WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #344 - Anti-racism, Gutenberg City: A victorious self-management struggle (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Following the assassination in 1982 of Abdennbi Ghemia, resident of the
Gutenberg transit center in Nanterre, his friends and family led an
important victorious struggle, both for truth and justice and the
rehousing of the inhabitants. ---- On October 23, 1982 Abdenbi Guemiah,
a 19-year-old student, left the mosque and quietly went home when a
bullet hit him in the abdomen, shot from the residential area. Abdenbi
died on November 6. The next day a silent march brought together 2000
people with the message "never again".
Abdebi Ghemia was the treasurer and first secretary of the Gutenberg
association whose objective was educational and academic success.

She did everything she could to protect young people from delinquency.
Abdenbi also fought for rehousing and better living conditions: in the
1960s certain immigrant populations from slums like that of Nanterre
were rehoused in transit cities, ephemeral in principle... After his
death, Abdenbi's friends resumed hands the association and declare to
the family "we are committed to continuing Abdenbi's fight to the end so
that our brother's dream, the decent rehousing of all the inhabitants of
the transit city, becomes reality"[1].

on November 6, 1983 in Nanterre, during the marches, the Gutenberg
association organized a tribute to Abdenbi in the heart of the city,
1,500 people were present. They will subsequently be mocked as "the
thugs of the Arab movement". An unlimited rent strike is organized until
rehousing, and a coordination of cities is then set up to build a
balance of power with the public authorities. A moving SCOOP is created
by residents to control the rehousing process.

A local and national victory
The mothers of Abdenbi and Wahid Hachichi, murdered on October 28, 1982
in Vaulx-en-Velin, met and decided to found the national association of
victims' families. During the murderer's trial in January 1985, despite
a legislative measure which allows associations to become civil parties
in cases of racist crimes, due to lack of seniority the two associations
will not be able to become civil parties.

They cannot justify five years of prior existence! However, they will
make sure to consolidate the unit points to avoid divisions. Their
lawyer, Jean-Pierre Choquet, declares that those close to Abdenbi "know
absolutely everything that is in the file, it is our way of working, of
involving them" idem. The murderer will be sentenced to twelve years in
prison, a sentence previously unheard of in the case of a racist murder.

The Abdenbi affair led to the establishment of a study mission
responsible for the absorption of transit cities. In March 1985 the city
was completely destroyed and the inhabitants relocated: the day before
the trial the last family in the city left the premises: "the moral
reparation is coupled with a concrete social victory, which will serve
as a springboard for the inhabitants of other transit cities, rehoused
in the wake of the Gutemberg effect"[2]. Their great victory is to have
succeeded in going beyond local logic to transform it into a national issue.

In 2012, the association of friends of Abdenbi Guemiah campaigned with
the Nanterre town hall to give his name to an artery in the city, which
they obtained on June 25, 2013.

Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Anti-Racist Commission)

To validate

[1]Mogniss H. Abdallah, Regain, we're coming! Chronicles of the
struggles against racist or security crimes, against the police and
judicial Hagra from the 1970s to the present day, Libertalia editions, 2012.

[2]ditto

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Cite-Gutenberg-Une-lutte-autogestionnaire-victorieuse
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