Solidarity with French Youth!

//WORLD REVOLUTION // 2007-12-05

On November 25, two young people from the suburb Villiers-le-Bel in the North of Paris were involved in a lethal incident with the police. While not all the facts of this accident are clear, one thing can be said for sure: the policemen hit and ran. The two young people were left badly hurt, and died of their injuries. Since then the press has been reporting the reactions of the young people in the suburbs and comparing the events with riots of autumn 2005/2006. What they don’t mention is the massive, murderous failure of French police. After the accident young people from the banlieues (the name of the French suburbs) have attacked police stations and other state buildings. Their anger is aimed at the state organs of repression and all of its institutions. On Monday (November 26) there were reports of unrest in six other banlieues.

Two years ago two young people died while hiding from police who were chasing them. Both then and now, the actions of the French police are not questioned. Both then and today the bourgeois press just talks about the “violent” youth, but not about the racist and aggressive police. Two years ago the French government declared a state of emergency as the uprisings of the youth in the banlieues rocked France. Today’s president Sarkozy made himself a name as a hardliner by calling the impoverished immigrants “riff raff” and saying the banlieues where they live should be “cleaned out with a water cannon.” In addition he ordered the arrest of hundreds of young people.

The resistance in the past and today is often criticised as being “criminal” or “terrorist”. But its roots lie in the nature of the capitalist and racist French state. A lot of migrant workers and their children are living in the banlieues. For most of these young people, coming from the suburbs is a huge obstacle that makes it almost impossible to succeed in life. They will often do badly in school and get forced out early by low grades; some do not even get a place in any educational institution. The suburbs are marked by massive unemployment and poverty; furthermore they are confronted with racist slander from the state and Front National, particularly targeted toward Muslim youth who are labeled “potential terrorists.”

Of course the burning cars and burning state buildings won’t change the character of the racist bourgeois state. Politically these militant actions won’t help the young people to change their social situation. Nevertheless it has to be the duty of the workers’ movement, the unions and the Left in France, to protect these young people against the attacks of the French police. Two years ago the Left in France failed deplorably. At its worst, even the so-called Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvriere criticised the rioters for their “violence.” These groups failed to see that the burning cars were progressive compared to the violence of the police and the desperate social situation in the banlieues.

The LCR has promised to build a new anti-capitalist, revolutionary party that will unite the forces that protested against the CPE in 2006. If they are really serious, now is the time to prove it. After the strikes against attacks on pensions, the unions hindered planned protests of the French students by agreeing to negotiations with the government. To avoid another defeat, it is now the duty of every anti-capitalist force to support and generalise the struggle of the banlieues.

The resistance was a social conflict in 2005 and it is a social conflict today. It’s a struggle against the exploitative capitalist state, and not just the actions of “violent youth”.

REVOLUTION calls for actions of the French youth to show solidarity with the banlieues. The French youth have shown that they are militant and active by stopping the CPE law, which would have made it possible for bosses to sack young people without any reason in the first six months of employment. But their protest was sold out by the reformist leaders in the unions and parties who only thought about the upcoming elections. Now it’s time to draw the lessons from the past.

The solidarity with the banlieu youth and the state employees has to be built against the reformist und centrist leadership of the student unions. The youth have to organize in action committees and have to show their solidarity in practice. If they are as successful as in the struggle against the CPE, the French youth and working class will have won an important victory against Sarkozy.

Sarkozy, who calls himself the “French Thatcher,” wants to implement reforms in the interests of capital without any compromise during his period in power. If a national strike is now organized then the working class can show that they won’t accept this and that they will fight against Sarkozy. But to really bring down the government and the capitalist system as a whole it has to be an aim of revolutionary activists to build a revolutionary organization, a party of resistance against Sarkozy and the system he stands for. We can only win our struggle if the resistance leads to a revolutionary movement of workers and young people!

* Solidarity with the struggling youth in the banlieues!
* Against the criminalization of the youth! We demand a clarification of the killing of youth under the control of residents and the youth!
* Resistance from the youth and the workers against Sarkozy!
* Build action committees for solidarity actions and to defend the youth in the banlieues against attacks of the police!
* Turn the struggle against racist discrimination into a struggle against capitalism and for revolution and socialism!
* For a new youth international that unites all the struggles of young people around the globe!