France: Nice, Prague, Seattle - one world, one battle!
Mathieu, Pouvoir Ouvrier

“It was like going ‘over the top’ in 1914 – full on charge through the gas into their lines”, as one of our comrades said.

I was one of 20 or so comrades of the LRCI from France, Germany and Britain who engaged the CRS repeatedly at the junction of Rue Barla and Ave de la Republique in central Nice on D7.

The CRS had set up barricades across all the side streets leading off Ave de la Republique down to the huge Acropolis where the heads of states and thousands of hangers-on were limbering up for their Euro-summit.

The CRS had been in position from the early hours of the morning and various well-dressed, lap-topped people with passes poured through the police lines from 0600.

The summit delegates had slept soundly in their four-star sea-front hotels along a two mile stretch of coast that was entirely sealed off by the police for the duration of the summit.

Meanwhile, two thousand anti-capitalist activists from all over Europe were waking up back at the Convergence centre (salle Leyritte) less than a mile away in a huge sports hall near place San Roche.

The anti-capitalist youth from Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Slovenia, Sardinia, Hungary, Poland, Greece and beyond were up early too, after a lively night of discussion and debate and even a little sleep (two thousands of us, head-to-toe) at the Convergence centre.

We assembled outside and marched to the local railway station where we were greeted by hundreds more anti-capitalists. Many of us were veterans of Prague, and all of us were inspired by the battle of Seattle.

There were a thousand or so from Attac, the French-based campaign for a tax on financial speculation. There were hundreds from the French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and similar number from the ISO groups mainly from the UK (SWP), Spain, Greece, France and Germany. Several hundred Basque nationalist and Spanish activists came from the anarcho-syndicalists of the CGT.

These and of course the LRCI made up the self-organised blocs, and there were as many again from small local groups and many independent activitists.

From the station we headed north to the ave de la Republique united as one, agreed on a common plan to hit the police lines at three separate barricades along the Republique.

We joined with the LCR maybe 1000 others to take the rue Barla. Attac led the line at rue Smollet, while the ISO and the Basque nationalists formed the bulk at a third junction.

We lined up maybe 50 metres from the CRS line on rue Barla. The first two ranks of 20 across were made up of veteran LCR “service d‘ordre” – responsible defenders of demonstrations and experienced street fighters. The LRCI formed the tightly knit third rank and behind us came many more.

A glance ahead at the CRS and we could see that they did not have the numbers to physically defend their position from a sustained and serious charge. The half dozen CRS behind their front line gave us a clue to their tactics: tear gas and pepper gas volleys would be their first not last resort with the aim of dispersing us.

We grouped and tightened our ranks. Then we all leapt up and down as one and the chant rang out – “Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble! Oui! Oui!”

We started to advance cautiously and then became more bold. Ten metres away the first loud explosions rang out over our heads. Volley after volley of tear gas canisters burst, enveloping us in the poisonous gas. We were forced into retreat, coughing and retching, sore-eyed. We regrouped and charged again, were again repulsed.

Finally, we regrouped further back down rue Barla as the street was thick with gas. Up went the chant: “Police nationale, police du capital”.

By now several dozen residents were out on their balconies, cheering us on, and throwing down water, several even handed down lemons and saline to relieve our eyes.

By now the ISO comrades had been repulsed from their positions and joined the back of our contingent. The police decided to attack with gas again before we marched forward. But this time the service d’ordre had a surprise for them.

As the volleys exploded above us, we charged as one group through the clouds and at the barricades.

We finally got to push the barricades and come to blows with the CRS for a minute or so. But then many of us got pepper gas and long exposure to the tear gas; finally we had to retreat and every street corner down rue Barla was full of retching and doubled-up militants.

We had done our best. Maybe if we had decided on one point of attack from the first we could have got through their ranks, several dozen with gas masks and made a symbolic point. We could never have hoped to hold such a position but we would have made our mark better.

As it was we did well. Only a ring of steel and 15,000 CRS could protect the bosses’ politicians as they went about their business in making themselves and their decisions over our lives even more unaccountable than now, liquidating our social gains and giving free run to the rule of multinational corporations.

“Nice, Prague, Seattle – one world, one battle”

We regrouped one more time and as the service d’ordre protected our backs from a possible police charge on our rear. We assembled all the forces from the three blocs and headed off for a demonstration around the centres of old and new Nice and a short rally before heading back to the Convergence centre.

It was at this point that the anarchos decided to smash the car showrooms windows and trash BNP banks fronts and even phone kiosks – all pointless stuff which just gave the media an excuse to ignore focus the main event and the collective political character of today’s and yesterday’s mass protest of trade unionists.

When the demo got back to the convergence centre (or should that divergence centre?), Spanish anarchists and French members of the SCALP anti-fascist group decided that the last thing anyone should do was to argue, discuss or plan.

They simply wanted to act, so about 40 of them simply wrecked the meeting that began in the hall. French LCR Euro-deputy Alain Krivine was howled down and anarchist speakers then proceeded to grab the microphone while their comrades on the floor started shouting and agitating for people to immediately leave the hall and storm a nearby police station where a demonstrator was allegedly being held.

A "vote" was called and they all marched out. The unorganised demonstrators were met by water cannon, more tear gas and repeated police charges, and were chased back into the hall, which the riot police proceeded to fill with tear-gas.

More disorganised - and hence ineffective - street fighting took place. Eventually the air cleared and in the afternoon the meeting began again, whereup the same thing happened again and people were called to go and attack a Front National demonstration.

Whatever the understandable frustation of the young anarchist militants who wanted to get to the conference centre, the lesson of the day was clear: disorganised street fighting and shop-burning will get us nowhere. Organised, well-defended and well-planned demonstrations can taken on the police and can win.

But to do that, the movement needs to democratically discuss and decide what it wants to do. Some of the anarchists present were clearly determined that that should not happen.

As for the bigger picture, summit-hopping is great for sure. And many of the activists were already planning for Barcelona next summer, or Gottenburg next June were the next big EU summit takes place. We must always be where they are.

D6 and D7 showed the same split in the global anti-capitalist movement that we have seen before: on D6 we saw 80,000 working class trade unionists from Europe in Nice for the day to press for reforms on the EU. The next day they were largely gone, the bureaucrats spiriting the workers away from the influence of the anti-capitalist minority.
The 6-7,000 conscious anti-capitalists – whether socialist or anarchist – were young mainly working class but for the most part not oriented to the organised labour movements.

This is our great weakness, and we have to find ways to overcome this divide – to unite D6 and D7, shaking off the bureaucrats and uniting the power of the massive working class movement with the radicalism of the anticapitalists.

We’ve got to turn the anti-globalisation movement to the working class and make the working class movement anti-capitalist. Then we will be unstoppable – 15000 CRS would be no match for us then!

So where are we hopping off to next? There are many other meetings to disrupt, but we should also look to a new show of strength. Since Seattle there have been hundreds of mass working class strikes against IMF led programmes around the world.

We need to fuse this movement into one big global protest on 1 May next year. Lets go all out for mass strikes wherever possible and mass actions against global corporations, stock exchanges and IMF programmes. All out on 1 May 2001!

S26: World Revo PragueS26 special!

Dossier on Prague 2000

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