There is certainly a lot to be learnt from the movements that have been active and imaginative in France, Greece and Italy of late. It seems like something of that struggle has been witnessed now in the UK. Is it just the time for things suddenly make sense here and to move fast, sometimes tripping over ourselves? Is there a sense of picking up inspiration from abroad. It seems clear that the info overload circulating on the Internet has been partly responsible for some of the ideas and actions seen on 30th November - a determination to keep mobile and stay out of the kettles because we know that we can move faster than the cops when we take the streets back from the everyday boring flow of normality. That's the kind of normality that can legitimise that the cuts can just be part of the general need to deal with 'the deficit'. The deficit? We don't care about the deficit or their crisis. It only feeds our determination to resist the austerity plans.

But after the sense of freedom of running wild in the streets, there has to be some kind of moving on. We can't just run rings around the cops ever time we come out to demonstrate our refusal of the cuts. We eventually have to have a better and more organised idea that doesn't take us back to rallies, static demos, speeches from political hacks etc.

The occupations of universities have been a good attempt to take some space for some discussion and blockage of the education cuts. But they also sometimes seem to small, too disconnected from the street, too polite. What's the point of occupying a space if it has no overall effect on the functioning of the whole university? The fight for education is bigger than just education. The school kids seemed to have grasped this better than most occupying students.

Anyhow, maybe taking it too the next level has to be discussed, argued over, plotted on and planned. The fees vote on the 9th and the continuing days of action, the occupations, the tube workers strikes, these are all possible dates for upping the ante and staying one step ahead.

There is much to learn from abroad. With this in mind we bring this modest contribution to the debate - an excerpt from a statement read out at the General Assembly of students at the University of Rennes, France, 25 October 2010. Within this student assembly, debates and plans are discussed to make the struggles in the streets counts. This is not an isolated debate. The debate is France-wide, taking in students, school kids and workers. The plan at hand? To block the economy as the only effective weapon we hold:

“Nowadays, audacious experiments of the 2006 movement exist as the basic modes of militant actions in the struggle against the current government. In Rennes, the department stores are targeted in every demonstration. The Marseilles strikers paralyse the harbour and add to their city the beat of the movement. The train drivers are also on the front line, and the lorry drivers have joined the movement. We know that in order to win, we must be able to counteract the government strategies of waiting for the deterioration of the fightback and techniques of intimidation. This can particularly be seen in the increase in the police violence.

What is needed now is the spreading of the tactic – the economic blockade - to intensify the fightback with a means that is accessible to all and to disrupt them in a far more certain manner than the peaceful demonstrations and rallys which have absolutely no effect. Being ready to move quickly, of being able to gather as quickly as possible in one point to constitute a mass that can not be flushed out, as well as spreading to block the city at ten different places at the same time, this will be our tactic. The question of which are the priority targets for the blockade seems already solved: roads, train stations, department stores, distribution centres. Of interest are any blockades which contribute to the spreading of the situation. Let’s think about tourism which constitutes one of the main profitable economic sectors of the City fancy hotels and restaurants, big cultural shows, luxury stores – the list is endless.”


A wealth of info on the French example of the Economic Block can be found here:
 http://libcom.org/blog/france-cold-autumn-hots-19102010