La Commune statement
We strongly condemn the brutal murder that was committed on Friday, October 16, 2020, against Samuel Paty, a history teacher at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
No ideology can justify this obscurantist violence against educational freedom and freedom of expression.
Right now, all our thoughts are with Samuel Paty’s family, his relatives, his colleagues. We share the fear and outrage that such acts spark in millions of employees, unemployed men and women who love freedom and are committed to defending democratic and social rights.
That is why we refuse to align ourselves, as they intend to force us to do so, in the “national unity” behind Macron and this government with no right bank.
This government, this president, like the previous ones, has been promoting an anti-worker, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim policies for years and has multiplied the laws in that sense. Therefore, it is their politics, in the continuity of Sarkozy, Hollande, that is responsible for this nauseating atmosphere. This is the case of the future law against “Islamic separatism,” which allows Marine Le Pen to ask for a response by “force,” Valérie Pécresse to demand an “implacable” response while Macron stains the slogan of the Spanish republicans against fascism “they will not pass.”
Thus, this Sunday, Stanislas Guérini, General Delegate of La République En Marche, Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of France Insoumise, Julien Bayou, of Europe Ecologie Les Verts, will march alongside government ministers Jean-Michel Blanquer and Marlène Schiappa. Without us.
This government is using this heinous crime to force us to side with them. We do not need a “national unity” to repel murderous obscurantist monsters. On the contrary, it is by fighting for the strengthening of all democratic and social freedoms, demanding that the hunting of immigrants and Muslims cease, that we will cut the ground from under the feet of the barbarians, wherever they may be.
We will not march with this government that undermines democracy, the individual religious freedom of belief of millions of Muslims, in schools, in public places, in the press. We will continue to defend, against this regime, against this government, unalienable, elementary democratic rights and freedoms, with total independence.
Paris, October 18, 2020