WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #343 - JOP 2024: It's over, but it's never over (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 This article was written in the middle of the closing of the Paralympic

Games, in St-Denis, 500 meters from the Stade de France and punctuated
by the sound of police car sirens and helicopter blades, the background
noise of the neighborhood since July 24, 2024, the date of the first
events. It was written before the final report of the JOP (Olympic and
Paralympic Games) was drawn up: thus, we do not yet know what the final
budget was spent, how many people were displaced, in what state the
CROUS students found their homes. It is therefore a partial article.
The months of July and August 2024 were punctuated by numerous anti-JOP
actions set up by Saccage2024 and the anti-JOP inter-collective, such as
anti-JOP hotlines (twice a week in person and continuously by phone),
which aimed to welcome people encountering a problem related to the JOP
or on the fringes (for example, a reinforced police check due to the
security measures deployed for the JOP, a problem with a requisitioned
CROUS apartment or people seeking information).

An anti-JOP rally was organized on the eve of the opening ceremony, on
the Place de la République in Paris, in the presence of many French and
international journalists. It was recalled that the Paris 2024 JOP were
built on the expulsion of at least 12,500 people (1). The social
cleansing that took place a year before the Olympic Games meant that
tourists and athletes from all over the world did not see the number of
homeless people sleeping around the Stade de France, on the Canal de
St-Denis, in the metros, etc. These social devastations of the Olympic
Games affected sex workers, migrants and undocumented immigrants,
residents of cities in the 93 department, etc., and we do not yet know
their extent or even that everything will stop with the end of the
Paralympics.

Many other actions were carried out during the summer: posters, poster
hijackings, a counter-opening ceremony, anti-Olympic Games embroidery,
patrols against police violence, analyses of the opening ceremonies,
anti-ableist actions in the metro, etc. This article cannot cover
everything.

The counter-discourse on the Olympic Games was particularly inaudible
during the Olympic Games period when we were accused of disrupting the
national holiday. Some media outlets listened attentively to our speech,
but the majority were there to count the number of medals or world
records broken. According to France Info, "The Paris 2024 Games are seen
as "the most spectacular of all time" (2)" by the press. Suffice to say
that media visibility was not there, except for a few friendly media
outlets, which did some real in-depth work (3).

Furthermore, we were faced with solid repression. First of all, as
residents of the cities where the Olympic Games took place, with an
omnipresent police force, day and night, on foot patrol, on horseback,
on electric scooters, etc., coupled with a very significant military
presence (Operation Sentinel (4) and reinforced Vigipirate plan)
supported by foreign police personnel (5) (including from countries that
are not very democratic, or even dictatorial).

As anti-Olympic Games activists, with the criminalization of minor acts,
we have experienced police custody (GAV) for sticking stickers in the
metro or for carrying out toxic-tours (guided tours of the Olympic
vandalism) in St-Denis. On this occasion, 1 activist ended up in GAV,
along with two journalists (6) and we collected 17 fines for illegal
demonstration. We had to publish the toxic-tour in paper format, in
order to publicize the Olympic vandalism on the St-Denis canal (7).

Finally, the surveillance of the population was deepened with the
deployment of Algorithmic Video Surveillance (VSA) in Saint-Denis, the
installation of 450 video surveillance cameras and the purchase of
algorithmic surveillance software - without the municipal council being
informed, only an A3 panel stuck on a pole warned people going to the
Stade de France or in the metro of the existence of this device...

Nevertheless, the period of the Olympic Games has allowed to strengthen
the international fight against the Olympic Games, with the presence of
the SAAD collective (including the famous disabled activist Park
Kyung-seok), who came from South Korea to protest against the awarding
of the 2036 Olympic Games to Seoul, whose Mayor strongly represses
actions in favor of accessibility of public transport for disabled
people (even though he will have to organize the Paralympics) (8). We
were also able to receive Jules Boycoff, researcher in political science
and creator of the concept of "party capitalism (9)" (i.e. a state of
exception whose aim is to exploit the joy of people to get them to make
major concessions in terms of public freedoms or others).

In conclusion, some points of attention:
* The economic, social, ecological and democratic devastation of the
Paris 2024 Olympic Games are not yet all known, measured or identified.
Saccage2024 is in the process of drawing up an exhaustive assessment.
* The effects of the repressive and social cleansing measures will be
felt after the Olympic Games, some will not be dismantled (like the VSA)
* The Olympic Games take place every two years (winter and summer) and
an international fight is underway, with cities like Milan, in Italy for
the 2026 Winter Olympics, Los Angeles in 2028 ...
* A single slogan "No Olympics Anywhere" (10)

Saccage 2024, September 2024

Notes
(1) See on lereversdelamedaille.fr: Note on the expulsions May-July 2024
(2) See on francetvinfo.fr: Paris Olympics 2024: from abroad, the games
are seen as the most spectacular of all time
(3) See the map of Reporterre.net: Our map of the destruction caused by
the Olympics
(4) See on terre.defense.gouv.fr: Operation Sentinelle JOP 2024: what is
it? (5) See on france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr: Paris Olympics: at least
1,750 foreign police officers deployed in France during the events
(6) See on rsf.org: video testimony of two journalists placed in abusive
police custody on the sidelines of the Olympics
(7) See on saccage2024.noblogs.org: Toxic Olympic Tour on the Canal de
Saint Denis
(8) See on humanite.fr: Kyung Seok Park, the disability activist
harassed in South Korea, and on the repression of the collective, on the
Yonhap news agency website: "Zero tolerance" against the action of
Solidarity against discrimination of the disabled in the metro
(9) See on saccage2024.noblogs.org: The Olympic Games, the party
capitalist and the activists' response, by Jules Boykoff (2019)
(10) "The Olympic Games neither here nor elsewhere!"

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4259
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca