From A World to Win News Service:
Marches and clashes in France follow death of environmental activist
November 3, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
27 October 2014. A World to Win News Service. The death of a young university student during a pro-environment demonstration has led to angry demonstrations and confrontations with the authorities in almost 10 cities in France.
Rémi Fraisse was found dead in the early morning hours of 26 October after hundreds of gendarmes (national police) charged several thousand demonstrators at the site of a proposed dam across a small river valley in Sivens, in southwestern France. Just before they charged out from behind the wire fencing where they had massed, the gendarmes fired a barrage of tear gas, concussion grenades, and rubber bullets at the protesters. An official autopsy the next day revealed that Fraisse died of an intense burn on his upper back due to an "explosion," according to the newspaper Le Monde. The force of the explosion knocked him forward onto the ground, where a pool of blood could be seen the following day.
The death of a young university student during a pro-environment demonstration led to angry demonstrations and confrontations with the authorities in almost 10 cities in France. AP photo
Ecology activists oppose the Sivens project because it would destroy forests and especially wetlands that are home to 94 protected species, to the benefit of a small number of capital-intensive farm operations. Several hundred police have been stationed on the site since the beginning of September. Proclaiming it a "zone a defendre" ("area to be defended"), protesters set up their hammocks in tree-tops and buried themselves in the forest to stop the advance of wood-clearing crews bearing chainsaws. As the trees steadily fell, some protesters went on hunger strike.
The afternoon after Fraisse's death, about 500 people rallied in the nearby town of Gaillac. A large banner said, "In homage to Remi, killed for defending nature." French flags were burned, and some youths clashed with police and rubbished banks and other business establishments.
On 27 October, actions took place in about 10 French cities. In the southwestern city of Albi, a march of several hundred people ended in a tear gas attack. In Rennes, 200 gathered in front of a police station chanting, "The police are killers" and "We call for revolt." In Rouen, hundreds cried, "The state kills, Remi died for his convictions, don't forget, don't forgive." Other protests were held in Toulouse, Strasbourg, Chambery, and Paris.
One of the biggest protests was in Nantes, where 600 marched, according to Le Monde. Nantes is near Notre Dame des Lands, a rural area where ecology activists, small farmers, youths identifying themselves as "anti-capitalist," and anarchists have been waging a long struggle against the construction of a new national airport with potentially grave environmental consequences. It was there that the "zone a defendre" occupation tactic was developed. Many observers are now connecting Sivens and Notre Dame des Landes as emblematic of resistance to the further devastation of the country's woodlands and small farms for giant profit-driven, state-run infrastructure projects.
Some people called the massive presence of the gendarmes in Sivens a state provocation, since now that the trees are all gone, the bulldozers have not yet been brought in and there is nothing for the forces of "order" to "protect" but the soil waiting to be leveled. The police attack was meant as a political message, activists argue, according to the reporterre.net website. An expert report is said to conclude that the dam project was ill-advised, but now it is too late to save the valley and construction might as well go ahead. While ministers in France's governing Socialist Party criticize the youth for not respecting the law and legal channels, the authorities seem to have been in a big hurry to settle the issue "on the ground" – with construction equipment and the repressive apparatus – before the challenge to their legitimacy could spread.
A World to Win News Service is put out by A World to Win magazine, a political and theoretical review inspired by the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embryonic center of the world's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations.
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.