WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE IN VICHY (FRANCE) ON THE 3RD OF NOVEMBER 2008


On the 3rd and 4th of November, The french presidency of the European Union sets up a summit of all 27 european ministers of Justice and Interior on the initiative of the french minister of “Immigration, Integration, and National Identity”, Brice Hortefeux. They will provocatively gather in Vichy, the ex-capital of fascist France during World War II. There, they will solemnly discuss about the “integration” of migrant workers and the application of the famous "directive retour". We can easily imagine with what kind of heavy laugh the idea of such a provocation was born in the head of a minister – Brice Hortefeux - who is everywhere caricatured as a little nazi. Ha Ha Ha.

Here are some of the reasons why we will be in the street, in Vichy, on the 3rd of November, and why we have to be there by thousands, determined to block the summit :

1. In a time when “illegal migrants” answer to the chase they endure by setting fire to detention centers in several european countries – in France as well as in Belgium -, it is the minimal task of those who take side for them to spoil the ministers’ rally.

2. Some symbolical provocations, left without answer, pave the way for further practical defeats. They are made to demoralize those who struggle. They disarm preventively any counter-attack by making seem normal what is unbearable.

3. Through systematic provocation, the actual government intends to drive its opponents into indignation, and thus isolate them. For no one wants to join the cattle of those who just get indignant: indignation is the outcry of the disempowered, and no sound person would desire disempowerment.

4. The "directive retour" is not a "shameful directive", it’s a directive of bastard and bastards are not ashamed in these days, to the contrary they are rather proud of themselves. Bastardship is not a shame : it is to be destroyed. Any reference to morals, here, only means denying the necessity to fight.

5. When Brice Hortefeux pursues in court SOS-Sans-papiers and wants to blame the "terrorists" of RESF – Réseau Education Sans Frontière, a network of support of “illegal migrants” - for the moral responsibility of the arson against the detention center of Vincennes, when one tries to intimidate us, it is precisely then that we must give in the street a demonstration of our strength. This government does not understand any other langage. It will go on wrecking any kind of antagonism as long as antagonists will remain shy in their method .

6. Here in France, everyone feels that we cannot let this happen. But setting up a meeting about migration in Vichy is such a baffling provocation that it becomes frightful. Now is the moment to leave all fear aside, or it will drown us.

7. A mere after-lunch demo on the Sunday would not be an answer up to the provocation. It would be a demonstration of weakness. What is needed is to physically disrupt the summit, to reclaim the city on the 3rd of November, to block its access, to interrupt the “normal life” of Vichy until the occupants go away. We can count on the fact that scenes of brutal repression in Vichy would be such a bad advertisement for our so « democratic » government.

8. Since ten years that there are counter-summits and thousands of people from France and from elsewhere have learnt from them, time has come to put in practice the tactics we have experienced, those of which we know they work, in a national context of struggle.

Let’s organise public meetings on this summit in our cities, hire buses to go to Vichy en masse and spread information among our comrades, in our networks, our organisations, all over europe.


SEE YOU IN VICHY ON THE 3rd OF NOVEMBER AT 6:00 pm!
Meeting point : 5:00 pm in front of the Lycée Albert Londres.

(time is short, but the force is with us.)