Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Occupation in Rennes, France: The Socialist Party Calls the Police  to Repress Mobilized Youth

On February 8, students in Rennes, France, occupied their City Hall to protest President Macron’s neoliberal pension reforms. The next day, the occupation was forcibly evacuated by the police, who were called in by representatives of the Socialist Party. The NUPES alliance “condemned the occupation” in a statement without mentioning the repression.

Erell Bleuen

February 15, 2023
Facebook Twitter Share

On February 8, students in Rennes — the capital city of Brittany, France — voted to occupy the City Hall. where the electoral alliance known as the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES) was holding a meeting. Member organizations in attendance included the Socialist Party (PS), Europe Ecology — the Greens (EELV, an environmentalist political party), the French Communist Party (PCF), La France Insoumise (LFI), their youth organizations, Générations, and the Parti de Gauche. Also present was the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), even though it has formally refused to ally itself with NUPES, in keeping with its claim to merely support NUPES’ more radical candidates.

According to Ouest-France, 200 students of the Rennes 2 General Assembly (AGR2) entered the hall, and their representatives explained, “As in 2016, we want to occupy City Hall after the meeting is held.” Despite the proposal to continue the meeting, the NUPES chose to end early and leave the hall, as evidenced by a video circulated by the AGR2 on Twitter:

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY IS HELD AT THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE: After the GA on the campus of Rennes 2, AGR2 members voted to occupy the People’s House, a hot spot of Rennes’s struggles for nearly two centuries, and to continue the GA there

Nathalie Appéré, mayor of Rennes and member of the PS, called for the immediate evacuation of the hall and called in the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), the general reserve of the officer corps known for their brutal crowd control tactics. About 20 CRS riot vans arrived and forcibly removed the occupiers. Taking refuge on the roof, the students were arrested by the police, who cordoned off the neighborhood while people gathered around the City Hall in solidarity. The mayor later released a statement thanking “the gendarmes, police, and firemen, whose intervention made it possible for the occupiers to leave.”

[LIVE] In #Rennes, the occupation of the City Hall against the pension reform voted yesterday is being evicted by the police. Dozens of trucks of CRS have been called by the city hall to dislodge the mobilized youth.
It was proposed to the NUPES, who were holding a meeting there, to continue with the meeting as planned and then follow with the GA. The NUPES refused this proposal and left

After the evacuation, 26 were arrested, including six minors, some of whom were high school students who had come to support the student mobilization. According to 20 Minutes, three people were taken into custody for refusing to be fingerprinted. One of the high schoolers who was questioned later posted on Instagram about the violent repression: “strangulation, attempted suffocation of a comrade by a CRS officer who put his gloved hand over his mouth and nose while pulling his collar back super hard, punches, insults, etc.” He continues, “One comrade had his wrist broken, another had his leg injured by being dragged along the ground.”

In a press release published on February 10, NUPES failed to mention the violent repression. Instead, NUPES declared, “We condemn the occupation, and the damage done at City Hall,” adding that NUPES regrets “this mode of action, which will not convince more people to expand the mobilization against the pension reform.”

This condemnation epitomizes NUPES’s proclivity for directing people off the streets and away from direct action, encouraging them to instead put their faith in candidates. The NUPES coalition of political organizations — together with the NPA, which, while claiming to be a “radical” and unallied wing, continually adapts itself to the collective neoreformist line — signals its rightward shift in the already-insufficient neoreformist project of Melanchon’s LFI. For the NUPES, the problem lies with the students who are mobilizing against the pension reform, not the police who violently targeted them. This line is all the more problematic because, at the beginning of the week, a public meeting was held at the University of Rennes 2, by the LFI deputy Louis Boyard, who prompted the students to blockade the university. For NUPES, does the legitimacy of the youth movement merely depend on who calls for it?

Rather than the hindering stipulations of union bureaucracy or the complicit candidates and demoralizing statements put forth by NUPES, it will take blockades, strikes, and masses in the streets to bring Macron and his Bonapartist administration to their knees. Democratic organization in general assemblies and the movement’s continued expansion truly opposes these stifling systems. We have seen, time and time again, the failure of other neoreformist projects — from SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain to the Sanders campaign in the United States. At best, NUPES offers nothing more than a new face for this tired and long-disproved approach.

The repression in Rennes is far from insignificant. Since the beginning of the movement, student mobilizations have been severely repressed by the police or university presidents, as in the universities of Strasbourg, Lille, and the EHESS, or in high schools such as the Lycée Racine in Paris. In the context of struggle, unity in the fight against the pension reform cannot be achieved without denouncing the repression suffered by all those who mobilize.

Originally published in French on February 10, 2023 in Revolution Permanente

Translated by Isla Bristol, adapted for clarity by Antoine Ramboz

Facebook Twitter Share

Europe

Nancy Fraser, Jacques Rancière, Silvia Federicci and many others say: Stop the Criminalization of Palestine Solidarity in France!

Anasse Kazib, a union activist and former presidential candidate, was recently interrogated by French anti-terrorist police. In this open letter, more than 800 prominent intellectuals and activists call to stand united against the criminalization of Palestine solidarity.

A mash-up of Macron over a palestinian flag and articles detailing the rising repression

Against the Criminalization of Opinion and in Defense of Our Right to Support Palestine: We Must Stand Up!

In France, the repression of Palestine supporters is escalating. A conference by La France Insoumise (LFI) has been banned; a union leader has been arrested and charged for speaking out for Palestine; court cases have increased against those who “condone terrorism”; and the state has stepped up its “anti-terrorism” efforts. In the face of all this, we must stand together.

Nathan Deas

April 23, 2024

Occupy Against the Occupation: Protest Camp in Front of Germany’s Parliament

Since Monday, April 8, pro-Palestinian activists have been braving Germany's bleak climate — both meteorological and political — to protest the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and the unconditional German support for it. 

Erik de Jong

April 20, 2024

Thousands of Police Deployed to Shut Down Congress on Palestine in Berlin

This weekend, a Palestine Congress was supposed to take place in the German capital. But 2,500 police were mobilized and shut down the event before the first speech could be held. Multiple Jewish comrades were arrested.

Nathaniel Flakin

April 12, 2024

MOST RECENT

LAPD cracking down on the UCLA Palestine solidarity encampment on the evening of May 1.

Solidarity with the UCLA Encampment against Zionists and the LAPD

The Gaza Solidarity Encampment at UCLA was attacked by a mob of Zionists, then brutally cleared by the LAPD. The encampments need our full solidarity against cops and Zionists.

Julia Wallace

May 2, 2024
Healthcare workers at a pro-Palestine rally. Sign reads "Healthcare workds for a free palestine"

Healthcare Workers Stand in Solidarity with the Student Movement against Repression and for a Free Palestine

In response to the repression that university students have faced in the last weeks, we urge healthcare workers and their unions around the world to sign a solidarity letter against repression and for a free Palestine.

Mike Pappas

May 2, 2024
Police begin to storm City College of New York, CUNY Palestine solidarity encampment on the evening of April 30, 2024.

City University of New York Workers Announce Wildcat Sickout After NYPD Arrests Over 100 of Their Students and Colleagues

CUNY workers announced a wildcat sickout after NYPD raided City College's Gaza Solidarity Encampment. It's the first known job action in the PSC union’s 52-year history.

Left Voice

May 1, 2024
NYPD arrest protesters at City College of New York, CUNY, following a raid on the encampment for Palestine. April 30, 2024.

All Out for Gaza and against Police Repression on May Day

Just hours before May Day, NYPD attacked peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and City College. As we march for a free Palestine, the working class must also march against the repression faced by those who stand up against the genocide.