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View Full Version : France, Where will it all end?



RageAgainst
9th January 2006, 22:14
I have come to this forum expressly to find answers to questions that are giving me grief and causing me to question values I have held for a long time. I may come across as rough but my intentions are not bad. I have been a militant in revolutionary left movements in the past and there is a tradition of struggle in my family, So please bare with me however visceral I get. I cannot stand right wing hipocracy and often argue with people. Please do not misunderstand where I am coming from in this post. I am by no means trying to bait people. I just want to get some hard answers to quite visceral matters.

The fact is, I am furious about recent events in France. At first, I sympathised with the "revolt" of immigrant youth in the suburbs who have been subjected to decades of abuse and lack of opportunities. Life has been hard for them and any aspirations to better their situation have been squashed by 2 types of rascism; The institutional and the personal.

However, I feel that this revolt can in no way be compared to 68 and is in fact destined to cause great strife in france with possibly repercussions abroad. The latest news that has caused concern across France is that of the train "assaults". As a kind of follow up to the riots, on the 1st of january 60 "Suburban youths" ran rampage on a train between Nice and marseille, robbing, beating, threatening with knives, and sexually assaulting part of the 600 white passengers. A veritable trip to hell.

When the 30 minute ordeal was over, girls got off the train with black eyes telling stories of having been thrown around, "racially" abused and sexually assaulted. Most people were too intimidated to press charges and few arrests were made. A week later it has happened again on a train outside Paris, again with most of the aggressors walking free. This time 20 youths ran rampage robbing and beating and expressing their hatred for white France. they weren't attacking people coming back from a Le Pen rally, They were attacking people in general.

In my opinion it is now pointless to talk about why it has happened and what new projects for integration can be set up. The damage is far to deep, the hatred felt by these marginilized people is too strong. They hate France and consequently see white people as their enemy, not just the authorities, but white people in general. The message of the train assaults is just that. Anyone who says I am going too far should try and go for a walk in one of the suburbs where the riots took place. When they surround You just tell them you are left wing and their "friend" and all will turn out OK, I'm sure.

Where is all this going to end? there is no workers movement leading the way in a struggle for improved living standards, beside which the "revolt" can raise it's banner, and I believe fear is taking hold outside the mentioned suburbs and across France. It is this fear that can turn to backlash and can play directly into the hands of the fascists like Le Pen. In fact, this is the opportunity the FN has been waiting for. "Barbarism sweeping the nation at the hand of unpleasant violent and hateful immigrants who hate us".

People are being driven towards their politics. There is a section of society in France, that is now seen by the rest, as a threat. Fascism could be an answer for these people. A way of getting rid of the problem (That society has created).

What is the answer?

redstar2000
10th January 2006, 07:34
Begin with the fact that "the answer" may not exist.

It's widely thought that the "left" should "always have answers" for the problems generated by capitalism/imperialism.

However repugnant what those immigrant kids are doing might be, it is no more than "payback" for what the French did in North Africa for more than a century.

Not to mention how they've been treated by French police over the last few decades.

The first thing a revolutionary left in France would do is tell people that in blunt and unmistakable language.

You are being attacked as a consequence of the actions of the French capitalist class!

And you will receive the predictable responses: Why me? I didn't invade Algeria back in 1839. I didn't torture North Africans in 1956. I'm not a cop who beat up some North African kids last year. And I'm not a French capitalist. And so on.

There's no "answer" to these "protests of innocence". Though it wouldn't hurt to remind such folks that not every German was a Nazi...but that didn't mean that not every German suffered the consequences of Nazism. The bombs that fell on Germany did not stop to give a "politics test" to everyone in the vicinity before exploding.

As to the possibility that the French people "in general" might support a fascist-style "war on the immigrants" -- Expel or kill them all! -- yes, that's possible.

It wouldn't hurt to point out that every repressive weapon granted to the French State to persecute immigrants can and will be used against ordinary French people...another important lesson of fascism.

If you have the capabilities of producing literature in Arabic or in the French as it's spoken by the immigrants and you have safe ways to circulate such literature, it wouldn't hurt to suggest to those kids that attacking ordinary French people is not such a good idea...and that they'd get a lot more sympathy if they would just attack the police and the rich.

But aside of those steps, I don't think there's any "magic set of demands" that the French left can articulate that's going to make any difference.

Just as in the U.S. and the other "late capitalist" countries, the "age of reform" is over. All of these regimes are going to become more "fascist-like" as this century ages...and life for everyone outside the ruling class is going to get worse.

What's "the answer"?

It's like Marx said: proletarian revolution! :)

Yes, that sounds "crazy" and "utopian" and "ultra-left", blah, blah, blah.

It's still the truth.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

Clarksist
10th January 2006, 21:21
I think RedStar2000 has cleared up much of what I was going to say, so I will only touch on what the French fascism outcome will become.

As soon as fascism is employed, capitalism in France will end. So, I don't think that there is a very big problem in the immediate future, but perhaps down the line there will be.

Fascism is unlike capitalism, in that instead of the ideal "work hard, make money" there is an ideal of "those who deserve the money get the money". It's what makes fascism so different from almost all other economic systems.

France will not become fascist soon. Why? Because the capitalists have too much to lose if the petit bourgouis class has its fascist revolution. After all, the predominant economic group being attacked by these riots and train hijackings, are petit bourgouis white French.

Now, the petit bourgouis will become even increasingly more racist than it already is (which is very hard to think that could happen). But, they will not turn France into a fascist dictatorship. They'll just turn the French capitalist system further racist, and further reactionary.

In other words... the worst capitalism imaginable.

As a French revolutionary leftist, what you must do is focus the rioting and restless immigrants to become leftists and fight their class enemies. And get the petit bourgouis to calm the fuck down.