Speaker 1: It's been four months since French President Emmanuel Macron effectively
Speaker 1: declared war on French society euphemistically called pension reforms. Macron's
Speaker 1: proposal would increase the retirement age from sixty two to
Speaker 1: sixty four, effectively robbing the working class of two years
Speaker 1: of their lives. In January, French unions filled the streets
Speaker 1: of Paris with trash. Now French workers build brick and
Speaker 1: mortar barricades on highways and set branches on fire on
Speaker 1: train tracks. Welcome to it could happen here. The escalation
Speaker 1: from protest to uprising is in part a product of
Speaker 1: how Macron forced the retirement age increase through a national
Speaker 1: assembly he no longer controls without the ability to win
Speaker 1: a vote. Macron's Prime Minister, Elizabeth Bourne, suddenly invoked Article
Speaker 1: forty nine of the French Constitution, which allows the ruling
Speaker 1: government to force there's a bill into law without a vote.
Speaker 1: Mccron argues that because circumventing parliament to force legislation through
Speaker 1: is legal, the move is democratic. Millions across France disagree.
Speaker 1: We spoke to two French protesters, Mael, a student in Leone,
Speaker 1: and a Gat, a union railway worker at a state
Speaker 1: owned rail company about the movement. The two met through
Speaker 1: a struggle committee designed to bring people from different backgrounds
Speaker 1: and movements together to fight against mccron's reforms and four,
Speaker 1: as Mael put it, victories for our class. A gat
Speaker 1: had this to say about Macron's anti democratic sleight of hand.
Speaker 2: What they are using right now is a rhetorical trap
Speaker 2: which consists of confusing democracy and a constitutionalism. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I'm using the right word, but for instance,
Speaker 2: you know that they maybe you know that to impose
Speaker 2: this reform, they have been using an article which is
Speaker 2: Article forty nine point three of our constitution, and they
Speaker 2: say that, well, this article is in the constitution, we
Speaker 2: are in a democracy, and therefore this article is democratic,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely false. It's a fallacious reasoning. It is
Speaker 2: not true. It's the forty nine point three is an
Speaker 2: anti constitution. It is an anti democratic article of the constitution.
Speaker 2: And this is what they have been trying to do lately,
Speaker 2: to say to make us believe that everything that's been
Speaker 2: happening is absolutely normal and implies with the democratic standards
Speaker 2: of France, which is not true. Also, what they are
Speaker 2: trying to do to disqualify any opposition from the left
Speaker 2: wing is to say that the left wing party is
Speaker 2: actually an extreme left wing party, which it is not.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of they are trying to induce the
Speaker 2: kind of history in all this and to radicalize what
Speaker 2: is not. What we are asking for is simply for
Speaker 2: them to to listen to what we, for once can
Speaker 2: call the people. Generally, when you have a protest, it's
Speaker 2: only a part of the population that disagrees with the
Speaker 2: policy of the government. But this time, honestly, uh, there
Speaker 2: are seven seven people out of ten who are who
Speaker 2: disagree with this and uh, nine workers out of ten
Speaker 2: who disagree with this reform. Honestly, I think we can
Speaker 2: call our selves the people. And in a democracy, well,
Speaker 2: what you do is listen to the people, not that
Speaker 2: representatives and not the members of the government, but the
Speaker 2: people in the fucking streets. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And and because they do not want to do that,
Speaker 2: they try to say that we are radicals and that
Speaker 2: we are supported by radical political parties. It's not true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's very radious situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what I wanted to say about what
Speaker 2: they're at their current strategy. Aside from the repression of
Speaker 2: which we are going to talk in a few minutes.
Speaker 2: This is what their strategy is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like basically they confuse all of the forces on
Speaker 3: the left together. They say that Milansia is funding the
Speaker 3: Black Blog, you know, so it's things like that, the CGTS,
Speaker 3: the fee, all of them, it's all the same, and
Speaker 3: they all want the destruction of civilization. And I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's the discourse on the far right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, babies, Yeah, that sounds like you're American, right too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is kind of linked to police violence,
Speaker 3: this discourse. When you were talking about how they're saying
Speaker 3: that the constitution is democratic and there's nothing you can
Speaker 3: say even though well, the point of the constitution is
Speaker 3: to bypass the parliament. I don't know that democratic. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so when it comes to police violence, the reaction is
Speaker 3: to say that the state holds the legitimate monopoly of violence,
Speaker 3: so therefore they can represss how they want. That's literally
Speaker 3: what they're saying right now, which is worrying.
Speaker 1: The French police have been incredibly violent in their campaign
Speaker 1: to suppress the protests at an ecological action in Sanzoline
Speaker 1: on March twenty fifth. Tens of thousands of activists were
Speaker 1: met with helicopters, armored vehicles, and six thousand grenades, many
Speaker 1: of which were the French police's new and incredibly dangerous
Speaker 1: military grade GM two l CS gas grenades. One protester
Speaker 1: was shot in the head with a tear gas grenade
Speaker 1: fired by a grenade launcher mounted on an armored vehicle.
Speaker 1: He remained in a coma fighting for his life for
Speaker 1: an entire month. Earlier today, his parents' release a statement
Speaker 1: saying that he has begun to wake up, but is
Speaker 1: not fully conscious and his life remains in danger. The
Speaker 1: day before, a special police motorcycle unit called Brav M,
Speaker 1: created in twenty nineteen to suppress the Genejean with the
Speaker 1: Yellow vest protests, was recorded threatening a group of random
Speaker 1: people that had arrested for sitting in front of a
Speaker 1: building from The Washington Post. The cop says, quote, You're
Speaker 1: lucky to be sitting there now that we've arrested you.
Speaker 1: I swear I'd have broken your legs. Literally. I can
Speaker 1: tell you We've broken elbows and faces, but you I'd
Speaker 1: have broken your legs, one officer says in the recording.
Speaker 1: Limone reported two slapping sounds can be heard, the report says,
Speaker 1: along with an officer saying, wipe that smile off your face.
Speaker 1: Later in the clip, a police officer warns the young
Speaker 1: people they have detained. Quote next time we come, you
Speaker 1: won't be getting in the car to go to the
Speaker 1: police station. You'll be getting in another thing called an
Speaker 1: ambulance to go to the hospital. Paris police chief Laurette
Speaker 1: Nuez said on Friday he was quote very shocked by
Speaker 1: the audio clip. Mayel and a gat We're less shocked.
Speaker 2: This is not really a surprise, unfortunately, because well, our
Speaker 2: lease is not as ah. No, it's problematic, but maybe
Speaker 2: not as problematic as in the US. I'm sorry if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong about that. But we also follow sometimes what
Speaker 2: happens on the other side of the ocean. And uh,
Speaker 2: but I must say that we we have had issues
Speaker 2: of police murders on the street, like and police violence,
Speaker 2: want and violence, and unfortunately that now it's not new
Speaker 2: and there is a newspaper media parts who managed to
Speaker 2: find a excerpt of I think it's a group on
Speaker 2: Whatsapple whatever of policemen talking about race, war and uh
Speaker 2: and all these kinds of things. And unfortunately we know
Speaker 2: that there are such people in our police.
Speaker 3: So the police are they're kind of basically fascists, all
Speaker 3: of them. Like they have like one of their unions
Speaker 3: which called Alliance, and for the politics for the presidential elections,
Speaker 3: they invited the right wing party who are basically only
Speaker 3: people who talg with all about genocide. And then the
Speaker 3: classic Mariine Japan and there the far right who's openly
Speaker 3: calling for a civilizational war with Muslims. So that's the
Speaker 3: police unions. And for a little bit of history on
Speaker 3: the police, we have, for example, one of the very
Speaker 3: violent units that you see arresting people all over friends,
Speaker 3: which are called Brigadotic Riminality or back for fort and
Speaker 3: these people come from some sort of colonial units who
Speaker 3: were in Algeria during the war and when there was
Speaker 3: a need to repress populations who previously lived in colonies
Speaker 3: and then moved to France to the main country, they
Speaker 3: created a lot of very violent units recruited through people
Speaker 3: who were in the Algerian war to basically break down
Speaker 3: people's house things like this, beat them up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was really colonial practices and all of this kind
Speaker 3: of state with as a repression of pour and non
Speaker 3: white areas of town where they try to always have
Speaker 3: a strong police presence and touch people, they say in
Speaker 3: the Act, but they're really making up reasons to arrest people.
Speaker 3: Police violence is not new at all, And yeah, basically
Speaker 3: it's easier. Need to train all year long against poor,
Speaker 3: non white people, and then during protests they come against
Speaker 3: people who have come to protests basically, which are generally
Speaker 3: different people, but not entirely different people.
Speaker 1: Of course, the police response to protests, again says, has
Speaker 1: gotten more violence as the Jile Jean protests in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: but instead of clearing the streets as Macron had hoped,
Speaker 1: the increase in violence is just narrowing the traditional gap
Speaker 1: in more moderate trade protesters and the more radical protesters
Speaker 1: found in black blocks.
Speaker 3: I've seen people in America in England saying that the
Speaker 3: movement is dying down because the inter union protests are
Speaker 3: more and more away from each other. But in the
Speaker 3: actual protest people are much much more radical. And what
Speaker 3: happens is that the people who are in the front
Speaker 3: of the protests before the union and who may potentially
Speaker 3: fight with the cops that the Union will never do,
Speaker 3: they're more and more numerous, Like four times bigger than
Speaker 3: the protests months ago, and so the cops cannot charge us.
Speaker 3: Every time they charge, people get around them, and there
Speaker 3: are rocks which happen to hit their heads.
Speaker 1: I don't know how Yeah, cry ask about that a bit,
Speaker 1: specifically about the dynamic of there being a sort of
Speaker 1: I don't know, I kind of divide between the sort
Speaker 1: of more builtant people who are fighting the car and
Speaker 1: the sort of more moderate like trade union like protesters.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, I guess, like how firm has
Speaker 1: that separation been and what I guess have the unions
Speaker 1: been doing here? Have they been trying to contain things?
Speaker 1: Have they been trying to push forwards?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a very recent phenomenon kind of,
Speaker 3: especially the way it's taken from now, because it's basically
Speaker 3: a mix of a black block and some le Jeune
Speaker 3: and some random already called people, yeah, yellow vests. But
Speaker 3: so the black block it started really in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Before this was no real black block all the time
Speaker 3: at protests, and the attitude of the unions is that
Speaker 3: they hate the black block. It's pretty simple. I mean,
Speaker 3: not of course, as everyone who is in a union,
Speaker 3: but the unions who organize the protest. They don't want
Speaker 3: anyone in front of them. They want people to go
Speaker 3: behind them and follow whatever they want to do. So
Speaker 3: they've been really aggressive. But even if there are conflicts
Speaker 3: right now, I would say the fact that the people
Speaker 3: in front of the union are more and more numerous,
Speaker 3: I think there's somewhat less tensions the unions. I don't
Speaker 3: think they feel like they can really push against even
Speaker 3: the black bloc or radicals who break stuff.
Speaker 2: If I may add in something, indeed, there is a
Speaker 2: difference between the attitude of the union directions, let's say,
Speaker 2: and people like me, the simple unionized workers. And what
Speaker 2: Miles said is absolutely true about the the hate, the Yeah,
Speaker 2: they really don't want any black blocks, especially in front
Speaker 2: of them. But what I observed in these over the
Speaker 2: last few demonstrations is that what we call the cortege,
Speaker 2: which is really the very head of the demonstration, even
Speaker 2: in front of the unions, the official union group, where
Speaker 2: there are the black blocks and the yellow vests, there
Speaker 2: are more and more people. I was I was like,
Speaker 2: I was going to say, like me, but I'm a
Speaker 2: bit of a still a bit cowardly, and I'm still
Speaker 2: afraid of of getting in this kind of place. But
Speaker 2: there are more and more unionized workers who mingle with
Speaker 2: the black blogs and et cetera. And I you know,
Speaker 2: we also have what we call manifestations sauvage, the wild
Speaker 2: and and not organized protests that are not organized by
Speaker 2: unions but are kind of spontaneous.
Speaker 3: They opened after Macro forced the reform through parliament without
Speaker 3: a vote, and people just went in the streets without
Speaker 3: the union and they burned. There were images in Paris
Speaker 3: of everything burning. It was that day, and that's what
Speaker 3: we call wild protests.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for the first time I saw unionized workers
Speaker 2: joining in. That is crazy, because they were feeling that
Speaker 2: what the unions were proposing within the legal and pacifists
Speaker 2: and nice frame was not enough because really our president
Speaker 2: was really just making fun of us and we couldn't
Speaker 2: have it, and what we usually do was not longer
Speaker 2: enough for us. And this is really something new.
Speaker 1: I asked about the appearance of the Gilijan in the
Speaker 1: current protest and what that you thought of them, Mael.
Speaker 1: The student was somewhat dismissive, but the impact that Jile
Speaker 1: Jean had on a GAT and the railway workers was
Speaker 1: very different.
Speaker 3: I can say a little bit, but I don't know
Speaker 3: much about the yellow vests. For what I saw of
Speaker 3: the yellow Vests were a lot of blockages and people
Speaker 3: against taxes on gas. And the way it radicalized was
Speaker 3: towards some form of radical democracy, but maybe not so radical,
Speaker 3: because they wanted the mass movement seemed to end on
Speaker 3: the demand for referendums. Basically, they wanted to be able
Speaker 3: to call their own referendums, and the demands were not
Speaker 3: directly linked to economics. And as I saw them many
Speaker 3: very often, and when we saw them in protests in lyon,
Speaker 3: they work no weird, but I don't know them very well.
Speaker 3: What I saw was that the government repressed them really,
Speaker 3: really hard, much harder than the usual protests that we do,
Speaker 3: because they were really scared of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I took part to the yellow vest movement,
Speaker 2: and I tend to disagree a bit with your analysis
Speaker 2: on this. Yeah, no problem, no, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 2: just a I'm just saying, and it's not an attack
Speaker 2: at all. At first, I must say I hainted this
Speaker 2: movement because well, just long story short, it began in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and in twenty eighteen there was a big
Speaker 2: movement in the SENCF where I work in the Railway
Speaker 2: Public Company because the current it's very funny because it's
Speaker 2: the current Prime Minister who was the tra and Sport
Speaker 2: Minister at the time.
Speaker 3: They just view them around, they keep we keep seeing.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely I can't stand that anyway. I have a
Speaker 2: personal vendetta with this woman. And we had been trying
Speaker 2: to fight off the well, they kind of started to
Speaker 2: kill off our company. It's only now dying of its
Speaker 2: slow death. But this is where it really well, this
Speaker 2: is where the end really began in twenty eighteen for us.
Speaker 3: You mean by privatization, they're killing the content.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are not private yet, but the door has
Speaker 2: been opened one yes. And so it's been a really
Speaker 2: really hard protest for us and we in the end
Speaker 2: we lost. It was really hard, and after that we
Speaker 2: we've been I've seen these people the yellow vest stand
Speaker 2: up and take on our songs to make them their own.
Speaker 2: The famous only lap. It started with the in the
Speaker 2: railway world, and it really started in Lyons. I was
Speaker 2: there and suddenly these people whom I did not see
Speaker 2: by our side a few months before, started to invade
Speaker 2: the streets and sing our songs. I was really outraged.
Speaker 2: I was furious, and then I fortunately I spent time
Speaker 2: with the people who are more intelligent than me and
Speaker 2: who said that it was worth going to see these
Speaker 2: people and see what was on their minds and what
Speaker 2: they were thinking, especially because there were people who had
Speaker 2: never before protested, They had never been on the street
Speaker 2: to demonstrate about anything, and they were right to do that.
Speaker 2: And it all started with the price of oil and
Speaker 2: of gasolina. And I found that really really insignificant, and
Speaker 2: in fact, it really opened my mind about the reality
Speaker 2: of other people, because I do not have a car,
Speaker 2: but some people have a car, and they needed to
Speaker 2: live together, to make a live in And not only that,
Speaker 2: but the motives of the protest. They roaded and roaded
Speaker 2: these people. They got politicized at such a speed, a
Speaker 2: high speed. This is incredible because quite rapidly the what
Speaker 2: they were demanding were. It was not simply the lowering
Speaker 2: of the oil price. It was also more democracy, it
Speaker 2: was more social justice. It was against the cancelation of
Speaker 2: attacks unfortune of the great fortune of people on great tealth,
Speaker 2: and on climate. Also, it merged with a lot of
Speaker 2: climate demonstrations and it broad it really it was about
Speaker 2: really a social model and what world we want to
Speaker 2: live in tomorrow. And so this is why I say
Speaker 2: this movement was really incredible. It was also incredible because
Speaker 2: it was taking place without the unions. It depends on
Speaker 2: the regions. In France, in Leon, for example, there is
Speaker 2: no love lost between the Yellow Vests and the unions
Speaker 2: the direction of the unions. But in other regions like
Speaker 2: in South and France or in the North, it's very different.
Speaker 2: And soon they began to protest together and the Yellow
Speaker 2: Vest they they they gave us a new a fresh
Speaker 2: new breath. It was really a fresher breath of fresh air.
Speaker 2: There was such spontaneous, they were so spontaneous and so angry. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, they they they remind they reminded us what
Speaker 2: it was to be angry and to have the right
Speaker 2: to be angry and not to be helpless in front
Speaker 2: of an unjust policy. And it really changed changes. And
Speaker 2: as just like I said that earlier, that in this
Speaker 2: very movement, the movement we live in now, there are
Speaker 2: there are unionized workers who mingle with the black Dog
Speaker 2: for example, well, there were a lot of us unionized
Speaker 2: workers in the Yellow Vest too, and so yeah, it
Speaker 2: influenced us a lot.
Speaker 3: I think we can say that if twenty sixteen added
Speaker 3: a black block to the protests, now with the Yellow
Speaker 3: vestic change completely the way we protest as well. All
Speaker 3: the blockages are like much more regular, and the way
Speaker 3: we're people fear less, you know, to demand things and
Speaker 3: to organize without unions. I think we can say that
Speaker 3: it definitely changed things. Yes, Also personally, I think that
Speaker 3: if I say wrong things about Yellow vests, why, I
Speaker 3: don't know. The important is because yes, the concerns about
Speaker 3: oil gas price was not one of buying because I
Speaker 3: live in the city and I don't have a car,
Speaker 3: So I think it affected more the country, the countryside
Speaker 3: of France, which is more concerned with gas prices, yeah,
Speaker 3: than big cities. Also because we already have lots of
Speaker 3: political movements here, so like it's conven different. I don't know,
Speaker 3: this is sport very well, to be honest, maybe I
Speaker 3: should just show up.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, it's it's interesting to me because I
Speaker 4: remember when the Jilla Jehan's protests started up, there was
Speaker 4: a lot of debate outside of France and kind of
Speaker 4: like westerners observing the protests to are these guys. Is
Speaker 4: this something that's like a positive movement? Are they all
Speaker 4: right wing? And it's interesting that the in which kind
Speaker 4: of all of these different sort of eras of protest
Speaker 4: movements in France have melded together for this most recent
Speaker 4: kind of uprising. Like you've got you know, the the
Speaker 4: you've got these trade unions, you've got Gills Jen's, you've
Speaker 4: got the Black Bloc, all sort of working as different
Speaker 4: pieces of this of this uprising, you know, based on
Speaker 4: kind of the different tactics of their eras. That's fascinating
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 3: I was discussing and saying that it's kind of a
Speaker 3: feature of movements about pensions, even if they can be
Speaker 3: very different, that they tend to attract a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And at first the protests were not very radical at
Speaker 3: all compared to protests we could have with similar sizes.
Speaker 3: But gradually the movement is radicalizing a lot, it seems
Speaker 3: to me, the people who are in and the fact
Speaker 3: that it tends to mobilize everyone at first, even if
Speaker 3: it's not very radical, when it's created this sort of
Speaker 3: mingling of everybody. There's a Yellow Vester Union, the Black Bloc,
Speaker 3: everybody except to political parties because they're useless.
Speaker 1: But alongside the radicalization of protesters from all walks of
Speaker 1: life inside France, there's been a surprisingly strong international reaction
Speaker 1: from other European workers and activists.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm wondering. You know, during the Black Lives
Speaker 4: Matter protests in the US and twenty twenty, international attention
Speaker 4: was significant, and it was to some extent useful in
Speaker 4: terms of helping to raise money and stuff for different
Speaker 4: bail funds. People from all around the world helped to
Speaker 4: that extent. But I'm wondering, is the degree of international
Speaker 4: attention by other countries left wing movements on what's happening
Speaker 4: in France right now? Is it having an impact directly
Speaker 4: or is it just sort of like noise.
Speaker 3: Well, on my part, it seems to be a lot
Speaker 3: of noise, yes, because a lot of people seem to
Speaker 3: misunderstand completely the situation, and yeah, they just give their
Speaker 3: opinion and that's fine, I guess. But I think there
Speaker 3: may be actual solidarity with some militants. I mean, I
Speaker 3: know among anarchists that there are an archists who come
Speaker 3: from Italy, Switzerland, Germany and other countries who try to
Speaker 3: help actions and protests and I'm pretty sure that among
Speaker 3: unions there's international solidarity as well, but maybe I got
Speaker 3: you should say something about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, there is international solidarity. Honestly, this is not something
Speaker 2: I was expecting. But for instance, last week in Belgium
Speaker 2: there are workers from a total plant that actually blocked
Speaker 2: the freaking port and to prevent them from sending product
Speaker 2: to substitute it from to the product that was blocked
Speaker 2: by protesters in France, and that was This is for me,
Speaker 2: This is absolutely wonderful. And yes, so yes, there there
Speaker 2: are international solidarities. We have been in our inter professional assembly,
Speaker 2: because we have a local inter professional assembly, and we
Speaker 2: have been expressing our gratitude to the people in Greece,
Speaker 2: in Argentina, in Spain, in Germany who expressed their support
Speaker 2: openly and personally. I was really surprised to see how
Speaker 2: many people actually were being attention to what was happening
Speaker 2: in our country, and it gives us, well, it gave
Speaker 2: strength to many people, and it also gives hope because
Speaker 2: I realized that, well, you know, the main leverage we
Speaker 2: have on our lititicians is the economical beverage. And so
Speaker 2: when the bosses a big companies and investors and everything
Speaker 2: start to say, well, guy, uh, your reform of pensions
Speaker 2: in France is starting to make a mess in Germany,
Speaker 2: in Spain, in Greece. Please stop your madness. Well, this
Speaker 2: is a leverage I was not expecting. We are trying
Speaker 2: to use the leverage of the big wealth and UH
Speaker 2: and and the big companies in France, which is already
Speaker 2: something quite hard to move. And that was really an
Speaker 2: unexpected support. And we really hope that it's going to
Speaker 2: have an because Macaron is very uh. He's a narcissistic
Speaker 2: guy and he lost his own image. So if his
Speaker 2: image is starting to suffer internationally, I think this is
Speaker 2: going to be a big problem for him, and his
Speaker 2: image at the time is really a catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Belgium, of course, is not the only place for blockades
Speaker 1: are happening. They've become a staple of the uprising in
Speaker 1: France as well.
Speaker 3: I'm very interesting talking about the blockages of the highways
Speaker 3: around Lyon, because many cities are trying to do this.
Speaker 3: There is then which is in Brotain, which manages to
Speaker 3: block the highways very often, and so they started in
Speaker 3: Lyon and we tried once a few weeks ago. It
Speaker 3: was a call by the unions with a few points
Speaker 3: to block in the morning and people the militants from
Speaker 3: all over join the points at like six am or
Speaker 3: seven am, I don't remember. But when people arrived there
Speaker 3: were cups everywhere and they were pushed away and circulation
Speaker 3: and capitalism could work normally and everything was fine. So
Speaker 3: we were very frustrated. So reorganized completely and through the
Speaker 3: Struggle Committee, we assembled people from general assemblies all over
Speaker 3: the city and also various groups, and we managed to
Speaker 3: organize a blockade last Thursday, and it worked pretty well.
Speaker 3: It was not exceptional, but for first trip, people were
Speaker 3: very happy about it, and it led to many people
Speaker 3: from all over in the movement working together on a
Speaker 3: project and meeting together in assembly and then being together
Speaker 3: on blockages. And I think its moments like this which
Speaker 3: are very important for the movement to develop. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if the blockage in itself is the most interesting
Speaker 3: action in terms of economic damage, especially if we don't
Speaker 3: stay very long, but the different social relations it can create,
Speaker 3: and I think it can have a lot of influence
Speaker 3: in the movement, especially when we're thinking about the unions
Speaker 3: and the leaders of the unions who don't want to
Speaker 3: mobilize too much, we don't want to go too far.
Speaker 3: What can we do outside of that? Well, I think
Speaker 3: that's part of the answer, at.
Speaker 2: Least, I agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's only that was interesting to me
Speaker 1: because I think the roadblocks and barricades like that as
Speaker 1: a sort of social site is like a really it's
Speaker 1: a thing you see a lot in the past, like
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five years of protest movements. This was a
Speaker 1: big deal in like Hawk in twentyd and six. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of similar stuff in Tehran during the uprising there.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to see it sort of like re entering
Speaker 1: the repertoire of stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the kind of the different species of social interactions
Speaker 4: that are made possible by these kind of zones of
Speaker 4: autonomy that are creating.
Speaker 3: And they ask a lot of new questions for militants,
Speaker 3: how to hold a barricade against cops and against cars.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of different questions which I think they
Speaker 3: can radicalize people at least two demand more things. So
Speaker 3: it's not clear what they want to demand for now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just wanted to say that I'm really really happy
Speaker 3: to see people from different parts of society really coming
Speaker 3: together and accepting to work together, like so many things impossible.
Speaker 3: Now as a student, I've met basically sans from all
Speaker 3: universities in my town. I now have free access to
Speaker 3: all publications in French and I'll never pay for anything.
Speaker 3: It's really really great. In terms of blockage, there is
Speaker 3: just south of Leon, there is an oil refinery which
Speaker 3: is not on strike. It's among the only ones. So
Speaker 3: it's really important because in France there's a special system
Speaker 3: because they wanted to stay independent from all producers, so
Speaker 3: they import the oil and then they refine it in France.
Speaker 3: So basically, if we stop all the refinery, there is
Speaker 3: no more gas for cars, and right it's becoming a
Speaker 3: real problem because of the strikes, and this one stays
Speaker 3: open and so people have started to try and block
Speaker 3: the entry. So right now there's like something like fifty
Speaker 3: union workers and like fifty radical militants who come there
Speaker 3: every morning. Well not this week, but last week they
Speaker 3: were doing it because this week we haven't said, but
Speaker 3: everyone is on holiday kind of somewhat, the students are
Speaker 3: on holiday, so many people take their paid leave right
Speaker 3: now as well. It's kind of a special time. Soone
Speaker 3: but next week, probably the blockages aren't going to start again.
Speaker 3: And it's great to see union workers meeting with more
Speaker 3: radical people who try and get an action together. I
Speaker 3: think when there is story diarity that exists, great things
Speaker 3: can happen.
Speaker 2: If I may add something about blockages and everything, what
Speaker 2: works pretty well, and it's it's quite satisfying. Uh, there
Speaker 2: are big days of mobilization. And what what has happened
Speaker 2: several times now is that on the very same day,
Speaker 2: at the very same time, there are several appointments a
Speaker 2: little everywhere in the in the town, and to block something,
Speaker 2: to block a highway, to block a factory, to block
Speaker 2: a school or whatever. And this allows, uh, it allows
Speaker 2: us to to dispatch and to stretch the forces of
Speaker 2: the police, and so they are never enough everywhere to
Speaker 2: stop us. And that makes that can make that can
Speaker 2: make the day a real success because you have a
Speaker 2: lot of things happening at the very same time, but
Speaker 2: there is only so many cops. So yeah, it works
Speaker 2: pretty well.
Speaker 1: This is interestingly the same analysis the US police came
Speaker 1: to in twenty twenty. It's easy to stop one large action,
Speaker 1: but several smaller actions split police forces and prevent them
Speaker 1: from just caddling one large block of protesters. I guess
Speaker 1: I think I was interested in is that I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens in the US a
Speaker 1: lot is you'll get a national day of action, but
Speaker 1: all of the actions like there'll just be one giant
Speaker 1: action in a city, and you don't get the kind
Speaker 1: of like diffusion that's been helpful with spreading out cop numbers.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering, like, is this something like the
Speaker 1: unions are specifically planning to have multiple events all over
Speaker 1: the place, or is that something that's been happening like
Speaker 1: outside that or.
Speaker 3: No, no, nonser unions only and when they plan for
Speaker 3: a strike and for protests.
Speaker 2: There are also actions, but only one action and the
Speaker 2: others are organized by I mean regular people or no.
Speaker 3: But like you mean the actions on the day, they're
Speaker 3: not organized by the national union's local unions which do
Speaker 3: the actions, right, that's what you're talking about. Yes, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 3: so there are local unions because in friends, unions are
Speaker 3: very federal. Somewhat's this we can talk about it. It's
Speaker 3: a bit of a problem. But like you know, the
Speaker 3: SEGET it started out as an archiest union, so they
Speaker 3: were like very into federalism and all of this. So
Speaker 3: there is local autonomy, and what happens is workers in
Speaker 3: very mobilized sectors like the railways, the energy workers, they
Speaker 3: were organized through their union actions on that day, for example.
Speaker 3: And on top of this, for example, you have students
Speaker 3: in a certain high school or a certain university who
Speaker 3: decided to block something, and for example, they need support. Recently,
Speaker 3: there was a notably right wing campus who was blocked
Speaker 3: by students, and so a lot of us came to
Speaker 3: help them because we've had never seen this campus blocked ever.
Speaker 3: And of course what happened was some fascists attacked them,
Speaker 3: but we were much much more numerous than them, so
Speaker 3: it was no problem. But the next time they had
Speaker 3: a blockage planned at this campus, yes, they ended up
Speaker 3: not having enough numbers so they can sold. But the
Speaker 3: fascists didn't know that it was canceled, and so they
Speaker 3: all came really armed with metal bars and all of that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Still, despite the threat of fascist streak gangs, and they're
Speaker 1: better armed and more legitimate counterparts in the police, the
Speaker 1: protests continue. They continue to block roads, they continue to
Speaker 1: occupy universities, they continue to strike, they continue to fight
Speaker 1: the police. They continue to find new forms of resistance,
Speaker 1: new forms of solidarity, new worlds composed of people who
Speaker 1: in ordinary times would never have met, and in the
Speaker 1: process they continue to find new ways of being free.
Speaker 1: Beneath the cobblestones, the beach sat another generation of French
Speaker 1: protesters in May of nineteen sixty eight. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is pick it up and throw it. It
Speaker 1: could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening