No to the state of exception
The following statement is from
various trade unions, left political parties and civil liberties groups in
France.
Joint
Communiqué, Paris, November 8th, 2005. Confronted by a revolt born from
the accumulation of inequalities and discrimination in the “banlieues” (suburbs
of Paris) and the poor areas, the French government has just passed a new and
extremely serious threshold in the escalation of security measures. Even in May
1968, when the situation was a lot more dramatic, the public authorities did
not use the extreme measure of declaring a state of emergency. The proclamation
of the state of emergency is the answer to a revolt whose causes are profound
and well known even at the level of state repression.
Beyond the disastrous symbolic
message that is nourished by the reference to the war in Algeria, this is not
only a matter of declaring a ‘state of emergency’, which is close to the
adoption of a war logic. In fact, the government has consciously obscured the
range of its powers. The French law of April 3, 1955 authorises interdictions for
“all persons, trying to hinder, in any conceivable way, the action of the public
authorities”, and the confinement to their homes of “all persons (…) whose activity
turns out to be dangerous to security and public order”, the closing of “places
of reunion of all kind” and the prohibition of “gatherings apt to provoke or to
foster disorder.” The government even envisages police searches of homes at
night. It can, moreover, “take any kind of measures for assuring the control of
the press and of publications of any kind”, and transfer competence from ordinary
judges to military courts.
Stopping the violence and
re-establishing solidarities in the “banlieues” is a necessity. But does this
imply that they should be submitted to an exceptional legislation inherited
from the colonial period? We know too well where the well-known cycle leads
that ties provocation to repression, what results it has, and which ones it
makes impossible to achieve. The suburbs do not need a state of exception: they
desperately need justice, respect, and equality.
Signatories:
Citizens’
Alternative, ATMF, CEDETIM, Committee of the homeless, CRLDHT, Fédération syndicale unitaire (FSU), Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR),
Ligue des droits de l’Homme, MRAP, Parti communiste français (PCF), Trade union
of lawyers in France, Trade union of judges, Trade union Solidaires, the
Greens.
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