People have gathered here to discuss their struggles,
so that local struggles, usually condemned to invisibility,
now become visible for all to see, so that those who lead
these struggles know that they are not alone.
It started with a big protest on the 31st, under apocalyptic rain.
We gathered straight after it on Republique Square,
we had our first general assembly, and the first commissions were created
People are on this square because they’re tired of this system,
and to put it simply they want to recreate something collective,
human, militant and I wanna say revolutionary.
Nuit Debout is a sum of individuals, it's a gathering of different people
who don't have a labels, don’t wear partizan symbols,
they come as individuals and come with their knowledge
to enrich the debate, or suggest alternatives.
From the 31st onward, I didn’t leave the Republique Square,
at my age, I feel it is important to mention, I am 60 soon 61,
so at night I go home to sleep, but if at some point
I had to spend the night here, I would.
We’ve organized in different commission in order to efficiently
share the tasks and focus on a particular issues,
so there are several commissions; the democracy commission,
the constituant commission, the alternative labour law commission,
the climate and ecology commission.
If you’re interested in something, you gang up with likeminded people,
it can be 20, 30, 40 or close to 100 people for some commission,
and everyone can suggest ideas, if it's validated, then you do it.
The garden was validated 3 days ago, and we did it within 3 days.
The commission you chose in some ways determines the hierarchy
of your values, without saying one is more important than the other,
but if you join the Action commission, it means you don't
wanna be behind a computer at a media center all day, it's just different forms of activism
We try to promote the convergence of struggles,
and to stay vigilant in regards to police brutality,
to preserve the physical integrity of the activists while fucking the system up
What can the government do for us, Im homeless, I have no where to sleep,
nothing, but today I'm happy,
to me Hollande, all government, left wing or right wing, they're all the same,
we should put them in a basket and take them to the dumpsite.
We're looking for McDonald's' profits, has anyone seen them?
Sensibilizing people to the problems that we're tackling today
on the Republique Square, that goes to say for struggles to converge we start with
individual issues and synthesize them into one great movement
So concerning the refugees, I was told 'convergence of struggles',
so I thought: great, I know 50 guys sleeping outside,
I can find about 200 before the end of the week, or more, so yeah it's gonna be great.
Well, it didn't go all that well cause from midnight onwards people are drunk,
then people leave and the next morning, the refugees wake up with the police,
which they're pretty used too...
We need to give people some time cause first they'll party,
and once they've partied, they’ll try something else, it’ll be more constructive…
People take part in commissions, but it's maybe not enough yet,
you know what I mean, it's still is a lot of talk, but it's a good place to start.
Now we have a lot of newcomers at the Republique Square,
and that's great, but that also diluting the core, there are many people that don’t
seem to be on program regarding anti-capitalism, and if they become the majority,
and if the law passes, then that would would clearly suck.
On the question of the Right wing or the Left wing,
I hear lots of people say we're neither one nor the other,
we're apolitical and so on, while clearly we are the radical left,
and what does apolitical even mean? Nothing is apolitical.
You're not partisan if you do not subscribe to a party or an organisation,
if you do not take a stance for or against anythings, but you're not
apolitical because precisely you're fighting against a law that is political.
You’re trying to create a space for common living.
Neutrality doesn’t exist, you can’t be apolitical.
The space for the real left-wing discourse in the media is getting small,
that was also the point of the Republique Square,
to provide a space for serious left wing ideology and exchange
and not complete freedom of speech, where everyone is welcome.
We never said everyone's welcome, from the start it was clear
that we wouldn't tolerate certain ideas and Finkielkraut clearly fits
in the category of the discourses we won't tolerate here.
He has clearly islamophobic tendencies, and if you listen to him,
the dominate evil in France are ‘islamized suburbs’, it's ridiculous he thought
he would be welcomed here…
And people complain saying : «Oh my god, you chased him away »,
but of course we did, he's on TV and radio everyday,
saying absurdities, and you still want to listen to him? If you think
about it, 5 minutes of Finkielkraut are 5 minutes stolen from us.
It's not even a restriction of Free Speech, which I have issues with
but that's a different subject, you're just preventing people to speak at
a general assembly, in a given space. Freedom of speech is not the duty
to listen to all the people that talk bull-shit, that’s a different thing.
Nuit Debout we exclude no one, we're inclusive, but we'll always fight fascists.
There's something like an ideology of self-expression, they seem to think that
it’s through some sort of epiphany that something like organization or strength
will be achieved, and that 500 people speaking one after the other on a stage
is all you need to end capitalism, as if it was enough in itself.
People say 'yeah Nuit Debout hasn't done much,’ there have been 30 days of general assembly,
not a single thing has been decided, it's really absurd, 30 days !
Nothing came out of it but people still say it's a great thing.
Ultimately, what happened at Nuit Debout, is simply that
the Republique Square was used as a square; people meet from 5 pm after their work,
and they argue until 11 pm, at which point they go home,
but that’s just the normal use of a square in any country that isn't France, in any city
that isn’t Paris, in any society where individuals haven’t been atomized to this extent...
People come together to talk, but it's a bit like TV, you come and go
without really taking part, you can sit, leave, have a beer, listen for two minutes
and flick. It's always flicking, there is no common thread,you can follow parts of it,
so, as a place for expression it's great but it really isn't a place to meet, it's very massified,
the way you speak is formatted by the mass in the audience...
A lot of slogans, a lot of hashtags, but in the end there's a lot of loneliness,
a lot of atomization, in fact Nuit Debout did not manage to overcome the
loneliness of its participants. It’s loneliness that pushes people to come to Nuit Debout
and that's what's good; that people still chose to come to a square with 3000 people
rather than to stay at home, but this solitude isn’t overcome by people coming out to say
'it's terrible, Im alone', it's surpassed by people sharing practices on the square,
elementary practices like making fire, building a shelter, playing football, dancing, partying,
confronting the police...
The general assemby did not set clear political goals for itself, it’s still in a
structural blur, in the absence of real decisionary power, it votes stuff
but doesn't give itself the means to carry out the corresponding tasks,
However, real political actions are organized in small groups, and those small groups
are made by the trust we build between each other and with the time that we share together.
Nuit Debout also has this function.
It helps re-engage a discussion among us, among activist that don't know each
other or than through unions and pseudo-revolutionary parties such as
the NPA or the likes, it gives us the opportunity to exchange in new settings.
I have resigned from all my mandates because of a disagreements
with my union during the last month long strike at Radio France,
Why ? Because it abandoned the revolutionary ideal, internationalism and class struggle,
to speak bluntly and vulgarly in our day an age.
Today they're a bit disconnected from real struggles, from today's potential for struggle,
It was painful with the CGT’s group of steel and railroader workers,
on that evening I swore I'Id never give out leaflets again.
All the protest was like ‘Hey Nuit Debout, can't we do it
laying down, how do I find you, at yours at mine ?'
On the labour law, it's as if they were forced, to call to protest faced
with citizen anger, but they didn't seem eager.
'Work = Goulag with AC'
A lot of the interesting initiative that were launched at Nuit Debout emerged in its periphery,
I'm thinking of the unauthorized protests to help the migrants at ‘Stalingrad’,
or to try and free comrades taken to the police station after protests,
or the apéritif at Valls’s where 3000 people went on a night protest from the square,
the cops kettled part of the protestors in Rue Keller, obviously this got people pretty angry.
On their way back to Republique, there was around a thousand people
protesting through the streets and all the banks, all the employment agencies,
all the real estate agencies were smashed, and the protestors were shouting
'everyone hates bankers', and people were applauding those breaking the banks.
There was also this incredible concert: 'Orchestre Debout': 300 musicians answered
a Facebook event and came to play. It was Great.
If the the movement has difficulties confronting its antagonism with the police,
although it's obvious for a social movement to come into conflict with the police,
it's because it has difficulties confronting the internal conflicts within the movement
between different subjectivities, different types of actions and practices, different types
of relationships to space, the body, time, alcohol, life, joy, dance, music, etc..
Between those who want to destitute, those that want to constitute,
those that want a new republic, those that want an insurrection,
those that want a confederation of communes, those that want the Z.A.D. everywhere,
those that want the same thing as now but with less police brutality etc.
Breaking up banks and throwing a stones on cops doesn't come close
to the system's level of violence, and if some answer to institutional and capitalist violence,
in that way, we're in no right to judge that, whether this act is pertinent or not is
another debate, one can chose to think it isn’t, but that is another topic.
The people who say 'we need to exclude those who throw stones on the cops',
in my opinion are wrong because we're all in the same boat, we all get screwed by our boss’s,
we all getting screwed by capitalism, by the necessity to pay the rent at the end of the month,
and that's much more violence than degrading a bank.
My back ins’t strong enough anymore, but if I could have in my backpack,
a few pétanque balls, (I love playing pétanque), I'd throw them on a few banks, I swear,
I don't do it, but I just might one of these days, so I’ll never condemn those who do.
It's part of the elementary practices of of men and woman organizing together,
it's part of an elementary political lexicon, In fact, to this, people want to substitute
a new political lexicon about moving your hands in the air or to turn the other cheek.
They break lives, what’s a broken window compared to a broken life?
Since the beginning, our limit was physical violence we don't put people’s lives in danger,
we don't call to harm policemen, then people do what they want.
Among the inconveniences of being a cop is getting hit a few times,
but they're the ones usually hitting people so I won't say it spoils protests.
How could you imagine that big owners, financial groups and the government
wouldn’t defend themselves, the proof is that they won't even tolerate a canteen,
they throw the food that people make in the gutter, while there are people who are starving
that come to Republic to find food.
A real convergence of struggles in the movement undoubtedly occurs,
but it occurs at the front of the protests, where you have goodyears (fired workers),
suburban youth, high school students from eastern Paris, autonomists, normal peeps,
citizen with ‘Melenchon’ stickers, etc., nurses in struggle, psychiatric workers,
that all find themselves at the front facing the police, that's just a fact, that's what happened,
so you don't need to call for a convergence of struggles, it happens, you simply
need to accept it where it happens, and not where you wish it would happen, and start from there.
Do I think Nuit Debout will intensify, yes, if not on the Republique Square,
it will amplify in other ways unfortunately, because if you take away platforms for change,
the status quo rigidifies, and the more it rigidifies, the more it’ll have to
face persistent threats
We should expose police brutality, and the fact that comrades get their noses
broken by shots of flashball, or that they were blinded in one eye at a protest last week,
we don't hear or speak about it enough because we think it's gonna scare people
and they won't wanna come back to Nuit Debout, but the thing is, the struggle isn't carried
out by the idiot in his 5 bedroom flat who comes down to Nuit Debout
because it's cool, and there's is a good atmosphere, they're not
the ones who carry out the struggle, they're coming because there's an event in their street.
People love to say : 'Yeah the Arab Spring was really great,
it was beautiful all those peeps on a square …'.
Before people got together on Tahrir in Egypt, they lit 70% of the police stations on fire,
after a three day protest that destituted Moubakarak,
his party's office was burnt, and it wasn't just an office,
it was an entire building on Tahrir Square. What i’m trying to say is that these practices
come logically; in the North of Tunisia, all of the police stations were lit on fire too.
Police brutality existed before, it just got a little worst in the city centers,
they just started doing what they were doing when they weren't filmed in the suburbs,
now they just do it in front of everyone, they don't give a fuck anymore.
Also as they're always mobilized they're worn out, the riot cops and the police,
so we can say that if it goes bad, it's gonna be even more complicated for them.
But if there hadn't been this state violence, we would still have very cute movement,
if planting leeks is political, for some people, maybe they'll understanding that burning
symbols of capital is also political.
We need to be ready when shit gets rough, you need to have your helmet and gas mask with you,
It's almost a good sign when things get rough, it's always a question of defining our objectives,
if our objective is to have an ‘happening’ on the Republique Square,
then yeah it's not cool that we get maced, if our objective is to topple the governement,
that's another story, and it's a good sign if they beat us, it means we're disturbing.
Nuit Debout hasn't surprised us, that's because, when it comes to social movements,
things take time, what is certain is that if we do nothing, nothing will change,
but being critical is necessary and we hope constructive.
As I’m from the suburbs, and I've worked with NGO’s in poor neighborhoods,
I have a bit of a network there and the first few days of Nuit Debout
people prompted me to bring them which, to this day, I haven't done,
because I'm committing on a personal level to all of this, but I don't want
to engage other people to come under the pretext that we are from similar social backgrounds,
in order to legitimate this struggle I won't embark them into something about which
I still do not know all the ins and outs of.
Im just gonna take one example that occurred several time, with people
with who I shared political opinions and struggles with, who discovered I was muslim
and asked me absurd questions like "How come you don't wear a scarf?
Are you not married ? Can you go out ?" etc.
Is the aim to reach the suburbs ? Or is it to give a signal to the suburbs that it's possible,
I believe it's up to the suburbs to self-organize, we're not gonna do yuppy neocolonialism
and explain to them what they should do.
We have to decolonize the french left.
What’s the bulk of [Nuit Debout's] demands, it's the El Khomry labor law, it's not police crime,
it's not islamophobia, it's not negrophobia, it's not historical issues,
it isn’t even the North-South divide.
What you’re currently denouncing as your under-classing,
is what the suburbs have been living with forever.
A part of the French population is rising up, feeling that its social condition is threatened,
even though before the law there was police violence,
migrants dying by thousands in the seas due to the consequences of neocolonialism,
colonialism and before that of slavery. This is continuous process which explains
the current situation, yet, a movement like Nuit Debout didn’t materialized on those issues.
The spotlights aren’t directed at, I was gonna say a dark, I would rather say pale,
side of france’s history.
So we're used to saying they’re the two sides of the same coin,
Dr Jekil and Mr Hyde, the country of human rights and ‘Françafrique’,
the country of human rights and slavery,
So we're getting the impression that Nuit Debout,
from the outside and until proven wrong, is rising to defend certain forms of privilege.
We aren't gonna criticize yuppies for being yuppies and then criticize them when
they want to engage in a resistance movement, we need to be a bit serious, I prefer yuppies here
than on the terraces of cafés, and I know it's a bit harsh to say that they’re just yuppies,
the fact that people react in function of their interest, honestly,
when you're slightly materialist, is understandable.
We'll never have a majority on our side, we need to be ready to lead our struggle
within minorities, a convinced minority.
But we are not saying that it’s unnecessary to unite, to complete each other and collaborate,
what we're saying is that we don't have great ambitions in regards to Nuit Debout,
we won't try to convince the movement it should see things in other ways.
If at some point, they find that what we say makes sense,
and if they're up to try and think of an alternative,
we'll be up for it, but our aim isn’t to come as professors and say you're wrong and we're right.
However, in France, there is a pernicious taboo that forbids us from speaking about racial issues,
and instead we only speak of class while pretending that everything
explains itself through class, and that’s where there's some kind of a confusion between
Remy Fraisse and Zied et Bouna (victims of police violence),
because it's necessary by all means to have a good conscience at a discounted price.
The more white people are ready to invest themselves in our problematics,
the happier we'll be, we encourage white people to understand what we say, understand the struggle
of socially racialised people, understand the notion of white political choices,
and the concept of ‘de-colonial majority’, understand the strategy that we are building,
understand that it's together that we'll get out of this.
but not on the same ground though, we need to end up converging,
we hope for alliances, while respecting the agendas,
the temporalities, the spaces and the autonomy of each other.
If we must collaborate, it will happen on fundamental issues, and not around ideals
that we are all together and equal, because we've suffered enough
from these democratic mascarades which justified the biggest crimes against humanity.
What type of people can bond on what kind of practices. Let's make a list and see.
Typically, defending yourself against the police can bring together a big part of the youth,
regardless of class differences, blocking the economy can bring together
parts of the youth and workers, squatting can bring together…
you see what I mean, it can bring together homeless people, migrants, activists, students.
Depending on whether you're at the top or at the bottom of the hill,
you won't have the same perspective on things.
Our perception is different, which doesn't mean that at some point it can't become complementary,
so we won't say that Nuit Debout is in the wrong and that we're on the right path,
we'll say that if we want to understand each other, we'll first have to debate together
and it is very necessary that no one feels entitled to speak on behalf of anyone else
I believe we're in a pre-fascist era, I believe it's a worrying moment
but that everything is possible, I don't feel it's an insurrectional moment,
I don't feel it, I hope I'm wrong, I hope something will come out of this,
I hope we'll have time to prepare for it, and when I say we, I mean in a wider sense
the small organizations that derive from immigration, the suburbs, those who struggle
against islamophobia police brutality, racism, lack of housing, prison conditions.
All in all, I hope we'll have the time to prepare ourselves to face a serious movement.
The convergence of struggle, isn’t about waiting for workers to come and see us
at the Republique Square, on the contrary, thats one of our errors;
I say the workers, but also the racialised and precarious.
What are our key words, is it anticapitalism? feminism? is it anti-imperialism?
is it social values that are non racist, non homophobic, non sexist etc.?
let us be clear, from then we'll be able to implement real strategies
on how to we bring them forth.
As soon as there will be many of us on the barricades, we'll witness
new relationships, ones of solidarity: ‘you can't pay your rent
because you're on the barricade, that's fine, 2000 of us will come help you out
and you won't get evicted.’
Even if the movement dies off, which will probably happen,
in the street, in Paris, around the labour law, we all know that the joy and the courage
which have been felt at all the protests or at the occupations, at celebrations,
this courage will not disappear, this courage won’t die off
just because of a survey claims that 75% of the French people
want a strong man to bring order back to the country, this courage has been conquered,
and that's already a victory.
Maybe first we need a defeat in order to do better next time,
maybe Nuit Debout is going to translate into a revolution
that will occur in one or two years, who cares, that's not the problem.
The situation is gonna get worse, and in some ways, it's because
it's gonna get worse that we'll be able to achieve something bigger,
it's really up to us, all those who call themselves the avant-guard,
the first among activists etc., for all of you,
take the right path because what follows depends on you.
Paris Stand-up , Rise-up !