WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE ANGERS News Journal Update - (en) France, 2nd UCL Congress - The intervention of libertarian communists in the social movements of working-class neighborhoods (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

(Angers, November 3-5, 2023) - During the revolts of November 2005, the
observation of the militant, social and political abandonment of cities
by far-left currents was more than blatant. On the occasion of the
revolts which took place in June 2023, we were able to note an
evolution, the fruit of the commitments of the intervening years
following the upheaval of 2005: Alternative libertaire then committed
itself to the creation of an anti-racist commission, and in 2010 passed
a text of reflection and intervention in working-class neighborhoods,
which we update here.

The struggles against police violence were monitored, as was the
commitment against Islamophobia, and analyzes of the role of
discrimination in the exploitation system were produced. Many
organizations have done the same, and in 2023 far-left organizations, up
to La France Insoumise, and the unions reacted immediately. This is
political progress. The Libertarian Communist Union must go further and
commit to building a social movement in working-class neighborhoods,
self-managing and without political compromise.

Working-class neighborhoods, in France as elsewhere in the world (from
simple working-class neighborhoods to ghettos or slums), have for
several decades been areas where different social injustices, and more
precisely the different relationships of domination that exist, are
concentrated. 'UCL is fighting.

If the specificities of social and racial domination are predominant,
all other relations of domination are found there more than elsewhere
and concentrated: firstly state police, judicial and prison oppression,
but also patriarchal oppression: women working-class neighborhoods are
poorer, exploited, victims of unemployment or violence, a situation
particularly affecting single mothers, suffer discrimination against
women wearing the headscarf, work in the most precarious feminized
professions such as cleaning, are affected by the double -pain of
patriarchy etc.

They are also often at the forefront of resistance. All the problems are
found there: unemployment, housing, undocumented immigrants, education
and public services... Working-class neighborhoods, often unsanitary,
are generally the most polluted urban areas and with the least provision
of care.

These urban spaces reflect UCL's analysis of the specificity and
interdependence of different relationships of domination (statist,
bourgeois and capitalist, racist and colonial, patriarchal, validist, etc.).

Investing strongly in the emergence of a broad neighborhood movement is
also one of the best avenues for the convergence of struggles. Often
immigrant populations, residents are sometimes more sensitive than the
rest of society to international issues and events, particularly during
events in countries where family or cultural ties are strong, or more
precisely against current forms of colonialism (example of the
demonstrations in 2002, 2009, 2014 and 2021 for Palestine, in 2017 in
solidarity with the strike movement in Guyana and in support of the LKP
in 2009, denunciation of Francafrique, etc.). A strong social movement
in neighborhoods offers more opportunities to mobilize on issues of
international solidarity than any other movements.

All these elements can be transformed into multiple struggles which
concern the whole of society but which are much more concentrated,
interdependent, in places of popular life.

For all these reasons, opening, in parallel with the workplace, a field
of intervention and struggles in working-class neighborhoods is
essential. Unions must commit to the specificity represented by
working-class neighborhoods and to taking into account the different
relationships of domination, both for the emergence of this neighborhood
social movement, and for the renewal of class struggle unionism ( for
example , high concentration of temporary workers in subcontracting
sectors, Uberized workers , etc.).

Their commitment against police violence is also vital to them, as
methods of police repression first develop in neighborhoods before being
applied to all social movements.

We can make the same social observation regarding rural and peri-urban
environments, differing territorially and sociologically but ultimately
subject to the same relations of domination, as the yellow vests have
somewhat revealed (medical desert, costs of living). Forms of
territorial and discriminatory relegations are realities but can only be
thought of in conjunction with those of class, gender and race.

Political experiences in the neighborhoods
In France, initiated by certain currents of the extreme left,
self-management, third world, libertarian in the 1970s, neighborhood
political work was anchored within working-class neighborhoods (creation
of the first Neighborhood Authority in Roubaix , ...). However, the
coming to power of the Union of the Left in the 1980s radically
transformed activist involvement in the neighborhoods. The measures
taken by delegating social ties to associations in 1901 led on the one
hand to a privatization of social ties but also to the transformation of
activist energies into the professionalization of social ties. This has
led to many perverse effects:

the dependence of associations on public authorities and their political
interests through subsidy blackmail ;
a need for rigorously productive management which has led to autocratic
excesses on the part of association boards and directors towards their
staff ;
In a period of increased unemployment, this sector employs a million
workers , most of them in precarious conditions. Militant activity has
therefore transformed into a source of mass employment for people
seeking a simple income and having at best a humanitarian awareness of
their action ; all this is very far from real class consciousness.
However, in other countries or continents, such as South America, the
practice of direct action has been present in neighborhoods for a number
of years and with results: the movements of the unemployed in Argentina
are popular neighborhood movements. The government left has also
silenced the emergence of a militant generation of immigrant origins, by
institutionalizing anti-racism through SOS Racisme in particular and by
locally practicing clientelism among the most active of this militant
generation.
In itself, the left of government, like the right following it, has only
applied the good old recipes previously practiced in the colonies.
Should this militant abandonment be described as "  desert  " ?

Despite everything, a certain number of activists remain present in
these neighborhoods, often employees of the public service or social
link associations, but also residents . Several initiatives have existed
or continue to exist, for example: the Immigration and Suburbs Movement
or the Motivés in Toulouse in the 1990s-2000s, the United Front of
Immigration and Working-class Neighborhoods and the Network of 'Mutual
Aid Justice and Truth, which brings together Truth and Justice
collectives such as Adama or Lamine Dieng in the 2010s or Stolen Lives
and Le Front de Mères more recently, etc.

Other experiences have failed to put in place a real policy for the
neighborhoods, or have betrayed and compromised themselves or been
crushed by the State. The results of 40 years of the first march for
equality and against racism are a good reminder of the risks linked to
these pitfalls. The UCL activists involved in this dynamic remain
vigilant regarding the relationships of institutionalization or
electoral tendencies as well as vital trans-struggle solidarity which
have marked the failures of the past.

It is not only the PS, PCF, LFI and associations with an electoral turn
in working-class neighborhoods: on the right the influence of
reactionary, communitarian, religious fundamentalist or xenophobic
political groups is growing there on the despair and absence of concrete
and specific responses to neighborhoods from progressive currents.

The right has always attempted a liberal political and ideological
offensive in its direction through associations helping with business
creation, promoting effort and merit. For these reasons, the libertarian
movement must support the emergence of a social movement in democratic
and self-managing neighborhoods, under the control of the residents
themselves . Any error due to sectarianism or a form of paternalism
would be deplorable and would cause disillusionment among residents.

Nature of working-class neighborhoods
The neighborhood itself is not only a place to live, it brings together
a population that is highly discriminated against racially and socially.
This fact has been accentuated since the flight of the middle classes
and civil servants who previously shared this place of life. There are
poor workers, some precarious students, several single-parent families,
the unemployed... Anti - capitalist activists must start from this
reality to rebuild a collective identity of the proletariat, which would
include the most marginalized categories, without this being created to
the detriment of other identities.

Today we can identify two types of working-class neighborhoods:

The first being interior neighborhoods of large cities in which the
social mix between a precarious population of immigrant origin and the
presence of stable layers of employees share housing and public space in
an unequal process of gentrification, where increases in Rents
increasingly alienate low-income families. As an example, we can cite
the 19th and 20th arrondissements of Paris but also part of the inner
suburbs such as Montreuil.
The second, sociologically, relate to the large concrete complexes built
on the outskirts of large cities in the 1960s and 70s. We think of the
large terminal in Grigny, Courcouronnes, the 3000 in la Courneuve,
Vaulx-en-Velin or the Mirail in Toulouse (even if the latter is
considered intramural) as well as Chanteloup-les-Vignes (whose buildings
do not exceed four storeys). If the height of the buildings is not a
criterion for us, it is above all the ghettoization which has taken
place in these habitats, which concerns us.
The front of gentrification also affects them, and very often, as with
Greater Paris, fierce police repression takes place in these
neighborhoods in order to "  clean up  " them for future , wealthier
residents .

Making sense of neighborhood dynamics
The convergence seems obvious between the different social struggles
which can and are usually carried out.

It does not seem possible to hope to intervene constructively in
neighborhoods where the UCL is not at least established. Indeed, it is
up to people concretely experiencing oppression to organize against it,
and UCL activists are not above this basic principle.

An intervention in the neighborhoods aims for the neighborhoods to equip
themselves with counter-powers in order to build power relationships. In
this sense, our intervention must be done through three means:

an intervention in the neighborhood social movement. It seems important
to favor, wherever possible, intervention in associations independent of
public authorities. We think in particular of spaces like Verdragon in
Bagnolet. Direct political intervention, as UCL possibly in conjunction
with other organizations:
the implementation of counter-information tools (newspapers, bulletins,
radio broadcasts, social networks, etc.) is a first option. An
intervention against municipal policy, whether in terms of housing or
security for example, is a second ;
finally via the construction of concrete solidarity, such as support
against the judicial machine currently following the repression of
revolts, or against the high cost of living through food collections for
example.
The UCL must not entrust this work to a commission or a working group,
but on the contrary ensure that each commission, working group and local
group takes up the question of working-class neighborhoods,
understanding that all dominations and fields of struggle concern them,
given that we see there a primary ground for class struggle, and the
convergence of struggles is being constructed (which does not prevent it
from being constructed in other spaces).

However, as soon as possible, UCL should think about:

identify the interventions of UCL activists in the neighborhoods,
produce regular summaries of them ,
detail the "  practical  " side of these interventions, in order to
summarize the difficulties or successes encountered by the activists ,
periodically organize meetings between people involved in this field,
give external visibility to this intervention, in particular through
newspaper articles, based on the intervention of UCL activists ,
advance UCL's thinking on this type of intervention through Federal
Coordination and Congress debates.
Sustaining action in neighborhoods can also be achieved through the
creation of neighborhood committees independent of institutions. The
presence of neighborhood employees is also one of the successes of a
neighborhood committee because it must break the antagonism desired by
the public authorities and affirm solidarity with the residents.

Among the national strategies, the UCL will have to push for the
creation of local networks, and a national collective, a sort of LKP
[1]of the neighborhoods, where neighborhood associations (local as well
as national), of the unemployed would be present · workers and
precarious workers, anti-racist associations, support committees against
police violence, feminist neighborhood associations, immigration,
housing and support for undocumented immigrants, international
solidarity and unions. This national collective will call for
mobilizations, make demands, enable future struggles, and mobilize
residents.

Their autonomous expression passes through direct democracy and must not
be swallowed up by the neighborhood councils emanating from the Town
Halls, which determine the issues and the timetable, in the name of a
participatory democracy with dubious purposes. The popular assembly is
historically the expression of direct democracy which meets in the Agora.

To validate

[1] The Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon, or abbreviated to LKP, is a
Guadeloupean collective which brings together around fifty trade union,
associative, political and cultural organizations from Guadeloupe. This
collective is at the origin of the general strike of 2009 which affected
the island between January 20 and March 4.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?L-intervention-des-communistes-libertaires-dans-les-mouvements-sociaux-des
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