Call for
Solidarity with
French Social
Movements! Stop
Police Violence NOW!
30
March 2023 Climate and
Environmental
Justice, Europe, International
Solidarity, Land, Water
and Territories,
Peasants'
Rights
Solidarity
Statement
La Via
Campesina calls for
international
solidarity for the
french social
movement, against
police violence and
the authoritarian
drift of the French
government.
Bagnolet, 30th
March 2023 |
We observe with
consternation the
evolution of events in
France. For several
months, millions of
people have been
demonstrating
peacefully against a
pension reform that
will make the working
poor, including
peasants, pay even
more while the richest
benefit. Last week,
the French government
pushed through this
reform without a vote
in the National
Assembly. That evening
and every day since,
demonstrations and
actions have
multiplied to denounce
this authoritarian
drift and to demand
the immediate
withdrawal of the
pension reform. Faced
with this massive
mobilisation, which is
widely supported by
public opinion (75% of
the French population
is against this
reform, and in
particular 93% of
people of working
age), the French state
is in denial and is
responding with an
escalation of the
police and violence.
Last weekend
saw a further step in
this authoritarian
drift. Our affiliate
in France, the
Confédération
Paysanne, together
with two other
organisations,
Soulèvements de la
Terre and Bassines Non
Merci, called for a
demonstration against
mega-basins, which are
tools for water
grabbing by
agribusiness. 30,000
people gathered to
defend water, a common
good essential to the
life of all people and
ecosystems. The French
state deployed a
police force worthy of
war to protect an
18-hectare area.
Grenades rained down
on the demonstrators
for hours, injuring
more than 200 people.
The state deliberately
prevented the
emergency services
from reaching the area
where the injured were
sheltering, refusing
to allow ambulances to
pass. Today, one
person is hanging
between life and
death, and dozens of
others have lost an
eye or a hand, or are
at risk of being
paralysed for life.
Many voices,
including the UN
Special Rapporteurs on
Human Rights and the
Council of Europe
Commissioner for Human
Rights, called on the
government to stop
this repressive
escalation. But the
President of the
French Republic
decided not to give
in, and the Minister
of the Interior
decided to ban
Soulèvements de la
Terre.
What will be
the next step in this
authoritarian drift?
To ban the
Confédération
Paysanne? To ban all
demonstrations for
climate and social
justice?
Is France,
which presents itself
everywhere as a great
democracy and a
country of human
rights, definitively
falling into an
authoritarian regime
outside the framework
of international law?
La Via
Campesina calls for
international
mediation to restore
social dialogue.
In this
critical situation,
international
solidarity is
essential. We
therefore call on our
member organisations
and allied social
movements around the
world to support the
social movements in
France.
Here are some possible
actions
- Write
letters of
solidarity to the
Confédération
Paysanne,
Soulèvements de la
Terre and Bassine
Non Merci, and more
generally to French
social movements
(contact@confederationpaysanne.fr,
contact@lessoulevementsdelaterre.org);
- Writing
to French embassies
and the French
government to
denounce the
repression of social
movements;
- Organise
demonstrations
outside French
embassies and
consulates;
- Contact
the elected
representatives and
the governments of
your countries to
denounce the
attitude of the
French government,
to demand respect
for human rights (in
particular the right
to demonstrate) and
to offer themselves
as international
mediators to end
this crisis.
GLOBALIZE
THE STRUGGLE!
GLOBALIZE
HOPE!
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