A-Infos (en) Frnce, OCL-Lamouette Enragee: New trial of workers in struggle in Boulogne-sur-mer (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The boss, the banker and the judge... It is the hackneyed story of a 
family business founded in the 1950s of the last century, which became a 
leader in its sector and which began the restructuring then the closure 
and sale of its production sites. production. It is above all an episode 
revealing the state of fragmentation of the working class, its division 
aggravated by the traps of representativeness and bourgeois legality. It 
is finally the repression which strikes when in complete disarray, we 
find the reflex of direct action...
La Continentale de Nutrition was one of the flagship brands of local 
heritage, that of the Delpierre siblings and their descendants. Its 
capital also consisted of the various Continentale sites as well as the 
"Delpierre Mer et tradition" factory. The family's influence on the port 
of Boulogne-sur-mer led some of its members to head FROM-Nord(1) and the 
local sailing club. Incidentally, they will sit on the urban community 
and lead economic reflection networks...
After several decades of uninterrupted development, the company was 
deployed across six sites in France, including one established since the 
1990s in Vedène, in Vaucluse. In 2001, there was still talk of 
increasing the production capacities of this factory in order to gain 
share in southern Europe.

At the turn of the decade, the company's management announced a change 
in policy. Arguing the rise in raw materials, northern European 
competition and the shrinking of its main market in England, it declares 
itself in industrial overcapacity. The 70,000 tonnes produced in the 
south of France are equivalent, according to her, to what the company 
has been losing financially for several years. Consequently, it closes 
the Vedène factory against the backdrop of a merger with the Villeneuve 
Pet Food brand. The idyll ends short and ends in court. The Agen 
commercial court then ordered the transfer of the Villeneuve factory to 
another family group, that of the German Tiernarhung Deuerer.

Union integration and localist withdrawal

What then happens highlights the often insurmountable obstacles that 
restructuring places in the face of struggling employees. Restructuring 
is not the painful necessity that capitalists use as an excuse for every 
factory closure. Only economists, journalists and politicians pretend to 
believe it. Restructurings are a weapon in the course of the struggle 
between classes, nothing less.

They are a test reinforced by the effects of the integration of trade 
unionism into the State under the guise of "representativeness" and 
which in the present case will take the form of a debacle.

The majority CFDT in Boulogne-sur-mer as well as in the group will give 
a favorable opinion and validate the management's social plan costing 
7.5 million euros in exchange for an increase of 1.5 million in the 
layoff plan. This decision condemned not only the hundred workers at the 
Vedène factory, but also ultimately those who with the stroke of a pen 
delivered their counterparts to the ax of capitalist rationalization.

A Faustian act dictated by the illusion that one can save one's skin by 
making a pact with the devil, a choice of localist withdrawal which 
marked a moral, social and human defeat.

Suffice to say that the workers at the Vaucluse factory will not hear it 
that way(2). They will engage in a struggle which will last 431 days 
including 315 of occupation in order to prevent any removal of the 
machines. Indeed, CEO Thierry Delpierre had suggested that he wanted to 
reorganize the group's production by repatriating production from Vedène 
to Boulogne-sur-mer.

After more than a year of struggle, the majority CGT in Vedène will 
welcome the announcement of a buyer from the logistics sector as a 
victory. But as is often the case, hope will be betrayed.

In 2023, C&D Foods, the new name of Continentale, sold the former 
factory land to a real estate investor. End of the first round and start 
of the second...

Then came the turn of those from the North

Quickly, the CFDT and its Boulogne members understood that their 
decision would not spare them the fate initially reserved for their 
Vedènais counterparts. The implacable logic of capital is foreign to any 
compromise with labor when its vital interests are at stake. Localist 
illusions will in no way modify the course of the issue which will end 
with a new worker defeat against a backdrop of strong resentment... A 
background investment by Crédit Agricole is certainly committed to 
recapitalizing the company but in return 180 workers at the 
Boulogne-sur-mer site will in turn have to be made redundant.

And as on such an occasion, survivors will need to take action to ensure 
that the commitments made are realized by financiers, in particular the 
first of them, Crédit Agricole.

Delayed repression

It is therefore for actions carried out in 2014 as part of this 
restructuring that the Boulogne justice system condemned in February 
2024 three workers at Continentale, which has since passed into the 
hands of the Irish group C&D Foods.

Heard only in 2019 because they were "the only ones to have been 
identified", it was only three years later that they were put under 
investigation... Crédit Agricole accuses them of having attacked three 
of its local branches by having: "pasted posters on the windows, broke 
them, threw firecrackers and paint, set fire to two ATMs, burned tires, 
finally attacked the door of the Boulogne agency with a battering 
ram..."(3 )

The recourse to action

The three workers charged declared having acted "in the sole interest of 
saving their skin" and "it was by having carried out these actions that 
Crédit Agricole gave in and that they were able to keep their jobs.» 
This is precisely what the court accuses them of, demanding that they 
pay nearly 70,000 euros to the banker and 1,000 euros with suspension 
for the criminal part.

Crédit Agricole, one of the three instigators with the State and the 
FNSEA of the liquidation of the small peasantry for the benefit of 
agro-business, bellows against the deterioration of a few facades, which 
has reached its highest historical level with a 19.6% increase in 
profits in 2023! Crédit Agricole, the first banking group in France and 
above all the first chouine insurer ten years after the facts against 
spilled paint and broken glass... This justice hardly needed more to 
recall here the essence of its right bourgeois and confirm the exclusive 
interests of its own.

And now what to do?

If afterwards, the lawyer said he was surprised by the severity of the 
sentence and the amount extorted from the workers, for our part, we are not.

This trial takes place in a context of increased repression of social 
struggles, revolts in working-class neighborhoods and mobilizations on 
environmental issues. The CGT claims that more than 1,000 trade 
unionists are currently the subject of legal proceedings. Darmanin, 
recently cleared by the same justice system, is demanding the 
dissolution of La Défense Collective de Rennes(5). In June 2023, six 
Capécure workers were judged at the Boulogne TGI with the same 
harshness, following their arrest during actions carried out against the 
loss of pensions.
It is time to take stock of the situation, particularly at the local 
level where the confrontation with justice systematically takes place in 
the worst possible conditions, that is to say without organization or 
experienced collective defense. At best, one union sign or another will 
contribute financially to the costs of the trial, or even the 
organization of a festive event will make it possible to raise some 
funds. Sometimes, a gathering will be held outside the court but 
systematically we will delegate the responsibility of the defense to the 
lawyers, considered to be best able to limit the damage.

By allowing ourselves to be dispossessed and isolated in this way, by 
confirming and legitimizing the inter-personal nature of bourgeois 
justice, we leave it a free hand to repress us as it pleases(5). The 
class struggle does not stop at the door of the court, it must continue 
inside, collectively, the only real and serious guarantee in the face of 
arbitrariness. The times to come will see the emergence of new struggles 
that the State will repress ever more brutally as the crisis worsens. We 
must prepare for it now by trying to rise to the collective challenges 
that await us.

Boulogne-sur-mer, 02/25/2024

(1)FROM-Nord: group of producers (230 boats and 100,000 tonnes of fish 
controlled).
(2) "A financial partner would be ready to inject money into the company 
on the condition of implementing the social plan," explained, indignant, 
Taïeb Hallal, CGT delegate from Continentale. "We will not accept 
Vedène's sacrifice," added Fred Laurent, departmental secretary of the 
CGT. Source: Le Dauphiné Libéré. Nov 10, 2011
(3)Source VdN, Boulogne-sur-mer edition.
(4) Read on: https://defensecollective.noblogs.org
(5) The Getaway site has collected some useful texts on the question of 
defense, from which we extract this passage which deals with the place 
and role of the lawyer in a collective defense strategy: "From then on, 
he {the lawyer} must be at the service of those who struggle. It is not 
up to him to lead the political fight for them, even if it manifests 
itself in the context of a trial. He puts at their service his knowledge 
of legal techniques, his knowledge of the judicial mechanism, and uses 
the place granted to him by the bourgeoisie within the repressive system 
itself to help those who fight this system.

» In: Archive Getaway: https://getaway.eu.org/IMG/pdf/liasse_01_defense.pdf

https://lamouetteenragee.noblogs.org/post/2024/02/27/3558
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