A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #340 - Sainte-Soline, one year later (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The repression which fell on the demonstrators in Sainte-Soline on March 
25, 2023, then throughout the year through trials, arrests and 
dissolutions concerning everything that moves in France did not has not 
undermined the determination and strength of the movement against 
basins, which is only the visible face of a determined effort to 
reappropriate spaces and means of life that capitalism is gradually 
tearing away from us to transform into commodities. ---- It wasn't a 
mistake...
The extreme police violence exercised against anti-basin demonstrators 
on March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline (79) was not the work of a few 
mustachioed and helmeted "rednecks" seizing the opportunity to attack 
leftists with tense shots . It was not due to errors of judgment by an 
entire company of poorly directed gendarmes who accidentally sprayed the 
demonstrators with various grenades. Nor was it the work of an 
"authoritarian and narrow-minded" prefect, nor even of a government 
hierarchy which made mistakes at the highest level...

The chain of responsibility which left more than 200 injured out of the 
20,000 people present that day ( at least two of whom only remained 
alive thanks to the solidarity and initiatives of other demonstrators ) 
was a planned mechanism, planned, obeying "whatever it costs" in terms 
of human lives and bodies damaged for a long time.
March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline was therefore not a mistake that could 
have been avoided if we had put "good" law enforcement officers in the 
"right" place, led by a competent hierarchy obeying political power. 
"intelligent" and humanist. This was a rational response to the rise of 
a protest that political leaders - who are only the representatives of 
those who benefit from a well-known system: capitalism - fear. A system 
that many denounce... while ultimately accepting it.

In this regard, we have sometimes heard or read that "the" 
twenty-somethings present in Sainte-Soline on March 25, 2023, were 
stunned by police violence that they did not think was possible. 
Basically, they had no idea who they were dealing with. This is a 
somewhat hasty judgment: if it is true concerning a certain number of 
them, many others, actors and actresses of struggles for several years, 
knew that capitalism is a merciless machine which wants to crush all 
opposition, and that the political system that governs us is at its 
service. You can be young without being care bears (and vice versa).

The government may have claimed the opposite, but what made March 25, 
2023 so characteristic was the complicity between the different 
commitments during the demonstration. It was visible in images and 
words, and only a few politicians felt obliged to dissociate themselves 
from the "thugs" - with the obvious aim of maintaining a certain 
credibility in the political and media world and, for some, their 
tricolor scarf.

A class struggle on a territorial scale
The movement against megabasins is only the most visible part of a 
larger whole which intends to move away from an ecology consisting, on 
the one hand, of putting pressure on those in power to demand general 
measures with a view to "saving» a planet of which we do not know, in 
reality, what it really is; and, on the other, to implement virtuous 
individual behaviors. Apart from this inaccessible and political "macro" 
and this moralistic and ineffective "micro", the anti-basin movement 
like all those linked to capitalist territorial planning mark a desire 
for direct reappropriation of a very real space , known to everyone and 
controllable. Whether against a motorway project like the A 69 between 
Toulouse and Castres, against a new semiconductor factory near Grenoble, 
against cement manufacturers like Lafarge, against the tourist industry 
which drives the poor out of the cities and pollutes the environment 
with its cruising monsters, etc., such initiatives, both local and 
controllable by those who lead them, also have a global sense in which 
every person, themselves dispossessed and exploited on others grounds, 
can recognize each other .

In line with the struggles against the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, 
against the burial of nuclear waste in Bure or against the THT lines, 
these movements have taken on a more global and massive dimension over 
the last five years. They owe this, among other things, to a context of 
social conflict illustrated by the long episode of the yellow vests, the 
battle against the "labor law" and pension reform. This favorable 
context allowed the class struggle to manifest itself at all levels of 
society to concern all aspects of exploitation and the desires of life 
against capitalist barbarism.

Political power never has any qualms when it comes to defending the 
interests of a dominant class that it considers threatened. All those 
who do not have the same interests and who make it known then become for 
him a dangerous class whose capacity for contagion must be reduced and 
initiatives muzzled through fear. For several years, the French state 
has feared possible encounters between different struggles, as well as 
the emergence of uncontrollable and unpredictable movements. The 
"expertise cells" and other think tanks which are looking into this 
question are active, and the object of their reflection is obvious: how 
to paralyze this dangerous class which is even reluctant, nowadays, to 
be represented in the framework of parliamentary democracy?

"Commemorates actions"

To return to what happened on March 25, 2024 in Sainte-Soline, 
"commemorative actions" were organized. First, on March 23 in Melle, 
there was the erection of a cairn remembering the injured but also 
solidarity; as usual, the prefect deployed a huge police force to 
"contain" the several hundred demonstrators gathered on this occasion! 
Then, on March 25, "megabooms" took place in 40 cities in France in 
front of prefectures and/or gendarmes, each time bringing together 
several hundred demonstrators at the call of Bassines non merci, the 
Confédération paysanne and numerous local collectives. Proof that 
neither police and judicial repression nor the abortive attempt to 
dissolve the Earth Uprisings have diminished the determination to 
continue the fight. Finally, on the 31st at the Melle cinema, more than 
a thousand people dedicated their day to stories and testimonies "one 
year later". Two documentaries produced by Off Investigation (and 
available on YouTube) were screened: Mégabassines - Secret History of a 
State Lie and Sainte-Soline - Autopsy of a Carnage , which returns 
clearly and precisely to March 25, 2023 and which met with great 
success. Furthermore, we will not fail to see the full interview with 
Serge carried out for Autopsie d'un carnage which says even more about 
the responsibilities of this "carnage".

We nevertheless noted a tendency, both in the testimonies and in the 
discussions on documentaries, to make emotion and victimization a means 
of mobilizing and homogenizing the movement. However, nothing is gained 
by over-dramatizing a situation with words, especially since victims who 
revolt and act at the same time cease to be victims. The use of pathos 
is not recommended if we want to avoid political demagoguery! Among 
various stands, there was that of the regional coordination Ni maître ni 
bassines (NMNB), which marked a clearly anti-capitalist libertarian 
presence and allowed for fruitful exchanges with a view to future struggles.

Yes, but...
Because exchanges, discussions, criticisms are necessary. This is an 
essential condition for the development of a movement. Despite our 
commitment and our enthusiasm, let us, as a matter of principle, guard 
against any triumphalism. The State and the bourgeoisie are strong, and 
we unfortunately know very well how to secrete the seeds of our 
weakening ourselves and within ourselves. Each time movements emerge 
that question the social order, there is no shortage of candidates to 
erase their autonomy by setting up intermediary structures responsible 
for representing these movements, then negotiating with the dominant 
class. The yellow vest movement thus suffered such attacks, but 
fortunately its diversity and its desire for autonomy made its recovery 
difficult, and both the neo-leaders from its ranks and those from 
traditional parties therefore failed in this enterprise. .

It is up to us to take such experiences into account, to prevent the 
same attempts at recovery by "enlightened" avant-gardes from tarnishing 
the momentum of current struggles which, let us be well aware, is 
fragile. The grassroots collectives that have been created must 
absolutely remain autonomous, and the coordination that takes place must 
only reflect what they are. And, above all, the debate in these 
struggles must be permanent, because it is the necessary condition for 
the extension of their politicization.

Towards new adventures
Bassines non merci calls to converge in Poitou from July 16 "to put an 
Olympic and revolutionary stop to the projects of the hoarders": "We 
invite all the convoys to leave traces on their route, to carry out 
inventive gestures to break through the opacity of the basin sector, 
defend the water and reclaim the land. By bike, by tractor, by car, by 
canoe, on foot... We invite each collective to organize themselves 
according to their wishes.» This is clear: it is the autonomy of the 
collectives which will prevail this summer over any attempt to 
constitute an "enlightened" avant-garde.
The mobilization weekend of July 20 and 21 will be preceded by a 
week-long "village" (from the evening of July 14 to Friday 19) to meet, 
show solidarity, prepare, start to act, and build future of our struggles.

We cannot forget that we will be in Vienne, where the Civaux nuclear 
power plant sits, which has just been promoted to the rank of supplier 
of tritium for the new "war economy" desired by the government. Linking 
the fight against ponds to that against nuclear power is obvious which 
can have the double advantage of helping to bring the anti-nuclear 
movement out of a long stagnation and of countering the tendencies of 
certain anti-pond "ecologists" to put the anti-nuclear in their pocket 
with an election handkerchief on top. We will also have to support 
everything that can allow social movements that are running in parallel 
to end up meeting on a common and clearly stated objective against the 
capitalist system.

Poitou

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4162
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