Memory of antimilitarist struggles ---- Our friend Franck Thiriot,
regular contributor to Le Monde Libertaire, sent us a text recountinghis years of rebellion in the immediate aftermath of 1968. ---- This
text is rich in political anecdotes and human testimonies about a time
that is now somewhat distant... But this text is very long and would
perhaps deserve the publication of a brochure. ---- Rather than deprive
ourselves of this historical, but above all human, dimension, we have
decided to offer it to you in several parts, in the manner of the
serials of 19th century newspapers.
We hope that this publication "in episodes" will not make the text lose
"some of the intimacy of style, the dynamics and the militant enthusiasm
that was both tenacious and joyful that was that of the time" to quote
the author, "just the testimony of an actor in the antimilitarist
struggles of the time."
As soon as the law of December 21, 1963, relating to Conscientious
Objection and its legal status was passed, obtained thanks to the fight
of Louis Lecoin, Michel Debré, then First Sinister of de Gaulle, did
everything to hinder it and reduce its scope. The first beneficiaries of
the Status had to lead many movements in order to no longer depend on
the various paramilitary assignments (civil protection and militarized
firefighters), to finally obtain the right to carry out their time of
Civil Service - already double the armed service - within non-profit
general interest associations of their choice. This provision allowed
them until then to express their opposition, while working with those
left behind. However, by depending on the General Defense Organization
(Ordinance 1959) they could still be judged by the furry cats of the
Permanent Tribunals of the Armed Forces.
Thanks to the battles fought in 1968, with a dozen imprisonments to
boot, they would finally depend on the civil courts. As early as 1970,
the State initiated a series of trials against anti-militarist activists
charged under the fiftieth article of the law governing conscientious
objection... an article prohibiting public knowledge of it, whereas
according to bourgeois doxa: "ignorance of the law is no excuse".
The prosecutions would extend over a decade, like the arbitrariness of
this Jurisdictional Commission (CJ) alone authorized to recognize young
anti-militarists as having the benefit of the legal status of objector.
Suddenly, a filth from behind the bundles of sabre-draggers fell on our
lemons: the Brégançon Decree. President Georges Pompidou, former head of
the Rothschild Bank, sad fool, Poupou-les-Gros-Sourcils who will spend
his seven-year term letting his belly grow until it explodes, signed the
Decree published on September 2, 1972 in the Official Journal...
Attacks and counter-attacks.
I don't want to spoil the plot, but you still have to dig and stir the
sauce a little to understand the affair. So here it is: in September
1972, Operation 20 was launched at the initiative of two dozen young
long-haired-bearded men determined to obtain the Status from twenty
individual requests, all written in the same terms since "the law is the
same for everyone". (I hear laughter...) Some will be accepted, others
rejected. The Council of State will overturn the decision of the CJ
badgers in February 1973, while the Group of 20 grew to 1,120 people.
New grouped requests and new stubborn refusals, because: "requests based
on reasons foreign to the scope of the law".
So, one morning at dawn, the studded shoes of Vénissieux, near Lyon,
came out of his stake Bernard Chorin to put the metal bracelets on him,
heading for the nearest citadel of silence. He was the fourth activist
to be arrested in the fight against this dangerous Operation 20
threatening nothing less than the very fragile "security of the State".
The air is frightening... Other dangerous hairy subversives of the same
ilk will soon be put out of harm's way.
At the same time, this explains the Pompidolian stress: more and more
recalcitrant conscripts refuse to respond to their route orders, without
having requested, due to lack of information, the benefit of the Status,
instantly transforming themselves into so many total insubordinates.
The number of objectors increases each year (Le Monde reported in 1972
more than one hundred monthly requests). Report of anguish. The
government, panicked, brushes in the berdouille after having worked for
weeks of pulling out hairs like a yeti, launches with this Decree of
Brégançon a new offensive worth its weight in old-fashioned mustard:
Article 2 in fact translates a firm will of paramilitary regimentation
by prohibiting "any statement contrary to the interests of the Nation"
(translate: "of power") by removing their political, union, assembly,
expression and strike rights (articles 7 and 8) while assigning them to
residence within specific geographical limits.
A real provocation. Red rag to the bull. In the process, the beer bag
Minister of Agriculture Chirac, future Jacquouille la Fripouille, who
has ministerial supervision of the objectors, has the nerve to
authoritatively assign the objectors to the National Forestry Office
(ONF) for at least the first year of their Civil Service. The philosophy
of this measure: to lose them in the middle of dark forests like Tom
Thumb for speeches to squirrels, throwing hazelnuts being less bold than
throwing paving stones... The ONF is an industrial and commercial
establishment, whose main goal is the search for maximum profit.
"The forest has become an economic tool of the Nation, which implies
that it is managed like a field of peas or tomatoes, based on the
certainty that, if we invest in the forest, we can make money there."
(Mr. Cointat, former Minister of Agriculture.)
"We must, at all levels, create an obsession with productivity." (Mr.
Delaball, General President of the ONF, in January 1970).
Clearcutting of oaks and beeches then gave way to plantations of
coniferous species, wrongly considered more profitable than hardwoods
and better corresponding "to the needs of the paper industry" (dixit).
Conifers impoverish humus, fauna and flora, are poorly resistant to
storms, frost, snow, fire, insects, etc. What followed would prove that
the growth rate was largely exaggerated and the economic profitability
expected, even in the short term, totally illusory.
The few hundred and sixty naive people who initially accepted the
authoritarian assignment would quickly bite their fists and feet,
because the lawsuits would multiply against these lucky people: refusal
to obey, abandonment of post, strike, etc. Sanctions: fines, suspended
prison sentence and obligation to return to the place of assignment
under threat of lifting the suspended sentence. By dint of wanting to go
ever further in the repression, the elastic too tight will end up
snapping the government's mug. The insubordinations to the ONF will
multiply very quickly: more than four hundred soon and new indictments
will follow in the wake. Great! The refractory objectors now having
Support Committees everywhere, but no structure to organize the national
coordination, I will now lead with a few friends the Secretariat of
Conscientious Objectors (SOC), at 6 impasse Popincourt in the 11th. Our
mandate: to set fire to by challenging the authoritarian assignment and
demand the pure and simple repeal of the Brégançon Decree.
Since until now the SOC was withering away like a wall crumbling in the
humidity, we are going to revive it by undertaking actions that will
replenish the wounded young hearts.
The first, admittedly lacking in originality, constitutes a very
concrete short-term objective, a tonic gymnastics exercise: a petition
"directed towards the artistic and literary world". Nothing but the
classics to gain visibility in various cultural circles, "opinion
relays". That should throw a little sand in the government's couscous. I
obtain from May Picqueray, a family friend, a list of several dozen
names and addresses of writers, painters, etc., with a view to having
our petition demanding "the repeal of the Brégançon decree and the
authoritarian assignment to the ONF" of conscientious objectors signed,
which will be published in the press and given to the minister-ugh!
Among the many signatories I visit at home, Prévert in the Cité Veron
addresses me informally and invites me to have a snack, while the widow
of Albert Camus, broom behind her door, will simply throw me out. Widow
Camus must not have taken the time to read Albert... Prévert, with his
wet cigarette constantly held in his mouth, is interested in the subject
other than out of politeness: objectors, rebels, deserters, the
refractory, that concerns him. Happy Jacques, poor Albert... From
François Cavanna and the Charlie-Hebdo team, the support will be constant.
Emerges from the bowels of freedom.
The dailies Libération and Le Monde will echo the anti-militarist
struggles, closely covering the trial (28.11.73) of the
twenty-six-year-old journalist Christian Raspiengas, member of the
Bordeaux Nonviolent Research Group, who benefits from the support of
Jean-Marie Muller, writer of Nonviolence, creator of the MAN (Nonviolent
Action Movement), and the intervention of Jacques Ellul, professor at
the University of Bordeaux, known for his work.
Having received his roadmap in March, Raspiengas will perfectly
summarize the situation and the denials of rights during his trial,
triggering the black anger of a prosecutor stuck on his own ground:
"Only his impetuosity and a harmful idealism can plead in favor of the
accused."
The situation is becoming radicalized very quickly, support committees
are being created everywhere, at the initiative or not of our young
secretariat (SOC): an Antimilitarist Committee (CARM) in Oullins, a
Letter from Objectors in Lyon, etc. The courts are struggling to keep
up, but convictions are raining down as in Gravelotte on the heads of
long-haired people asked to number their abatis.
Requests for Status are multiplying exponentially while refusals from
the Jurisdictional Commission are becoming more and more systematic and
hypocritical, like hide your hard bread, I'll eat my meat. It's a tough
fight. The reasons most often given to be successful, hoping to stem the
phenomenon: reasons given not falling within the scope of the law;
request written according to a stereotypical model; reasons given deemed
political; absence of reason. This is the dark transparency of military
institutions.
Philippe Lebaudy, from Saint-Étienne, had to appear before the military
court in Lyon (18.09.1973) after two hunger strikes of forty-four and
twenty days. In Arras, four young anarchists were charged with
"insulting the army by means of a poster" of the FA: "Better than
suspended sentences, abolition of the army!" A big bourgeois in tasseled
loafers and a name with a particle dared to file a complaint against the
CSOC of Bordeaux for its envelopes on the back of which were printed
extracts from the Statute - which is of course forbidden - preceded by
the note: "Military service is not compulsory". Claude Douffet, from
Lille, who was refused the statute for his political motivations, was
arrested (18.09.1973) and imprisoned incommunicado in the Metz remand
center. The colonel in charge of investigating his case had only one
fear: "that publicity would be made about the affair". Won!
During the Brive Carnival, a group of irresponsible and subversive young
godelureaux tried to integrate themselves into the Cavalcade with three
vehicles decorated with banners, posters, and balloons bearing
anti-militarist slogans. Trial, then sentenced to a fine of three
hundred francs for "inciting others to evade their military obligations"
by propaganda in favor of the law of December 21, 1963. For my part, I
wrote to the CJ that "I surrender my Status as one surrenders one's
apron and I totally refuse to do military service." I like things to be
clear.
Franck Thiriot
(publication of the 2nd part in the November ML and soon the rest on
your screen...)
https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8055
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