It didn’t take long to understand, that the state of emergency, imposed for three months would not limit itself to protection the people of france from another terrorist attack.
This week-end in a big part of the City Sens (Yonne) a curfew was enforced without clear connection to the attacks. It was the search of one apartment the residents hadn’t been informed of, that justified the collective punishment.
Of the 1072 nightly searches, less than one in ten resulted in arrest. In Nice a six year-old girl was injured during a police operation : The intervening police officers had kicked in the door in the middle of the night. Sunday in Loire-Atlantique, a caravan of 200 bikes accompanied by 5 tractors was blocked by police forces. Their aim was to prevent them from coming to Paris for the COP21.
During this time, the government ruthlessly takes up measures formerly attributed to the far right political spectrum. The news are assuring : Polls confirm a great support amongst the french population for this state of emergency, unprecedented for 50 years.
That is a victory for Daesh, that with the actions of less than a dozen men made a government fall back into it’s most reactionary of reflexes. That is a victory for Daesh that has provoked the total surveillance of the entire population.
Sunday, 29th of November, a gigantic manifestation was scheduled in the streets of Paris to put the governments of the world, that do not care to find solutions for climate change under pressure.
There were hundreds, thousands of people expected from all over Europe. Manuel Valls, one of the leading voices in organising the COP21 was apprehensive of the demonstration from the beginning.
Now he has decided to put a ban on it under the pretense of it being a possible target for another attack. Yet, M. Valls does not mind putting the masses of people doing their Christmas shopping in danger. In any case, he brings out some big guns : Those, who attend the manifestation on Sunday may face 6 months in prison. M. Valls, will you put us in prison to protect us ?
The propositions we make are not easy to be made heard given the current circumstances. For two weeks on all screens the glory of the french “values” has been emphasised. They are our foundation, too. If there is anything like a french value, it has been the refusal to give up the streets to armed forces, now lasting two centuries. The mobilisation against the COP21 is a great effort and we do not accept the government’s instrumentalisation and manipulation of fear to take away our right to protest.
Sunday, November 29 we call to brave the stated of emergency and meet at Pace de la République, 14h.
