Statement of the Provisional Organizing Committee (Europe)
World People's Resistance Movement

Over the last 2 weeks a massive revolt has been shaken French society to its very foundations. This rebellion by mainly working class minority youth began on October 27 in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois when a group of young men returning home after an afternoon playing football were accosted by a carload of police - the infamous BAC, a special unit which prides itself on its reputation for harassing and brutalising immigrants and youth. As they fled the threat of police assault 3 of them tried to hide in an electrical power substation. Although the police knew the 3 were in mortal danger, it took an hour before the power was turned off and fireman arrived to rescue them. By that time two of them were dead and the third was severely injured. As word of the 2 youths' deaths spread, groups of others began setting trash bins and cars on fire and throwing rocks at the police. The following night similar actions took place in Clichy and neighbouring towns.

In the days that followed French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy publicly called the youth of the cités (the suburban housing projects) racaille, rabble or low-class scum against whom he had already promised to "wage a war without mercy" to "clean them out". These remarks by a leading hard-line reactionary government official were taken by youth across the country, and many others as well, as a direct challenge. Shortly after that, on 31 October, the police under his command fired a tear gas grenade into a mosque crowded with worshippers celebrating an important night of Ramadan, the Moslem holy month. This was too much, and instead of dying out the rebellion swept across the entire country. Night for night hundreds of cars, along with police stations, government offices and other symbols of the system where attacked and burned. An entire generation of those at the very bottom of society, those for whom the system holds no future - or even the phoney promise of a future - had shattered the façade of business-as-usual with an uncompromisingly radical rebellion not seen for decades in France.

The authorities have tried in vain to find some person, organization or force that is "behind the trouble". It is the "gangsters", "fundamentalists", "drug dealers" - someone or something must be held accountable. That is, everything or anything but that which is truly the cause: their capitalist/imperialist system. Hundreds of years of colonial exploitation followed by decades of neo-colonial imperialist domination have driven the parents of these youth from the world's poorest countries to the European Metropoles. When they can find jobs it is the lowest paying, most dangerous and dirty work that has been reserved for them. In France, almost 50% of these youth are among the tens of millions of people across all of Europe who have been cast aside because this system can no longer profitably employ them. They have been herded into France's suburban ghettos where they are subjected to racist discrimination, police abuse, exclusion from educational opportunity and innumerable forms of official contempt and disrespect. Now they are saying ENOUGH!

It serves no purpose and is beside the point to dwell on the "imperfections" of their rebellion. This is a spontaneous revolt of those at the very bottom who have taken the stage of history even though they have not yet had the opportunity to fully develop their political understanding, establish their political leadership and define a strategic course. Of course they are making some mistakes and of course the cars parked on the streets of the cités and not the true enemy. But as one youth remarked, "We burn cars, monsieur, because cars are what burn best." It is their way - for now - of showing this system and those who run it that they do not intend to abide by the rules nor allow their voices to silenced. So far thousands of police backed up by water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas have not been able to enforce such a silence. However things develop from here their rebellion has already become an action of historic proportion. It has revealed for all the world to see the just how fragile the "social peace" in Western Europe actually is, and when unleashed, just how powerful the volcanic forces of change from below really are.

We call on everyone who sees the injustice and inequality on which the current system and society have been built; everyone who yearns for a another world, a world free of all forms of exploitation and oppression to join with the WPRM at this crucial juncture in saying: We Stand With The Rebels!

North, South, East and West: Unite the Peoples' Struggles!
Provisional Organizing Committee (Europe)
World People's Resistance Movement
(November 2005)

Contact: wprm@wprm.org WWW.WPRM.ORG