Repression in National Education ---- Under this heading, it is quite
rare to address repression in workplaces that mostly affects unionactivists. And yet this repression has always been present. ---- In the
State civil service, and in particular in National Education, the
procedure most used by the hierarchy is the "transfer in the interest of
the service". This authoritarianism is very practical for the hierarchy
to apply: it does not require the establishment of an investigation or a
disciplinary council. But since the Blanquer years, Minister of National
Education during the entire first five-year term of Macron (2017-2022),
these procedures have multiplied.
For Kai Terada, a mathematics teacher in Nanterre and an active activist
in his high school and outside, co-departmental secretary of the Sud
Education union, it was an audit lasting several weeks in March 2022
that triggered the procedure, following a fairly tough strike movement
in 2020, on the occasion of the baccalaureate reform. The teacher asked
in June 2022 to consult his administrative file, it was empty! Then,
when he was summoned to the Versailles rectorate, accompanied by union
defenders and a lawyer, the administration persisted, but assured that
it was not a "disciplinary sanction". The Versailles rectorate justified
itself to Médiapart by a "situation of tensions within the Joliot-Curie
high school reported to the academic services", which led to a mission
by the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGÉRS).
For the return of a "serene functioning of this establishment", the
compulsory transfer of Kai Terada is pronounced. The case is brought
before the Administrative Court which decides, on January 9, 2025 (more
than 2 years later) to cancel the transfer "in the interest of the
service" and orders the Versailles rectorate to reinstate him to his
post at the Joliot-Curie high school in Nanterre within 6 months and to
pay him a sum of 1800 euros. His lawyer, Renaud Fages, underlines a
great victory... and its limits: "It is a great lesson given to the
administration which sometimes feels all-powerful and also a great
demonstration of what the judge is capable of, sometimes, in terms of
control. But it is unfortunately not a challenge to the substance of the
transfer in the interest of the service, each case being examined on a
case-by-case basis.» Thus, primary school teacher Hélène Careil, a
committed teacher at the Marie-Curie school in Bobigny
(Seine-Saint-Denis), also defended by the lawyer, won at first instance
and lost on appeal.
Another example of even more significant repression: that which has just
been suffered by Patrice Chapat, a mechanical engineering teacher at the
Etienne Mimard high school in St Etienne for nearly 20 years. He was
sanctioned by the rectorate and assigned to a replacement zone in the
Loire department. A decision denounced by the unions, parents of
students and his colleagues, who organized a demonstration in his favor
on January 9. A union representative and member of the high school's
Board of Directors, Patrice Chapat openly criticized the functioning of
the establishment and the management of its former head of
establishment. But these statements led the rectorate to sanction him
for having "exceeded his prerogatives as a representative of staff and
unions", while he was simply fulfilling his role as an elected member of
the Board of Directors. It should be noted that the inter-union
organization that defends him denounced the role of the SNPDEN, a union
of heads of establishments affiliated with the UNSA, which put pressure
on the rectorate and which put all its weight in the balance so that an
exemplary sanction was taken. To be continued
Sources: médiapart.fr and union leaflet
Fraud in public transport
On December 3, 2024, an implementing decree relating to the so-called
"Le Roux-Savary" law came into force. It introduces a system to combat
fraud in public transport. "Stop fraud", initiated by the law of March
22, 2016, aims to collect and verify on site the identity of offenders
as part of the recovery of transport fines.
This law therefore allows the establishment of a legal framework for
address verification. It requires public transport users to have on them
a "document proving their identity" to present to agents if they are in
violation; and authorizes transport companies to "make the journey of
their passengers subject to the possession of a nominative transport
ticket." In the event of a check, passengers must be able to present a
document that verifies the concordance between their transport ticket
and their identity.
From January 2025, transport authorities will be able to require users
to provide proof of their postal address, verify or obtain a certain
amount of personal data from the offender: first and last name, date and
place of birth and address. Sworn agents will be able to verify the
addresses of offenders by cross-referencing the data with public
administrations and social security organizations.
The CNIL (National Commission for Information Technology and Civil
Liberties) has validated the system!
Everyone should mobilize to make transport free and accessible once and
for all.
Sources: service-public.fr and antirep coord (eel-ctron-libre@proton.me)
Prison overcrowding in France
Prison overcrowding continues to break records month after month. As of
December 1, 24, 80,792 people were detained in France, a new record, for
62,404 places, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice
published on December 31.
This overall prison density forces 4,255 detainees to sleep on
mattresses placed on the floor.
Among the people incarcerated on December 1, 21,291 are defendants, in
detention awaiting their final judgment. In total, 97,372 people were
placed under lock and key as of December 1. Among them, there are 16,580
non-detainees subject to electronic monitoring or external placement.
Measures have been taken to try to remedy this problem, such as the
banning of prison sentences of less than one month, the adjustment of
sentences or the development of community service. But the judicial
institution hands down prison sentences of 32 days (i.e. more than a
month), the adjustment of sentences is always reserved for those who
have a certain social status... Let us recall here that the vast
majority of incarcerated people have no place in prison, we should not
demand the opening of new "human-sized" prisons but the closure of these
places of desocialization and the recycling of guards in new social
functions useful to society.
Legal victories
The CGT, the LDH, the SAF, the SM and Solidaires had seized the TA
concerning the bans emanating from the Paris Police Prefect regarding
the demonstrations against the pension reform in the spring of 2023.
They won... at the end of 2024! The Paris administrative court ruled
that such a ban "violated the right to freedom of peaceful assembly",
protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This
decision, dated 29 November 2024, is all the more important since the
police prefect had seen fit to justify the arrests by considering that,
since the demonstrations were banned, the demonstrators would commit the
offence of voluntary participation in a group formed with a view to
committing violence or damage, thus maintaining illegal confusion. In
this regard, let us recall that the General Inspector of Places of
Deprivation of Liberty had produced a report on her visits to Parisian
police stations during this period and had questioned the "real purpose"
of the police custody carried out, denouncing "a massive recourse as a
preventive measure... for the purposes of maintaining order". In any
case, numerous fines were issued for participation in a banned
demonstration and models of protest had to be proposed to help the
people concerned. The orders on which these fines were based were
illegal! Another important victory: the ban on wearing and transporting
protective equipment was also cancelled. The court has indeed ruled that
it was logical to want to protect oneself from gazet projections or the
noise of grenades, in order to be able to exercise one's freedom of
peaceful assembly or expression. The seizures of earplugs, swimming
goggles or physiological serum are illegal, and the court has just ruled
that their ban on wearing and transport is also illegal!
Source: Joint press release from the organizations that appealed to the
Administrative Court
Where we talk again about the Viry-Châtillon affair!
Remember! On October 8, 2016, two police vehicles were attacked with
iron bars, stones and Molotov cocktails in a neighborhood of
Viry-Chatillon (91). A policewoman was seriously burned on the hands and
legs while the vital prognosis of a security assistant who was very
seriously burned is engaged.
The police demonstrate and form an association: Mobilization of angry
police officers. The government also reacts to this attack... Arrests
are made!
Thirteen defendants were tried by the Essonne Assize Court in the fall
of 2019. Following the verdict delivered on December 4, eight of them
were sentenced to prison terms ranging from ten to twenty years, while
the other five were acquitted. The convicted persons and the prosecution
each appealed this decision a few days later. On April 17, 2021, the
Paris Juvenile Assize Court acquitted eight of the defendants and
sentenced the other five to prison terms ranging from six to eighteen years.
But a judicial investigation was opened in 2021 concerning police
officers in charge of the investigation, suspected of having falsified
the reports to fabricate culprits. One of the young people concerned,
exonerated on appeal and having spent more than four years in prison,
obtained the conviction of the State in 2023 (185,000 euros for moral
and material damage). In June 2023, this investigation seemed to have
stalled.
But several police officers from the Essonne departmental security who
had led the investigation into the assault on their colleagues were
questioned on December 10, 2024 by the General Inspectorate of the
National Police (IGPN), as part of the investigation targeting them for
forgery of public documents, willful violence and fraud in judgment with
the aggravating circumstance that they were committed by persons in
positions of public authority (PDAP). Some of them were questioned while
being placed in police custody. These police officers had drawn up false
reports, distorting the statements of a central witness as well as those
of several accused. These forgeries were a major reason for the
conviction of some young people, whose innocence was only recognized on
appeal in April 2021, after years in prison, more than four years for
some. To be continued!
Sabotage at the cement manufacturer Lafarge
On December 10, 2023, around 80 activists dressed in white overalls
broke into a concrete plant belonging to the Lafarge company in
Val-de-Reuil (Seine-Maritime), for a so-called "disarmament" action, as
part of decentralized days of action against the concrete industry,
called by more than 200 organizations.
17 people were arrested on April 8, 2024 following the investigation
conducted by the Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate (Sdat) and the Rouen
judicial police, in a wave of searches that took place simultaneously in
several cities in Normandy as well as in the Paris region.
On 19 and 20 December, there were only nine of them left in the dock:
seven men and two women, aged 28 to 77, most of them residents of
Normandy. Facing them was the civil party, which included Lafarge and a
transport company. For each of the defendants, the accusations related
to damage, in particular by injecting expanding foam into locks and
machines, graffiti and the sequestration of the site security guard in
his office during the 10 minutes of the action. Although the employee
stated that he had not been the victim of violence, this charge was the
most serious, punishable by 10 years in prison. These nine people
received their verdicts on Friday 20 December at the end of their trial.
Five of them were acquitted, the other four were sentenced to six and
ten months in prison, suspended, respectively. They were facing up to 10
years in prison for criminal association and kidnapping, at the end of a
procedure that saw the resources of anti-terrorism deployed against
these environmentalists. For the defendant who received the heaviest
sentence, a ten-month suspended sentence, his DNA was found by
investigators on a broken computer screen in the Lafarge premises. For
the three other convicts, the court deemed the bundle of evidence of
their participation in the events to be sufficient.
With such a stake, the public authorities also brought out the big guns
for the two days that the hearing lasted at the Évreux court: blocked
streets, CRS squads and pedestrian screening gave the area around the
courthouse a bunker-like appearance. Which did not prevent, not far
away, the gathering of several dozen supporters of the defendants at the
call of organizations such as Sud éducation and the Nouveau Parti
Anticapitaliste, of which two of the accused are members. Since the
action of December 10, a Sunday when only a security guard was present
on site, employees across the group have reportedly been "anxious" and
"shocked" to have seen their employer's name associated with terrorism.
Several tags made on the site that day mentioned the links between
Lafarge and Daesh. The company is indeed suspected of having paid 5
million euros to jihadist groups through its Syrian subsidiary in 2013
and 2014. Facts that will be judged in November 2025. To be continued!
Sources: Reporterre.net and médiapart.fr
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4379
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