated by a true âanti-institutional willâ.
Small episodes of urban guerrilla actions occur in Brussels (where some
cars are set on fire) and Luxemburg. In the night between November 7 and
November 8 three cars are set on fire and the window of a shop is
destroyed in the Cagliari area (Sardinia, Italy), where a few cars had
already been set on fire a few days before.
During a parliamentary question time Sarkozy declares that he demands of
all attorneys that âany foreigner, no matter if regular or irregular,
who has been sentenced be deported, including those with stay permits.
When one has the honour of having a stay permit the minimum one might do
is not be arrested for provoking urban violenceâ. The same day a bill
imposing a state of emergency in France âstarting from November 9 2005â
is made known. It establishes that:
certain times;
controlled;
In the evening home secretary Sarkozy sends a telegram to the attorneys
asking them to deport all foreigners who have been stopped during the
episodes of urban violence, including those with stay permits. 120
youths are involved in the measure, almost all of them with regular
papers. Various human rights associations, the Communist party and the
Green party unanimously denounce this sort of double condemnation
(deportation of regular foreigners owing to other charges). The home
secretary replies that it is not double condemnation, but simple
deportation, that is to say direct deportation of people without them
being sentenced(!). In 1994 first a high court then the State council
had refused the measure taken by former home secretary Pasqua against
two Algerians involved in riots in Lyon. The home secretary mobilises
11,500 policemen (1,000 more than the previous night).
As a result, attacks diminish considerably: only 617 cars set on fire
and 280 people stopped by police (about 1,830 people have been arrested
since the beginning of the riots, and about one hundred have been tried
summarily). Schools are devastated by fire in La Courneuve and in
Villeneuve-dâAscq (in the north). Two shops are looted then set on fire
in Arras, where a business and a recreational centre are also set on
fire. The site of a local paper is attacked and set on fire in Grasse. A
few Russian journalists are assaulted in Lyon, where the tube transport
is still interrupted owing to an incendiary attack occurred in the
previous nights. Night traffic is also still interrupted in other towns,
including Grenoble. In the suburbs of Toulouse molotov bottles and
stones are hurled at police. In Lille the town council hall is attacked.
An attempt to loot a superstore in Marseille fails.
Rapper Magyd Cherfi depicts the rebels as âdesperate youths who believe
in nothingâ.
17 cars are set on fire in various towns in Belgium. 11 cars are also
burnt in Germany (Berlin and Cologne), whereas molotovs are hurled at a
school in Altenburg. Cars are also set on fire in Lisbon.
In Montréal (Canada) dozens of anarchists organise a demo outside the
French consulate in solidarity to the French rioters.
Magistrates launch an investigation for âattempted murderâ following the
hurling of rubber bullets at police in Grigny. A great number of summary
court procedures are carried out on November 9. 482 cars are set on fire
in 152 different towns and 203 people are stopped by police (the total
arises at 2,033 since the beginning of the riots). In Sens a police
officer and a fireman are injured after being hit by stones. A police
station, three schools and a council hall are targeted with incendiary
attacks. Only 6 departments apply the curfew. A few incidents occur in
Paris. The interruption of the night underground transport is
reconfirmed in Lyon until Sunday. Magistrates forbid the selling and
transportation of petrol cans in Bordeaux. Similar measures are taken in
Loiret (Orléans) and Marseille. Toulouse, Lille, Marseille and
Strasbourg are the towns most involved in incidents. The French national
police impose the ban on any public demonstration in Paris from 10am on
Saturday November 10 to 10pm the following day. It is feared that
violence might occur in the city centre during the weekend.
Riots also occur in the suburbs of Brussels and other Belgian towns,
still without direct fighting against police.
As incidents continue to diminish in number, 463 cars are set on fire
(111 of which in Ile-de-France) and 201 people are stopped by police. A
few police cars parked inside the fences of the court are set on fire in
Bordeaux. A policeman is arrested and another 4 are investigated and
charged with abuse of violence towards a man in La Courneuve. 8
policemen in total are put under investigation following some
documentaries on France 2. On Thursday November 10 another man (the
fourth) is arrested for inciting violence through the internet: he risks
from 1 to 7 yearâs imprisonment. Transportation and selling of petrol
cans is also forbidden in Paris.
On Thursday Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of the Front National,
ironically thanks premier Villepin and home secretary Sarkozy for
proposing the same slogans and measures he himself put forward.
Intervening in a TV program on France 2, Sarkozy declares that
distinction must be made between the unfortunate youths of the suburbs
and the âscumâ that are responsible for the incidents (and therefore he
once again repeats his controversial statement). He also claims that
âchildren of African immigrants pose more problems that those of
Swedish, Danish or Hungarian immigrants because their culture, social
origins and polygamy create more difficultiesâ.
About 400 anarchists attack the French Institute in Athens (Greece) in
solidarity to the rebels of the French banlieues: the windows of the
building are smashed to pieces and a slogan is left on the walls: âThose
who sow armies reap social war in Paris, Athens and everywhereâ. The
windows of the local French Institute are also destroyed by stones in
Saloniki, and leaflets are left on the spot, which say that âthe
insurgents are rightâ. 6 cars are set on fire in Belgium where other
âisolated incidentsâ occur, including attempts to set fire to schools.
502 cars are set on fire (86 of which in Ile-de-France) and 206 people
are held by police (2,440 in total since the beginning of the riots).
The number of incendiary attacks diminishes considerably as very few
towns see more than five or six fires. The hottest points are in Lille,
Lyon. Strasbourg and Toulouse. In Saint-Quentin (Aisne) a policeman is
seriously injured (second degree burns) following the explosion of an
incendiary device that has been placed on the rear seat of a car. The
car is eventually set on fire. Six molotov bottles are thrown into the
yard of a police station in Maison-Alfort (Val-de-Marne). Two incendiary
devices are hurled at a mosque in Carpentras (Vaucluse). Two shops are
set on fire in Yvelines and a nursery school in Seine-et-Marne. A
helicopter prevents a school in Sevran from being set on fire, and 9
people are taken in. In Amiens (Somme), where the curfew is imposed, a
few electric plants of the EDF are sabotaged and eventually fighting
with police takes place. The fire brigade are welcomed with a hail of
stones in Alsace; the young perpetrators of the attack disappear as soon
as the police arrive. In the afternoon dozens of youths battle with
police in the centre of Lyon (Bellecour square): a few shops are
damaged, and 11 people are arrested. On the spot witnesses declare that
the fighting was clearly provoked by the police. In Ousse-des-Bois (Pau)
a restaurant is attacked, looted and set on fire; as usual, when the
fire brigade arrive they are welcomed with stones. In AngoulĂȘme three
people attempt to set fire to an electric plant of the EDF; police
chasing them are targeted by stones thrown from the roofs of surrounding
houses. In Lyon a scooter set on fire close to a cash machine causes
serious damage to the latter.
Sixth night of disorder in Belgium: 15 cars are set on fire, 8 of which
in Brussels, for a total of 60 cars burnt there since the beginning of
the riots. Police maintain that these are isolated episodes. In the
afternoon and during the night a dozen skips are set on fire in Bologna
(Italy) where slogans are written on the walls: âBologna like Parisâ and
âRevolt is necessity, solidarity to the casseurs from Parisâ. Actions in
solidarity to the French rioters also occur in Istanbul where a demo in
support to the âlegitimate struggleâ of the inhabitants of the French
suburbs is organised by the Federation for fundamental rights outside
the consulate. A demo outside the French consulate is also organised in
Barcelona where, even though no incident occurs, 5 people are arrested
as the demo finishes. They are accused of disturbing public order and
resisting public officials. One of the demonstrators writes on
Indymedia: âAll this just for having expressed their solidarity in a
pacific way. It seems that the state of emergency is also being applied
on the pavements outside French consulatesâ.
âNormalityâ is slowly restored: only 374 cars are set on fire (76 of
which in Ile-de-France) and 212 people are stopped by police. In the
evening Sarkozy, who has reconfirmed that all foreigners (be they
regular or not) involved in the riot are to be deported, goes to the
Champs Elisées: he is welcome by demonstrations of protest. But he
boasts: âThere were also people clapping their handsâ. During the night
about 12,000 policemen are mobilised all over France. In La Courneuve an
officer is injured by a bowl launched from a building. A school is set
on fire and a car is used as a battering ram against a recreation centre
for the elderly in Carpentras (Vaucluse). Massive fires are started in
the suburbs of Toulouse, including one at a Hi-fi shop and its depot. A
ban on people meeting is also imposed in Lyon. A mosque is attacked with
a Molotov bottle that does not explode. Violence also occurs in Toulouse
and Strasburg. No incidents occur in Paris, where 3,000 police officers
have been mobilised. About thirty towns are still under curfew.
Seventh night of violence in Belgium: dozens of cars are set on fire. In
Brussels several streets around the centre are blocked after clashes
with police break out, barricades are erected and skips are set on fire.
Dozens of people are arrested and a number of police cars are damaged.
90 vehicles have been set on fire in Belgium over the last seven days.
Belgian authorities still maintain that these are isolated episodes. In
Rotterdam (Holland) a few cars are also destroyed and set on fire. About
one hundred anarchists demonstrate outside the French embassy in Athens
in solidarity to the French rioters. Again in the Greek capital two car
showrooms (Mercedes and Citroen) are attacked during the night with
Molotovs and twenty cars are burned.
The number of incidents continues to diminish: 271 cars are set on fire,
62 of which in Ile-de-France, and 112 people are stopped by police; 5
officers are injured, two of them following a well-known practice:
explosion of a gas bottle placed in a skip, which eventually catches
fire. A burning vehicle is hurled at a nursery school in Toulouse
causing damage to part of the building. In Lyon about 15 cars are set on
fire, a school is also set fire to and another is attacked with a car as
a battering ram. Incidents also occur in Strasbourg.
The French government decides to extend the state of emergency for
another 3 months. News is spread at 12.39pm about police carrying out 8
operations in different banlieus to identify and arrest the authors of
the violence. As a result 503 people are arrested (107 minors and 486
people of age). Since the beginning of the riots 2,652 people have been
stopped by police, 375 have been summarily tried and 213 have been kept
into custody awaiting trial. Another 622 people are immediately called
to court, 112 of whom must return. 120 foreigners, some with regular
documents some without, risk deportation. Magistrates open new
investigations that lead to further arrests. On a few occasions the
imams contribute to individuating those allegedly responsible for
violence and incidents.
Here are a few examples of sentences inflicted on people. In Toulouse:
5-month sentence for setting a skip on fire; 3-month sentence for
showing oneâs bottom to the police; 2 months for insulting public
officials, that is to say for having been with the one who showed his
bottom. In Lyon: 2 months for sitting in a bar where two minors had
taken refuge following clashes with police; 2 months are inflicted on a
young man who had been sitting on a bench during clashes with police; 3
months for setting rubbish on fire; 2 months for throwing stones; 4
months for creating a false alarm about a bomb in the airport.
215 cars are set on fire (60 of which in Ile-de-France) and 42 people
are stopped by police. An officer is injured. 3 molotov devices are
hurled at a mosque in Saint- Chamond (Loire). A recreation centre is set
on fire in Bruges whereas a few cars are burnt in Paris.
163 cars are set on fire (of which 27 in Ile-de-France) and 50 people
are stopped by police. âan almost normal situationâ comments Sarkozy. A
policeman is injured while attempting to intervene against a group of
youths who are hurling bottles filled with acid at the city hall in
Pont-EvĂȘque (IsĂšre). In Grenoble a school and an educational centre are
set on fire respectively in Grenoble and in Chalons-en-Champagne
(Marne). In Drome a battering ram car is hurled at a police station and
Molotovs are thrown against a church. Garages are set on fire in the
Rodano and Marna areas. An ambush is laid for police and fire brigade in
Point-a-Pitre (isle of La Reunion): after setting fire to a few cars,
behind which barricades have been erected, unknown people fire gunshots
at police, who respond by shooting in turn (no news about wounded).
In total 126 policemen are injured and 2,888 people are stopped by
police, of which 593 are arrested (107 the minors, many among the people
stopped by police and then released are to appear in the court). 8,973
vehicles are set on fire.
98 cars are set on fire and 33 people are stopped by police, mainly
because they were caught carrying incendiary devices or had violated the
curfew. Less than 100 vehicles set on fire all over France is considered
normal (about 90 cars are normally set on fire every night). Premier
Villepin claims that âthere exists a real threat of terrorism against
Franceâ and therefore âsurveillance must be permanentâ. And this is not
another story.
From when the death penalty was abolished in France in 1981 up until
2001 there have been 175 cases of death directly or indirectly provoked
by the State police. On a number of occasions this sort of senseless
death ignited explosions of anger against the abuse police inflict every
day. Such explosions are testimonies of the brutality of a whole social
system...
October 6â9 1990. Thomas Claudio dies after his motorbike is hit by a
police car that is chasing him. Police presents the crime as âan
accidentâ. Violent fighting against police breaks out, shops and
commercial stores are looted and set on fire.
August 31, September 3 1995. Clashes between police and youths explode
in Nanterre (cité de Fontanelle) after a 25-year-old man of North
African origin dies after being accidentally hit by a concrete mixer
while rushing to the place where his brother was being arrested.
May 25â26 1996. Dozens of youths loot commercial stores and set fire to
vehicles in Saint-Jean in ChĂąteau Roux after a youth dies of car
accident caused by a police chase.
November 1996. In Rabaterie (St Pierre des Corps, Tours) 23-year-old
Mohamed Boucetta dies after being shot in the head. As the murderer is
freed thanks to Le Penâs personal intervention, a revolt lasting 15 days
breaks out with clashes and fires of cars, shops and public buildings.
December 12â21 1997. Clashes between police and youths occur in
Dammarie-les-Lys (banlieues of Melun, Seine-et-Marne), where a sixteen
year old boy of North African origin killed by police at a roadblock in
Fontainebleau used to live. Not one policeman is arrested following the
murder nor is any trial held.
December 13â16 1998. As 17-year-old Habib is killed by a cop while
attempting to steal a car, and violent fighting occurs between police
and youths in Mirail area (Toulouse). More than one hundred vehicles are
set on fire. Three years later the cop killer, who had been free since
then, is sentenced to 3 years on bail.
September 12â22 2000. In two areas of Essonne, in Grande Borne in Grigny
and in Tarterets in Corbeil-Essonnes clashes with police occur as a
19-year-old man is killed while attempting to go through a roadblock in
Combs-la-Ville (Seine-et-Marne) after stealing a motorbike.
July 4â6 2001. Incidents break out in Borny in Metz as two local youths
die following a car accident.
October 13â14 2001. Urban violence explodes in Thonon-les-Baines (Haute
Savoie) as four men die âaccidentallyâ while attempting to avoid being
identified by police.
December 26â31 2001. Clashes with police occur in Vitry-de-Seine
(Val-de-Marne) after a young man is killed while attempting to rob a
bank in Neuilly-sur-Marne (Seine-Saint-Denis).
January 3â7 2002. Dozens of cars are set on fire in Mureaux (Yvelines)
as 17-year-old Moussa dies after being shot in the head by police while
trying to avoid a roadblock.
February 25â26 2002. As a man dies of overdose inside the yard of a
police station in Evreux, groups of masked youths fight with police, set
cars on fire and devastate shop windows.
October 18â19 2001. A seventeen year old boy drowns after diving into a
river in an attempt to escape police who surprised him during an
attempted robbery. Dozens of youths armed with baseball batons attack
police in Hautepierre (Strasbourg) and set cars on fire. 25 cars are
burnt, 3 firemen are injured, a school is devastated by an explosive
device and councilâs structures are also set on fire.
March 3 2003. Riots break out as a thief dies while attempting to escape
police.
January 12â14 2004. A 17-year-old boy dies after falling from a stolen
motorbike while being chased by police. Clashes between youths and
policemen break out, dozens of cars are set on fire and a battering ram
car is hurled at a police station.
secretary).
destroyed; a great number of police stations are attacked; a mosque, a
church and a synagogue are also attacked.
man assaulted near his house on November 7.
8 officers are under investigation, accused of committing horrendous
violence during the clashes.
maintains it will offer 50 million euros.
youngest being 10 years old) and 590 are arrested (107 of whom minors).
375 people of age are sentenced without bail. Arrests in the act of
committing crime are very rare as people are generally arrested during
police raids. Acquittals are also very rare as the lawyersâ defendants
are appointed by the court.
the days immediately following the end of the riots: about 4,500 people
in total are involved in investigations, more than a quarter of whom
after the end of the riots.
whom are foreigners.
foreigners.
Not all revolts take you by surprise. Of course there is no Nostradamus
to predict their specific moments of explosion, but the fact that
revolts happen can only surprise those who have no idea about the dismal
world we are compelled to live in. It is not because you know that such
revolts occur frequently in France with the same practices and rituals
(hundreds of cars are set on fire all over France on the last day of the
year) [1]. Revolts are the inevitable product of the current social
system. When a revolt breaks out you canât ask yourself âhow could it
happen?â but rather âhow is it possible that it doesnât happen
everywhere, all the time?â. But each time a revolt breaks out the first
operation that takes place is an attempt to categorise it. One wonders
who the rebels are, where they come from and what they want. The
research soon starts on names, identities, and right categories: they
are foreigners, immigrants... no! They are French... yes, French, but
second generation French, second class French, sons or nephews of
immigrants, outcasts, excluded... Some are disappointed because the
theory of Islamic fundamentalism doesnât work: obviously these people
are not the ones who go to the mosque (in fact appeals made by imams
have proved useless). Rightwing papers (for example Le Figaro) try to
create improbable amalgams for public stigmatisation, by chance, they
write about Palestinian-style Intifada, Islamic fundamentalism,
terrorism, etc. These falsifications, however, donât seem to work as
every struggle is capable of showing itself in its own irreducible
peculiarity.
Sociological categories are mobilised to define, identify and
circumscribe, in short, to keep the revolt within certain conceptual
limits. Once an identity is given to the rioters â the most used is that
of social outcasts, a new name for the underclass â the range of
theories for intervention can put forward: from police and emergency
measures to social and welfare-orientated actions. They are the two
faces of the security syndrome: public security and social security, in
other words the punch and the lending hand. In short, the stick and the
carrot. All this shows clearly the fact that if subversion and revolt
are direct consequences of the system of dominion, their abolition can
only happen through the abolition of dominion, that is to say through
subversion.
However to identify the âscumâ, maybe giving it a more politically
correct definition, implies a number of things. To identify a phenomenon
with convenient categories means first of all to circumscribe it, and to
circumscribe it means to stem it. On the one hand the limits are erected
to present the revolt and its causes as incidental disorders brought
about by a system that in spite of everything (misery, war, pollution,
total commodification and progressive devastation of the whole world and
the life of each and every one) must be preserved, maybe by introducing
some providential intervention along with the announcement of the state
of emergency. But, as it is well known, this exception is now the rule,
which also involves exclusion, impoverishment, social alienation, that
this to say the generalised dispossession of life.
It is not a question of an incidental phenomenon, be it local or global.
Poverty, precariousness of life in the western society, urban structures
in the metropoli all over the world (from Los Angeles to BogotĂĄ, from
Alger to Paris), attempts at closing the borders of fortress Europe are
only a few examples of this structural fracture. The game of the stick
and the carrot, alongside police and judicial repression with the
announcement of social action in favour of the suburbs, might take in
some people, but certainly not those who experience social emargination
on their skin, or those who know that new explosions are ready to break
out just around any corner, and, most importantly, those who feel an
irrepressible potential for revolt pulsating inside them. And it is
exactly the magnetic force of rebellion that is the main target of the
process of identification.
In fact, the process of identification, besides presenting the
structural phenomenon of the present social order as if it were
incidental, aims at separating and dividing the outcasts from all the
others â at the same time separating these others from themselves and
their active potential. In other words, outcasts have an atavistic right
to revolt as anger, desperation and a feeling of injustice belong
expressly to them. But you, who are privileged in spite of everything
and who enjoy part of the welfare guaranteed by the society, what do you
want? In the ghettos in towns, the banlieues of Paris and the suburbs of
the world, life is uprooted, empty, encircled in the space of social,
material and existential alienation, and full of desperation and
metaphysical boredom. But not your life! Your life is rich and
enjoyable, full of possibilities and perspectives, wellbeing and
passion. Your life? Our life? Excuse me, what are we talking about?
As a matter of fact the line of oppression, and with it the rift of
rebellion, concerns everybody. The binary logic of opposition interprets
reality so grossly that it cannot understand the present development of
the revolts underway and the explosions that are yet to come. To
separate the youths of the suburbs from all the others, then distinguish
the violent and irreducible ones who cannot be tamed from those who must
be protected from their contamination, means to separate any potential
for rebellion from whatever might make it explode. This is the logic
behind all emergency interventions. Moreover, to accept this ideological
division means a weakening of any practical perspective. Like all
revolts, the French one also speaks to everybody. Its action inevitably
affects our potential movements. After all, it is not so important to
know who they are, but rather who we are and what we can do. As a
permanent state of exception exists whether it is officially proclaimed
or not, the first practical lesson to be learned concerns the
realization of an effective state of exception through the explosion of
destructive actions, their fast spreading and the refusal of all
delegation.
Some complain about the alleged lack of direction or revolutionary class
awareness, and so they take a distance because they cannot see any
political perspectives or results; then they talk about barbaric
phenomena without any project, which would be the result of a âpassive
putrefaction of the oldest strata of the old societyâ. Some also propose
themselves as conscious organizers of revolts (those to come, of
course). But instead of giving lessons on how to behave and act there is
a lot to be learned from the French riots. There is a tactical and
practical awareness in the rebellion of the âscumâ that is notoriously
unknown among the most refined revolutionary consciences, often too
conscious to be practical. If the French rioters did not make a step
towards revolution (yes, but who is a revolutionary today?), at least in
their own way they put their active possibilities to the test. Without
waiting for a guide to teach what to do, on the contrary they
effectively realized their way of how to do; they made their anger
explode in an impressive series of fires without delegating it to
anyone. The explosion of a vital force that has been repressed for too
long is an angry deflagration that ignores any form of delegation and
cannot ever repent.
Anger is the expression of strength that has been repressed for too
long, offended and abused, the anger of those who suddenly understand
that they are âtoo young to go rottenâ. Its primary manifestation opens
up a horizon characterised by universal destruction. As you are in a
blind rage you look around you searching for something to destroy, to
hurl at a wall or to break with your own hands; the body is felt to be a
damaging instrument. Anything can be destroyed! Anger, therefore,
manifests itself as a nihilist horizon. As they can desire nothing for
themselves, these second-class lives decide to desire that this nothing
be realized (as nothing).
But nihilism, this disturbing guest, presents itself in different forms.
The less evident is the most widespread, but it is also the most
popular: it is the subtle nihilism of the authoritarian management of
the existent that pervades everything. It annihilates life and takes
away its strength in order to lead it to the preformed structures of
order and discipline, production and consumerism, resignation and
cynicism. The current social system is nihilist and the citizens who
submit to it are also unconsciously nihilist as they accept various
forms of voluntary slavery and drag their lives on without passion every
day. As they have absorbed the lesson of economy and the imaginary of
the value of consumables, their life is based on calculations of costs
and benefits, on the separation between means and ends and on
resignation to the current misery in the illusory hope that it will be
better tomorrow. The nihilist operation of dominion articulates itself
in two complementary movements: on the one hand it despoils, alienates
and robs, on the other it dresses up, creates illusions and blinds
people. But the emptiness upon which this twofold operation stands and
finds its substance becomes evident when the second movement (the false
satisfaction of illusions) does not work any more: when school, work and
the institutions of the spectacular civilized society no longer grip
existences that, as a consequence, remain in the proclaimed metastasis
of their alienation.
When such metastasis shows itself blindingly, when it inflicts inhuman
senseless death, it can explode in angry nihilism : as they perceive the
nullity that surrounds them and erodes their life, nameless individuals
decide to give it back to its nothing. Angry nihilism wants exactly
nothing and realizes perfectly how everything surrounding it has only to
be swallowed up in its vacuity. The explosion of angry nihilism, which
frees and explodes bad passions, can also be seen as pure fun generated
by a nausea for the existent; but that is exactly how it turns into
destructive euphoria.
Following the era of cynicism, opportunism and fear, in the present
generalised proletarianisation of the life of each and every one, what
struggles are possible? We are sorry to disappoint the indefatigable
officers of human progress, but these struggles also involve the total
destruction of what surrounds us. Once upon a time someone said:
âNihilists...make just one more effort to be revolutionariesâ: itâs a
short step from wanting nothing to wanting everything. But we also say:
âRevolutionaries...make just one more effort to be nihilistsâ â it takes
a bit of courage to be up to oneâs rage.
But where will all this take us? Did not you realise? It will take us
nowhere... And anyway, where do you think you are going, all of you?
The destructive euphoria of angry nihilism finds its main form of
expression in the element that most represents anger: fire. Molotovs and
incendiary devices are like the warriorsâ arrows, with which symbols and
structures of power and of the system are targeted: police stations,
town halls, courts, banks, shops, commercial centres, schools and cars.
Some of these targets touch many peopleâs civil conscience deeply. Why
are schools set on fire, given that they could bring about the
emancipation and integration of the socially alienated? Is it not true
that education for everyone was an important conquest for humanity and
its progress? Maybe; but if it is also true, and how you could deny it,
that schools look more and more like prisons (both prisons and schools
being part of the generalized prison-society), we should silence our
conscience and look at a phenomenon that is beautiful like a school in
flames. After all, the school system is based on a removal of meaning â
in other words, schools are instruments for life or rather for work,
which in turn is an instrument for life â and therefore schools have no
meaning in themselves as they constantly refer to a meaning that is yet
to come. In this way, as the future is denied and consists in dragging
on between boredom and desperation, schools are losing their false
pedagogic value. When instruments are in no way useful they become
fetishes, and fetishes are only worth burning, possibly during fights
with kids screaming âtonight is my futureâ.
Civil conscience also has something to say about cars: why to set fire
to the neighboursâ cars if the latter share the same state of emergency
as the rioters? First of all, most of the burned cars belonged directly
or indirectly to institutions, secondly the âscumâ does not come from
nowhere, but lives in a specific territory that does not represent any
homogeneous human reality. On the one hand the rioters of the banlieues
know they can count on the support and active solidarity of many
inhabitants of the area (without such solidarity twenty nights of riots
in a row would not have been possible), on the other they also know very
well whom the cars set to fire belong to, and certainly the latter are
not those of the riotersâ direct or indirect accomplices. In the
banlieus, like everywhere else, there stand zealous supporters of orders
and dialogue, informers and profiteers, collaborators and various kinds
of vile characters, as well as those who do not share in practice the
unequivocal and clear position of the rioters. The youths of the
banlieues do not tolerate any form of neutrality, dialogue or compromise
with the institutions [which is to represent a major problem during the
anti-CPE movement in March and April 2006, especially in Paris].
In other words, neighbours are not always friends or accomplices.
Moreover revolts are not carried out at a symbolic level but at the
concrete one of the struggle and the field of battle. Cars are set on
fire not only because it is obviously a pleasure to see fires burning
but also and mainly following a strategic and territorial view, that is
to say by being in the territory through the struggle. It is only in the
perspective of real conflict (and not in its representation or
sociological translation) that the value of this practice can be
understood. Setting fire to cars is quite an effective means of building
barricades rapidly and it is also a useful way to draw police to a
specified area, where they can be hit by stones and Molotovs and from
where rioters can escape easily, only to find each other elsewhere and
start the game again (a dynamic that was largely employed in the
sabotage of public lighting power plants which opened the nights of
rage).
The fact that these considerations have not been taken into account by
many is quite astonishing. The most important point to be considered,
however, is the importance of the territory as battlefield for all of
todayâs conflicts and those to come. In a society based on the
circulation of money, information, people and goods, management of the
territory is one of the most important operations carried out by power.
For example, it is the way traffic circulation is set out that is slowly
killing us with its poison, especially in metropolitan areas where urban
spaces are reduced to alienating transit and service zones. It is an
asymmetric, dehumanising and murderous reality that is killing life,
where territories are being made more and more aseptic and impenetrable
to those who, be it for needs related to the system or of out of
individual choice, cannot be reduced to merchandise (and are therefore
marginalized, locked up or deported).
At the same time, territory and traffic have become vital strategic
factors in current and future struggles, with the spreading of practices
such as road blocks and sabotage, the invention of new ways of living in
the territory and the destruction of everything that is to all effects
uninhabitable. Of course we do not know if the destroyers of cars are
aware of that. We do not know if we are overestimating their rage. What
is certain is that behind their destructive negative attitude there
stands a positive attitude relating to their way of living and making
human relations, which besides continuously reinventing language and
gestures, brings about complicity and solidarity during the riots. It is
a positive attitude that cannot be reduced to the representation set out
by the forces of the enemy field, for whom, consequently, they are
nothing but vandals, dumbness and senseless gesticulation. We are not
elaborating a tedious neo-realist embellished image of the underclass.
What we are trying to do is, once again, ask ourselves if it is possible
to live in spaces and territory in a different way so as to encounter
new accomplices and occasions of struggle to be exploded with due joy
and radicality.
March 2006
âPhilippe de Villiers has asked the premier Dominique de Villepin to
raise the level of the Stateâs response to what seems to be a real
ethnic civil warâ.
(Reuter, October 29 2005)
âSincere and open civil war is better than a rotten peaceâ.
M. Bakunin
The current generalised war scenario, having gone beyond the borders
between exterior and interior, having in its own way taken the war home,
is precisely that of a civil war in act.
Civil war, therefore, is not a value to be exhorted, nor is it a myth to
serve as encouragement.. On the contrary, it is an obvious fact, a
starting point. It is something that is normally silenced (in the name
of a false unity of purpose, a slogan used as an injunction to social
order) or, when it openly explodes, it is mystified as an ethnic-racial
matter (âclash between civilizationsâ, as it has recently been
labelled).. But this civil war is not an internal fight within a
homogeneous social context, nor is it a conflict between different
identities; on the contrary it is the actual proof of the fictitious
character of any unity: a fiction behind which the constant and
unilateral offensive of capital against all the exploited, alienated and
excluded (in other words against all the damned of the Earth) tries to
hide itself. When rebellion and revolt break out, we cheer with joy the
surpassing not only of all fictitious unities but also that of the
unitalerality of attack.
Those upon whom power inflicts attacks and abuse every day and can
attempt to upturn the relations of strength at any moment and with any
means necessary, do not belong to any ethnic category. It is beyond
doubt that certain peoples are most oppressed by dominion, excluded from
mythical western wellbeing and confined in the innumerable ghettos of
the planet; but, insofar as dominion affects everyone and everyoneâs
life, this is only a difference in the intensity of the generalized
nature of oppression. To each his own. The misery of exploitation and
the precarity of life are not peculiar phenomena that only affect those
who do not take an active part in the economic cycle and political
representation. On the contrary it is a universal situation that affects
everybody: submission to economic and political dictatorship.
Consequently, every revolt unleashes a universal potential of rebellion
that only the transversality of contagion will be able to realise, so
that this civil war becomes a social war against capital.
Neutrality is impossible in a context of civil war. If you claim to be
neutral you are choosing one side while giving the impression you are
not, you are collaborating under the mask of ânot having any other
choiceâ. But neutrality is simply the most common self-justification in
the grey zone and it is also the mother of every form of voluntary
slavery. In a context of civil war any form of neutrality is potentially
hostile to rioters.
A nihilist fire does not save its arsonists. It is their areas that
burn, their neighbours and parentsâ cars; they loot their brothers and
sistersâ nurseries and schools. They make a clean sweep of anything that
makes life better and easier, that allows them to amuse themselves,
communicate or find a job.
Philosopher A. Glucksman, Le monde, November 21 2005.
The town planners always get it wrong: they consider cars (and their
sub-products such as scooters) essentially as means of transport. It is
a materialisation of an idea of happiness, which developed capitalism is
trying to expand to the whole of society. Cars as the pinnacle of the
wellbeing of alienated life, and inseparably as essential products of
the capitalist market, are at the centre of the same global propaganda.
G. Debord.
Power does not reside in any Winter Palace that can be attacked by
revolutionaries, nor does it articulate throughout the various centres
of production that workers can occupy. It does not only include
political, police and judicial operations but is also a capillary system
of relations that, as they expand over the whole of society, affect
individual and collective deeds. Basically power produces and ratifies
forms of life that, in their ways of feeding themselves, consuming,
moving, communicating and thinking, are easily adapted to the
requirements of dominion. Power seems to be invincible everywhere, but
for the same reason it can also be hit anywhere (obviously with
different levels of strategic attack). This is quite a banal question
that could be studied at the CollĂšge de France not long ago. But if all
that is true, it is also clear that any complaints about the damage
caused by rioters towards third persons is absolutely ridiculous. Be it
owners of cars set on fire by the French autoclasts, disturbed customers
of a sabotaged bank or commuters disturbed by a roadblock, any claim to
be a third party is always equivalent to that of being neutral: an
hypothesis to be rejected.
Of course, one could object that destroying a bank, a prison or a court
is quite different to setting fire to a car in the suburbs. True, but
only up to a point. To understand this, one could carry out the
following hypothetical experiment. In order to understand, try this
experiment. Imagine that a certain practise occurs universally; in other
words imagine that the latter is imitated by everybody everywhere: for
example, that all banks are attacked and destroyed. Well, that would be
a turmoil not all that dissimilar to revolution. Now repeat the
experiment with cars: imagine that all cars are set on fire. Would the
consequences of such an event be revolutionary in the same way? Would it
mean a radical upheaval of the entire social system? An hypothesis not
to be rejected.
âI want to say to all kids living in difficult areas that no matter
where they come from, they all are children of the Republicâ.
J. Chirac, November 14 2005.
âA republic is a form of government that puts itself over the people,
leads it, educates it and does whatever it wants with it. It has armies
and obliges reluctant people to submit to the law And, like all
governments, it does not find obstacles in its running but in the
resistance of the governed and in the fear of a possible insurrectionâ.
E. Malatesta
âChildren of the Republicâ: so Chirac addresses the inhabitants of the
banlieues in order to pacify them (in his attempt to counterbalance
Sarkozyâs offensive declarations). Those who know how corrupt republican
institutions are, like prostitutes who have gone rotten with gold, would
have good reason to feel offended. Just as the State calls itself
Homeland when it gets ready to kill, so it calls its subjects âcitizensâ
in order to make them its accomplices and bring back legal servitude.
The principle of citizenship, however, was already denounced long ago as
the ideological proclamation of a fictitious equality that covers social
hierarchy: they said that citizenship is nothing but a new social
hierarchy of a bourgeois kind. For a long time now, moreover, in its
retreat the principle of citizenship has shown the bare life that it
claimed it was concealing. That was the terrible revelation of the two
world wars of the twentieth century: behind the citizen there is not
only the bourgeois form of life but also, deeper down, bare life which,
once the outer coating is removed, loses any value, right or dignity.
Today it is worse, the universalization of the citizen has resulted in
the ordinary man whose behaviour and feelings are quite consistent with
dominant models. A grey, sad conformity based on anaesthesia and
asthenia, held together by fear. The three ingredients of the
contemporary citizen are an incapacity to disdain, an impossibility to
act effectively and an affectation of weakness, all strengthened by the
horrendous mix of technology and spectacle that lavishes the surrogates
required to avoid the ever present eventuality of psychic collapse
before oneself, oneâs resignation and isolation from the world. In order
to claim to lead a normal serene life in the present situation, first
you must have lost the ability to see and listen (anaesthesia); then,
when events get too much and you cannot ignore them, you lose the
creative ability to react (asthenia): hence the general resignation that
does not fall into depression because it is supported by a generalized
politic of fear (not only of others but also and mainly towards oneâs
own present and future) and by the innumerable technocratic modes of
divertissement.
Different forms of life, however, grow up and spread outside
citizenship. Those who have kept the ability to be indignant about this
world and to nourish strength and imagination to invent forms of
reaction and attack against its inhuman banality â as well developing
the courage necessary to put them into action â will on principle be
without citizenship in this world. They do not have citizenship but they
do have life, they have a vitality that cannot be reduced to any form of
survival. In part undesired products of this society that continuously
return like uncomfortable dregs to disturb its sleep, in part rational
and passionate choices of rebellion, these clandestine and barbaric
forms of life will not stop obstructing, attacking and burning until the
last fragment of this injustice is eliminated. No, Monsieur le
President, the French rebels are not children of your Republic, which
bleeds blood; they are children of the same anger that will await you at
every corner of the world to present you with the bill.
âIt is a security measure that has been taken to equip police with any
means they need to restore peace definitivelyâ
J. Chirac
âModern totalitarianism can be described as the setting up of a legal
civil war through the state of exception. This allows not only the
physical elimination of political adversaries but also that of entire
categories of citizens who for whatever reason cannot be integrated into
the political system. The intentional creation of a permanent state of
emergency (even if it is not declared such) has since become an
essential practice adopted by contemporary States, including the
so-called democratic ones.
G. Agamben
The state of exception is the rule: it is hard to find a more common
expression in present theoretical-critical discussions. It is just as
hard though to find critical and practical analyses that are able to
support such a statement. The very idea is in the first place ambiguous,
as it seems to suggest that, historically or logically, behind the state
of exception there is or could be some kind of virgin power capable of
functioning properly, without abuse, violence and injustice; as a matter
of fact, on the contrary, it is power as such that is abuse, violence,
coercion and immorality, clear discrimination and arbitrary
justification of all forms of oppression. After clarifying that, it is
the force of events that brings us to consider further what there is
behind the declaration of the state of emergency.
Officially, the state of emergency is the suspension of the law (and
therefore of all the rights and freedom that the latter is supposed to
guarantee) in order to defend the law itself. This operation, which is
obviously paradoxical, is justified by any situation of danger
whatsoever. The fact that it has become the rule means that the state of
exception is constantly being applied, regardless of its official
proclamation: from the politics on immigration (which not only involve
severe limitations of peopleâs right of movement but is also based on
the concentration camp style system of detention centres) to the
periodic creation of red zones (where citizensâ freedom is actually
suspended), the strengthening of measures of control (which are invading
every individualâs life in spite of the democratic defence of privacy)
to the abuses committed by police every day (âabusesâ being an
euphemism), the list of normal exceptional measures could go on for
pages and pages. It is obvious that the young people of the banlieues
are well aware of this normality as they not only live in a situation of
territorial segregation but also and mainly experience police repression
on a daily basis, with its repertoire of abuse, humiliation and violence
that accompanies searches and arrests. The declaration of the state of
emergency in France would not be regarded as a scandal were it not for
its symbolic value: the restoration of a 1955 law introduced during the
war in Algeria, unveils the idea of a colonialist management of internal
politics; in other words, a sort of confirmation by the government that
a civil war is in course.
The normality of the state of exception, therefore, inevitably reveals
the violence that the State and rights are based on: violence used to
keep the State safe (mainly in the form of the government monopoly of
legal violence: police, courts and prisons) and violence employed to
expand the State (wars, international embargoes, maximum security
prisons, etc.). But this normality also shows how power is constantly
aware of some immediate danger, the spreading of a potential for revolt
that would be quite hard to defeat and suppress if it were to explode
effectively. Hence the adoption of innumerable preventive measures,
including incessant terror propaganda, a constantly renovated crisis and
the spreading of insecurity, which transforms the fears of a drifting
power into a common perception of constant danger.
The state of exception, however, has another potential that is rarely
underlined by theoretical critique. Benjamin talked about an end of the
continuum of history: a revolutionary event coinciding with the
interruption of normality, and which, declaring that it is impossible to
carry on this way, puts its destructive capacity into action. So donât
ask for political programmes, perspectives or outcomes of the revolt.
That would be a pitiful return to the usual âwhat can I do?â, a question
that we hoped was finally lost among the junk of past history. More
simply, just ask yourself how can I act: anything else would simply be a
placebo..
âI want to be integrated for what I amâ
Twenty-six-year-old girl of Algerian origin
âWatch out Worker! Do not mark your brothers, the ones that they call
thieves, murderers, prostitutes, revolutionaries, prisoners with the
stain of infamy. Do not curse them, do not sling mud at them, Save them
from the fatal blow. Donât you see that the soldier approves of you, the
judge calls you to testify, the usurer smiles at you, the priest cheers
you on, and the cop excites you?â
E. Coerderoy
It is not easy to be wrong about the cause of the riots in the French
banlieues: the fact that they depend on social alienation is so obvious
that cannot be denied. But very few are inclined to understand the
reasons for this situation. Hence the request for social intervention
aimed at integration. In this way an inevitable political lie soon
follows etiological lucidity. Those who ask for social intervention in
good faith are simply under the illusion that society can be changed,
whereas it is a question of changing societies; at least those who are
not in good faith are paradoxically more sincere: they well know what
social control is implied in such interventions.
Integration would mean first of all getting involved in work; but as
work is a product of capital and therefore synonymous with submission
and exploitation, it is more and more divided between ultra-specialised
technocracy and progressively marginalising demeaning tasks. These are
the two faces of flexibility: the rampant entrepreneur and the suffering
proletarian. No need to say which of the two is the destiny of the
banlieue youths, as is proved by the fact that the age for
apprenticeship has been lowered to 14 (following a proposal by prime
minister De Villepin on November 9, in sharp contrast with the age of
compulsory education that has been fixed at 16 since 1959) and by the
law on first employment (CPE), which establishes that workers can easily
be sacked during the first two years of employment.
After all, few realize that it is capital (and therefore work) that
created the situation that the former is now required to sort out:
during its imperialist expansion first it created the conditions of
hardship that forced millions of people to emigrate, then it knew how to
import and exploit cheap labour in the industrial areas (creating the
big council estates after the second world war, where at the time there
were networks of worker solidarity); finally, in the second half of the
Seventies, following the so called industrial reorganization, that is to
say investment in places where labour was cheaper, it has abandoned the
population of the suburbs to their current condition of lives in excess,
creating the social conditions favourable for the explosion of angry
nihilism. Will capital be asked to solve the problems that it itself
creates yet again? Will we see again the most vile acrobatic dialectics
between capital and work?
As concerns education, the other form of integration, it is soon said:
its task is to prepare for work; if it did not have such task, it would
be a useless exercise at the best and a device of special surveillance
at the worst, as it is proved by the ZEP (Priority Education Areas)
implemented in 1981 and involving 20% of the schoolchildren all over the
country today. In short, any request for integration is no more than the
latest attempt to keep the social corpse alive.
The contradictions implied in the logic of integration also concern the
rioters, at least in part, or those who claim the right to speak on
their behalf. Once revolt has been welcomed with joy, it is necessary to
understand whether the latter broke out as a result of the will to
destroy the system (as happened during the revolt of Watts, according to
a situationist analysis) or just its inequalities, whose structural
character has not been grasped. A remarkable element, however, makes the
first hypothesis quite plausible: the fact that the youths of the
banlieues could easily acquire goods through other means, i.e. networks
of trafficking and delinquency. One of the tasks of theoretical
critique, however, is precisely to demonstrate that a generalized
âintegrationâ is impossible and so is any unrealistic request for
political perspectives opened by the riot. In a word, oppose the
necessary disintegration of the current system of dominion to the litany
of social integration. And it is well known, the creation of the new can
only come from such disintegration.
April 2006
teleology.org/traits/patates aigres-douces/Emuete and was first
published in 1987 in Dal 9 gennaio 1978 al 4 novembre 1979. The author
is a member of the âBibliothĂšque des Emuetesâ.
Any attempt to overturn the world by the modern poor has begun with
riots: 1789, 1848, 1871, 1917, 1968, and 1978 in Iran and Nicaragua. But
not all riots lead to revolution, i.e. a generalized conflict involving
everybody, nor do they lead to insurrection, i.e. to the public
occupation of at least one area of the town by its inhabitants against
the State that administrates it, after they have rejected or defeated
the armed forces and gained the support of inhabitants who had been
passive until that moment. If on the one hand there are riots that do
not lead to revolution or insurrection, on the other all revolutions and
insurrections begin with riots. In fact a riot is the beginning of
something and, as there is no science that can predict its explosion and
even less its consequences, every riot must be considered as the
possible beginning of the end of the world.
A riot is the beginning of a dialogue. This explosion, which could
possibly spark off others, is the first, negative, sound of the word
free, the first requirement before any qualitative change. Today,
without revolt, no public discussion is possible; there is only the
monotonous monologue of those who govern the existent. As carelessly
proved by the French word (Ă©muete), riots concern emotion in the first
place. It is not reasoned emotion insinuated in some analysis, on the
contrary it is explosive, irrational emotion that excludes all
reasoning. Since the era of positivism, reason has been considered
superior to emotion. But the former has faded into the spirit and
objectivity for a long time now. It is so alienated and falsified that
it claims it can stir up positive emotions (cinema, music, commercial
advertising, and dominant news are practically no more than laborious
factories of artificial feelings); but, instead of giving the truth of
emotion to reason, they extend to the latter the falsification and
objectivity that destroy all reasoning. The organized form of reason is
the State. Since the world has become statified the party of reason
wants to make the present eternal, wanting to get rid of history and
excommunicating its driving force: negativity.
Modern riots are the ignition of the negative. This emotion, having
become the ghetto of authenticity, is against reason, which has become
the palace of falsification. It is an historical upturning: now emotion,
the very absence of conscience and hooliganism par excellence, creates
thought, rebelling against reason, reified thought and eternal
domestication of the spirit. Revolt is the evergreen outbreak of the old
quarrel between the intransigence of subjectivity and conservatism of
objectivity.
Collective emotion is revolt whereas collective reason is the State.
Today all riots are against the State and all States are against riots.
As the State and its ideologies are being hit by the storms of spirit
the modern poorâs revolts are spreading. Such a remarkable
multiplication of radical negation, instead of reflecting the growing
distance between the immobile organization of the present society and
the movement of the humans that form it, is systematically minimised.
First of all, the frequency of revolts comes to be presented to the
enemy as if they were inevitable accidents that have no historical
importance as they have always existed and will continue to do so.
Secondly, it is the police, that is to say the State, that hold the
monopoly of information about riots: whenever possible the latter is
concealed, and when this is not possible their proportions are
intentionally declared to be smaller than they are. In general there are
three figures as regards demos against the government: those provided by
the organizers, which are always in excess; those provided by the
police, which are always smaller; and those provided by the media which,
according to the general mood, stand between the two false extremes. As
regards riots, which do not have organisers, there is only the figure
provided by police whereas the media keep silent or follow the policeâs
directives. The same concerns the assessment of damage, dead and
wounded, arrests, strength and length of the clashes. Finally, when it
comes to explaining the reasons for the revolt, the servants of the
State and journalists devaluate it, putting forward trivial political or
economic pretexts and disregarding the serious question of the mood of
the moment. They finally draw sociological banalities or scream about
plots of opposing servants. These are vile excuses, which they do not
say much about, however, because the more they talk about the riot the
more they show they never took part in it and know nothing about it. On
the other hand, these ignorant people think that street clashes increase
according to their visibility on TV.
The vast majority of the modern poor have an even more vague idea about
riots. First of all they adapt their opinion to that offered by the
media: they think that riots are despicable excesses. Dialogue and
wisdom have failed. How was it possible to reach or rather to be dragged
to such a point? For every answer to this pseudo-question a
pseudo-feeling is always ready: desolation. If riots transform the
rioterâs emotions into awareness, they transform the spectatorâs reason
into pseudo-emotion. The latter is therefore unable to communicate with
the rioters; even if he condemns them, he also thinks they have no
responsibilities. As the spectator is absent from the riot and from
history, he disconsolately regrets the lack of adequate measures or
reforms, as if riots were errors in management: nothing could be more
stupid.
If State servants minimize riots, the poor mystify them. In fact they
mystify their own revolt â which is considered impossible (as Rugeâs
famous letter to Marx stated in 1843) â and consequently any other too.
The modern poor take part in riots in very small proportions. Nearly all
revolts come from demonstrations. Demonstrators are a minority of the
modern poor and it is a minority of demonstrators that take part in
riots. Finally, it is a minority of rebels that really fight. So almost
all the poor of the town where riots occur learn about the latter
through the enemyâs sources, whose clumsy and embarrassing explanations
of such a terrible and close event tend, even if unintentionally, to
widen its content through representation.
That is the reason why recuperators attribute trivial reasons to riots.
They systematically reduce the revolt to the demo that it started from.
They make this methodological mistake because they left the demo before
the revolt even broke out, the latter acquiring its very essence
precisely as soon as they disappear from the scene. The discussions and
even the concessions of the recuperators are almost always related to
the pretext of the demo, which is not that of the revolt and even less
its main reason.
The modern poor that were absent the day the riots broke out are
therefore divided between the recuperatorsâ reasonable arguments and an
epic vision of their own revolt, projected on to the event that they
have missed yet again. They have a sensation: it must be emotion that
nobody risks feeling after a glass of beer, a party that could never be
experienced at a disco. Even if joy and sadness, anger and friendship,
credulity and desire are there to the bitter end, to prison or death,
even if passion and the will are constantly upturned by the vertiginous
alternation of lucidity and thrills, of bravery and fear to the point of
rashness and panic, the only really epic thing is the incredible
distance that a long and quiet movement of things digs between everyday
life and history, between survival and life. The spectator, who is
constantly absent from life, forgets that the rioters put their lives at
stake. As he thoughtfully stares at his slippers, he tends to be
reasonable according to the enemyâs explanations and to the detriment of
his confused dreams, which once again flow out towards more realistic
and comfortable occasions.
This abdication sharply distinguishes the modern poor from the angry
indigent. Its consequence is the discrediting of the revolt, along the
lines of the propaganda of the enemy, even the most absurd. After every
revolt, one of the two factions of servants attributes it to a
conspiracy led, if not by the other faction, by the scapegoat preferred
by its ideologues. And facing them, separated by a mountain of
abstractions there stands a crowd of half-slave, half-lucid,
half-apathetic people: the huge movement of thought they have produced
isolates and immobilizes them, preventing them from thinking and acting
all together. We have sensations, of course, but they are imitated and
have been suggested, they are contradictory and without issue, so we
will not rebel; or they are produced by intimate and sudden lacerations,
and can bring about everything, even including their being repressed by
police, and cannot be recuperated as they are spontaneous.
Spontaneity is the main feature of modern revolts. All the poor, be they
dressed up or in rags, submit equally: no one of them is able to lead
othersâ emotions. Conspiracy is based on secrets and lies, one of the
big contradictions of the worker parties at the time when they wanted to
conquer the world; but nowadays, between rival factions of slaves, it
exists more in ghosts and anathemas than in fact.
Sometimes the enemy distinguishes martyrs and leaders in a revolt; but
always afterwards. While police or the army are attacking a barricade,
the most beautiful speech or the most cunning conspiracy cannot convince
someone to resist or escape. The martyrs of a revolt are the dead alone
and the leaders are simply the bravest who have no authority other than
example. And if sometimes slanderers go in search of professionals of
insurrection they will find them at home: the only ones that are paid to
go to the scene of riots are police and journalists. If you are for
pleasure you will find people enjoying themselves [si dilettano] and, if
this happens more than once, you will be with true amateurs
[dilettanti]..
[1] Following a well-established habit that is unique in Europe, on New
Yearâs Eve 2005 425 vehicles are set to fire all over France, 330 in
2004, 324 in 2003 and 379 in 2002. Clichy-sous-Bois, Aulnay and La
Courneuve are the towns most involved in this phenomenon. Furthermore on
New Yearâs Eve 2004 a blackout in a locality in Sevran allows rioters to
set an ambush for police, who are targeted by stones hurled from the
roofs of the surrounding buildings. We can say that the New Year is a
real celebration in France.