By gathering 500,000 demonstrators in 70 cities on Saturday, November 28, 2020, the mobilization against the “global security law” was massive. It is an unequivocal success for the defenders of democratic rights and liberties in the midst of a state of emergency, under the restriction of quarantine. It was a mobilization in accordance with the determination of the population, among which the youth stands out to get this liberticidal bill repealed. It also exposes the political weakness of Macron and his government. It is a clear example of the crisis that is shaking the rotten and undemocratic regime of the Fifth Republic.
The images of police violence in recent weeks have reminded everyone of the brutality and impunity of their perpetrators. How can we not think of the deaths of Zined, Bouna, Adama, Steve, Zineb, Cédric and the rape of Théo when the Minister of the Interior, Darmanin, admits that there are “structural problems” in the police?; when Macron declares that the images of Michel’s aggression “ashame us”? or when he recognizes that when “you have a skin color that is not white, you are much more controlled”? both do nothing more than admit the profoundly anti-worker, racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic nature of the police and of an entire “institution” dedicated to defending the interests of the capitalists. How can we not think of the mutilated and wounded people wearing yellow vests, or even the systematic repression suffered by the demonstrators, workers, youth, secondary school students and union activists, from the strike against the Khomri anti-labor law in 2016 and the pension reform in 2020?
The inhabitants of the suburbs and popular neighborhoods have been suffering daily violent repression for more than four decades! We know that the security laws are used, above all, against the working class and the trade union movement. From this point of view, Macron and his government are preparing for confrontation.
The repressive threat is expressed in the government’s desire to municipalize and privatize the police and gendarmerie powers (Art. 1-19), to monitor the population extensively and uncontrollably by means of individual cameras carried by the police and drones for coercive purposes (Art. 20-22), to censor the images of police interventions and to criminalize their dissemination (Art. 24), to allow the introduction of service weapons into establishments open to the public without the officers being on duty (Art. 25), to allow any public officer to take a breathalyser test suddenly even if there is no violation of the traffic code (Art. 29), and to prohibit and penalize the possession and supply of pyrotechnic materials without being an expert (Art. 30).
The insecurity, violence, and fear that affect millions of women, men, and children is social: it is unemployment, poverty, precariousness, hunger, and impoverishment!
- Insecurity is Macron-Castex-Darmanin.
- All of us together, let’s stop the arm of the henchmen!
- Total withdrawal of the “global security law”!
- Out with Macron-Castex-Darmanin!
The Commune, for a workers’ party
Paris, December 4, 2020