From Calais: our comrade Marie-Noelle, we will remember you in action

Our comrade Marie-Noelle Gues, who also used the name Zetkin, died of cancer early in the morning of Saturday 17 September. Marie-Noelle was the original "No Border" of Calais. For some years before the Calais No Border camp of 2009, she fought alone here, patrolling the streets with just her camera and her enormous courage, intervening single-handedly against the police attacks on migrants, documenting and exposing their dirty work, rupturing the invisibility and apathy on which repression feeds. Neither the countless trials and sentences of the French state, nor the harassment she received from local flics (cops), nor the death threats from fascist scum, did anything to halt her momentum and energy. Out on the streets, in the squats and jungles of Calais, filming, writing, arguing (e.g., against any moves which she saw as diluting the political struggle in Calais with "humanitarian" work), shouting ("Petain! Revient! T'as oublié tes chiens!"), singing ("shit, it's hard to find new rhymes for Sarkozy"), inspiring so many.

Here is a personal memory of Marie-Noelle from one comrade:

"I struggle to even use the past tense.

"Independent and fearless, Marie-Noelle was a great role model to activists. She knew that to truly realise a more just society, you're going to upset those an interest in the status quo. Yet she was never afraid to do this; police officers, government officials, and charity workers, who were content to maintain their own privilege rather than confront the flagrant injustice of border controls; she never shyed away from speaking her mind.

"When I first went to in Calais in July 2009, I was amazed to find what seemed to be a kind of one woman FITwatch. Marie-Noelle would regularly go out by herself to the old Pashtun jungle at night, which was then a much more intimidating environment. She would chat to people, and confront and photograph the police when they raided.

"In spite of the intimidating climate, this small-framed woman with a huge personality fearlessly confronted the authorities, often alone; something that led to continued police harassment and court cases. Her prizing of justice over public perception is certainly something more people could learn from.

"Yet she was also a great role model to women. She had the courage to enter and fight in an incredibly patriarchal environment; male refugees, held in higher esteem than their female compatriots - and therefore selected over their women to make the journey to Europe; the male mafia, exerting their influence over the area for even more power and money; the male CRS (French riot cops), using threats and violence to protect a patriarchal state; and more recently, violent male fascists who sent her death threats.

"Like Clara Zetkin and other Communists who inspired her, Marie-Noelle gave me strength to confront the authorities when I first started out in Calais. Let the spirit of resistance live on in her memory."

Marie-Noelle herself described her work on the streets like this: "it's important to be able to show that I am always here. And when they do something I want to be present. I want to give them this fear." (C'est important d'être capable de montrer qu'on peut être toujours là et qu'on peut être présent quand ils font quelque chose. C'est cette peur la que je veux leur donner." MN speaking in the film "L'Exil et Le Royaume".)

She also regularly reported on police and official activity in Calais, using Lille Indymedia and her personal blog ( http://passworld.over-blog.net/). Marie's nom de guerre Zetkin was a homage to the german communist and feminist Clara Zetkin ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Clara_Zetkin). The last blogpost from 15 August once again compares the repression in Calais in 2011 to the deportations of 1942, condemning not only police but the "collabos" (collaborators) working for the SNCF (national railway) who inform on migrants at the train station. Marie was clearly totally undeterred by a recent court case in which she was (for the nth time, we have lost count) convicted of "outrage" or insulting state officials, this time for calling them "collabos".

Here are some of her videos:  http://www.dailymotion.com/zetkin#videoId=xk6dxy You can see her here in action, filming alone, in full "outrageous" flow against the cops.

Here in Calais we remember Marie as our friend, comrade, and inspiration. We have been singing the "Chant de Partisans": "Amie, si tu tombes, une amie sort de l'ombre à ta place". "Friend, if you fall, a friend will come from the shadows to take your place". Comrades from all over Europe have been sending messages remembering and celebrating Marie. We call on all friends and comrades of Marie-Noelle to celebrate her in action.

Some of No Borders, Calais.