The police murder of Nahel on June 27th in Nanterre, Paris, a French teenager of North African descent, has detonated an explosive response throughout France and even its Caribbean territories.
The speed and scale have taken the French state by surprise rocking its establishment now threatening a state of emergency.
Every act of violence and repression taken by the police since has resulted in greater mobilisation and violence in the growing insurrection against them.
This is not chaos, the tens of thousands now turning on the police are not fighting each other. They are collectively rebelling against one of the largest and most organised police establishments in Europe, targeting primarily centres of administration and to date 79 police stations.
The rising scale of resistance is to more than just another racist murder – one in a long history of murderous attacks on those of North African heritage. It comes on the back of years of struggle against the attacks on working conditions, changes to pension age and capitalist austerity in general.
These are the same police that recently attacked the pension protests, have murdered environmental activists abroad and brutally suppressed the ‘gilets jaunes’ yellow vest movement.
In Cayenne, French Guiana, the police have already shot and killed one person in the current wave of demonstrations leaving another in critical condition in Mont-Saint-Martin.
Around 3000 arrests have so far been made by the 45,000 strong armed police force whose weapons include grenade launchers and machine guns. The police don’t need a ‘state of emergency’ to be declared, its provisions were written in to the constitution in 2017.
This constitutional change included a relaxation on the use of armed force as “legitimate self defence” resulting in a fivefold increase in the number of police shootings since for “refusal to comply”.
Although the victim in this case was of dual heritage, the thousands of demonstrators are across communities primarily from the working-class districts of the towns and cities.
French North Africans, Algerians in particular, have good reason to hate and fear the French state and its police. During a demonstration in Paris against the French occupation of Algeria on October 17th 1961, the police targeted and slaughtered French citizens of Algerian descent – many simply being thrown alive off bridges into the river Seine.
The police were forced to acknowledge what became known as ‘The Paris Massacre’ in 1998, though only owned up to 40 deaths. The real figure is thought to be between 200 and 300.
As the funeral of Nahel takes place in Nanterre, it is important that we do not see the working class as victims, we are a class at war. The demonstrations have grown in size and ferocity.
They will need to become more organised to try and limit collateral damage to the assets of our communities like health centres and homes, but this has so far been rare.
In many cases, our class on the streets has routed the police and remained in control. It is becoming an offensive not defensive movement knowing who its enemies are.
Last night in the Rhône region of southern France, a police patrol was ambushed at night and three police officers were shot and wounded. The Rhône police department comment couldn’t have put it better: “We have crossed a red line. We’ve not seen this kind of thing before here and it’s very concerning”.
Having described our class in struggle as “vermin”, the shock troops of the police state should be very concerned. Victory to the insurgents!
AnarCom Network 