Also: The whisper-quiet declaration of severe drought across a swathe of southern England, and the unsurprising news that far-right terror is on the rise. The post French student revolt reaches Argentina appeared first on Freedom Press.

Last week, I told my boss I was going on strike. ‘It’s good that you’re supporting the students’, he said, before telling me how he runs past a school each morning and sees peaceful, friendly students blockading it on the way out, and riot cops attacking them on the way back. I moved to France for work almost three years ago. Shortly after arriving, President Macron made his ill-fated decision to call a snap election. In the weeks that followed, I joined a union and received a crash course in French politics. I happened to be in Paris on the night of the election, and had to choose between an authorised viewing party in Place de Stalingrad, or a wild one in Place de la République. I chose the latter, and descended into the Métro in a sombre mood, expecting miserable results. When I emerged and regained phone signal, I saw that the exit polls favoured the hastily-assembled leftist coalition. What I had expected to be a riot became a riotous celebration, complete with fireworks, beers and whooping cheers every time a constituency declared for the New Popular Front. I’ve become more politically engaged through the years that followed and so, when the Freedom crew were recently bemoaning a lack of direct links between the UK and the French scenes, I thought I ought to do my bit to provide a bit of cross-Channel cross-pollination. The whole of France effectively runs on the academic calendar, and we have just entered the return-to-school period (la rentrée). Every year so far, this has been the peak time for protests: in 2024 it was a huge antifascist march in the run-up to the elections; last year it was the decentralised social media-organised Bloquons Tout movement (though an attempted follow-up flopped); and this year, it’s the lycéen·ne·s (i.e., college students and Sixth Formers). These are just the major events that reliably bring out 7,000–11,000 people; there are other, smaller marches just about every weekend. When I first arrived I went on a tour of the city centre, but lost the group amidst a huge protest in front of the Préfecture. I circled the building to try and find my group, and found another, unrelated farmers’ protest on the other side. It was a Saturday, so I’m not even sure anyone was in. The French are well aware that it only takes a small number of people, strategically placed, to cause outsized disruption. Famously, Haussmann widened the streets of Paris in part to make them harder to blockade; in Montpellier, only one street was so designed before the designers ran out of money, leaving the old centre of Écusson a tangled mess of narrow, winding streets. Protests rarely enter there (it’s usually declared off-limits by the Préfecture), but if they ever did it would prove remarkably unfavourable terrain for the forces of order. Instead, marches usually circumambulate the centre, around which all of the tramways are centralised. However, as long as these protest movements remain somewhat siloed into ‘left’ or ‘right’ or ‘pro-Palestine’ or whatever, the state can generally keep things under control. Over the last couple years they’ve sacrificed a few prime ministers to appease the crowd (although, bizarrely, last year Macron just reappointed the same guy, who remains in post to this day), but so far waiting for the momentum to die out and crushing particularly obstinate holdouts with riot police seems to have worked out. What the French state really fears, though, is a confluence of struggle. This is what happened in the Gilets Jaunes protests, where anger over cost of living united people across normal political divides and (crucially) social class. The result was the greatest threat posed to the Fifth Republic since May ‘68; there was one point where helicopters were being prepared to evacuate Macron from the Elysée palace. That confluence seems to be what is happening again today. When we talk of the French police as ‘militarised’, it conjures US-centric images of a police force given access to all sorts of military tools and gradually becoming a holding pen for people too violent for airsoft, yet too incompetent for the military. But in France, a major component of their riot control force is the Gendarmerie mobile, part of the Armed Forces; in the French case, then, it’s perhaps more accurate to call them policified soldiers. Whether civilian or soldier, what all French cops have in common is a predilection towards violence that exceeds their peers in neighbouring countries. In recent days, National Police armed with assault rifles have been dispatched to schools, and the Municipal Police (roughly equivalent to traffic wardens) have been co-opted into riot control duties for which they are untrained and from which they are normally prohibited. In the past few weeks, teenagers have lost teeth, eyes and hands facing off against the CRS, leading to condemnation from Amnesty International and the UN. Yet the students continue to march, and increasingly their signs (and those of their parents) reference these shocking acts. The students have also clearly been paying attention in history class: last week I saw a sign that read ‘we’ve killed kings for less than this’; and I’ve been seeing more and more references to May ‘68. History weighs heavy on the French everyday imaginary. It’s almost like the experience of both the Nazi occupation, and the preceding Vichy collaboration, have left a traumatic impression on the very language itself: one is not a ‘traitor’ in French, but a ‘collabo’; the police are routinely compared to the Vichy-era Milice; and the word ‘rafle’ (roughly ‘police roundup’) is laden with Holocaustic baggage. But equally, you can trace the history of pretty much anything here, from a contemporary newspaper to the French equivalent of HMV, and eventually hit on a connection to the French Resistance (or, the other side). This sense of movement history is also expressed in the remarkably intergenerational membership of many of the marches I’ve been on and groups I’ve participated in. Grandmas here do not retire quiescently; they stand facing our march flipping the double bird and shouting ‘ANTIFA’ at the top of their lungs (true story). It is hard to overstate how much of a strategic misstep the state’s decision to violently suppress the early student protests has been. Spend any time in the outdoors and one of the first things you learn is that most animals are safe enough, except when they are protecting their young—the sense of ‘mama bear’ energy behind French society’s protective enveloping of their youth is also hard to exaggerate. Teachers have connected their own struggles with that of their students; university students—older brothers and sisters to the lycéen·ne·s both figuratively and, often, literally—shut down 100% of mainland institutions last Tuesday in solidarity; apolitical parents are out in the street en masse to protest the mutilation of their children; farmers in tractors joined school blockades; and the youth uprising has not been limited to only metropolitan France. This all coincides with rolling waves of pre-planned strike action, ranging from public servants to exhausted firefighters (following an unprecedented summer of wildfires).It’s hard to say what will happen next. There were rumblings, even before the lycéen·ne·s seized control of the headlines, that this coming Saturday would mark a new Gilets Jaunes movement, but this seemed to be mostly limited to unsourced AI slop posters shared on social media. But former GJ organisers have urged their supporters to support the students, and so it’s possible that even an originally inorganic movement may provide a point around which these various struggles can converge. Ultimately it’s hard to see an off-ramp for the state: they have nothing plausible to promise the youth except the excitement of being conscripted to go die in the Balkans. The political centre has thoroughly discredited itself, and next year’s elections are set to be a literal choice between socialism or barbarism. But whilst the left-wing LFI stands to gain the most electorally from this mass mobilisation of young people (many of whom will be voting age come April), and the LFI certainly has a prominent flag-waving presence on these marches, I don’t think the students are content to wait until next year, nor overly convinced that electoral politics are the way to best achieve their demands. I’ve just come back from my third march in two weeks, as ‘Act V’ of the student protests begins. All I can say for now is that the marches have been larger than I’ve seen before, that they remain so, and that I see little sign that the momentum is slowing. The post Postcard from Montpellier appeared first on Freedom Press.

France is at the forefront of a European wave of school and university-led insurrection with protests now spreading to Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Germany and Austria. Demands vary from country to country, but the shared grievances are the cost of living, access to decent housing and deteriorating school infrastructure, all of which deepen the chasm between privileged minorities and excluded majorities. State administrations are therefore no longer facing isolated protests over education, but a groundswell of youth-led unrest that brings students in generalised direct conflict with police forces—events that could once again gain momentum and set the agenda for political and social transformation. In France, the youth uprising, now in its third week, began in Paris-suburb high schools and spread nationwide despite heavy police repression. The high school union says about two-thirds of public high schools were blockaded on 6 October, and nearly all mainland universities shut down. Meanwhile the mainstream political system tries to rise to the occasion, condemning or co-opting the movement depending on which side of the spectrum it sits, right or left respectively. The problem officials face is that this movement is on the offensive, going for victory. It has its own agenda—it did not simply erupt “against a reform” or “in reaction” to political events but is reportedly in revenge, echoing the Nahel uprising. Working-class crews (bandes) are also reported to be the driving force, without demands or representatives, indifferent to the codes of the Left and to bourgeois politeness. High school actions are diverse and go beyond blockades to sabotage, barricades, wildcat strikes and the mockery of authority. The mainstream unions want to defuse the renewed call for 17 October, which recalls the Yellow Vests, while the left puts forward demands that help separate “good” protesters with demands from “bad” rioters. In Belgium, the mobilisations have led to repeated clashes with the police and hundreds of arrests. The tension was such that local authorities banned public gatherings of more than three people until 16 October, citing the risk of further incidents. Hundreds of school and university students kept gathering regardless, protesting the cost of education, overcrowded classrooms and scarce resources, and showing that the state’s response is not enough to halt the momentum. Madrid (Radical Graffiti) In Italy, the first school occupations in Turin and Rome took place under the slogan “Let’s do as they do in France”, over chronic underfunding, dilapidated school buildings and rising living costs, and a student delegation travelled to Paris in solidarity. Students in Ireland are demonstrating against high fees, higher education funding and the lack of affordable student housing. In Germany they are joined by teachers and parents, and in Austria university students have announced new mobilisations. In Spain, housing protests sparked by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal have spread to dozens of cities, prompting a snap election and a general strike call. The Gen Z movements in Europe follow those across the globe: widely leaderless, centreless insurrections led by tech-savvy youth who use social media to spread instantly and create real political shifts in their home countries. In Nepal, a mobilisation born online and on the streets toppled the government and led to a Discord-based nomination of an interim administration. In Madagascar, university students forced the president to flee the country. In Morocco, Discord-based organising extracted government promises of more spending on employment, health and education.  In Peru, two presidents were removed within four months and new coalitions of youth collectives took shape. Protests in Indonesia, India and Timor-Leste forced reversals of unpopular policies. In Albania, decentralised Gen Z-style protests that began against a destructive luxury resort widened into demands for government resignation, and cost-of-living protests returned in Kenya and the Philippines. These movements largely form outside existing structures, have in some cases resisted co-optation by opposition parties, and build cross-border solidarity through symbolism and social media. The horizontal, anti-hierarchical structures and the thoroughly anti-authoritarian ethos of this uprising of kids against police authority recall the youth insurrections of the late 2000s and early 2010s around the world. The current waves feel like they pick up the baton from those years, and from the break with vanguardist politics signalled in the mountains of Chiapas in the 1990s. The excluded rise up, loudly, in search of a response to the root problem of hegemony at the level of everyday life, while raising existential questions about humanity’s future on a declining planet. States, capitalists and all political forces, anarchists included!, have been scrambling ever since to catch up or respond. Governments of the left and of the authoritarian right alike, formed in the echo of those revolts, have proved at ease with a capital-backed far-right surge that the neoliberal centre props up to contain the cyclical waves of insurrection across the globe. As illustrated in more detail in Gen Z Makes History, the youth-led uprisings have occurred in international resonance with each other, in places toppling governments and shaking others into changing in ways unimaginable only days before. It is not elections but militant street actions that strike fear into regimes and compel reforms in governments on three continents. The cost in lives and injuries is high (at least 76 dead in Nepal alone), but those once dismissed as “narcissistic babies of the Internet Age” and a “lost generation” are, through their sacrifices, changing the conversation globally and inspiring people to look to the future with new hope. The post Gen Z on the barricades appeared first on Freedom Press.

We also consider the increasingly desperate measures the US government is taking to try and shore up its position ahead of the mid-terms, especially on diesel reserves; the likely capture of Brazil by Trumpish far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro; Royal Mail’s upcoming jobs cull; and the rise of attacks by the far-right against HMOs. The post La Revolte! Panic in the French State appeared first on Freedom Press.

Crushed by price hikes, humiliations, social rollbacks of every kind, and authoritarianism in every sphere, the French people seemed to be ending this decade of Macronism drained and listless. Like a boxer knocked out cold, staring blankly ahead, waiting for the final blow. Then came this uprising, sparked in high schools in the Paris suburbs; it spread like wildfire, turning the end of the presidential term into a nightmare for the powers that be—and a dream for all those who are still somewhat alive and yearning for a better future. Tuesday, 6 October, was a test: following the spontaneous high school blockades, would the crowds turn out? Would the high school movement link up with other sectors? The answer is a resounding yes. The streets were filled with people young and old—students, wage-earners, parents, and teaching staff—all there to show that high school students do not stand alone against state violence and to back their cry of revolt. According to the CGT, at least 450,000 people took to the streets: 100,000 in Paris, 30,000 in Toulouse, 25,000 in Lyon and Lille, 20,000 in Nantes, 15,000 in Strasbourg, 8,000 in Brest… and in dozens of other towns and villages. State terror was intended to force the youth back into line. It failed. Even more impressive, according to the high school student union, over 1,800 schools were blockaded on October 6—representing nearly two out of every three public high schools. Similarly, 90% of universities were closed; excluding overseas territories and Corsica, 100% of universities in mainland France came to a standstill. This is unprecedented in the last 20 years. The movement taps into something very deep within an entire generation. A remarkable fact: this movement did not erupt “against a reform” or in “reaction” to a specific event. It has its own agenda, and that is precisely why it has the potential to go far. It is an offensive movement aiming for victory. Paris (Global Project) Finally, the marches were generally very calm, with the exception of a few cities. This calm is surprising given the extreme brutality unleashed in recent days—violence that could easily have sparked widespread upheaval. For three days, the government and the media had been predicting chaos for today. In the end, it was a massive yet disciplined wave of protest. Yet now, the government can boast that it has quelled the dissent and that the movement is running out of steam. Ultimately, whether things explode or not, those in power will always have a narrative that suits them: when anger burns hot, it is criminalised; when it is peaceful, it is dismissed as defeated. Our methods of action must therefore be based on effectiveness rather than on our enemies’ opinions of the struggle. High school and university student organisations are calling for another day of mobilisation on Thursday, October 8, to ramp up the pressure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation The post France: A tidal wave of youth appeared first on Freedom Press.

DURING A SUMMER BREAK IN THE SOUTH, FREEDOM GRABBED THE OPPORTUNITY TO INTERVIEW THE ANARCHIST COLLECTIVE ROUVIKONAS IN ATHENS ~ Blade Runner ~ The collective has built a reputation for direct actions that range from occupying ministries to smashing up the offices of debt collectors. Formed in 2014, in the wake of Greece’s anti-austerity struggles, they describe their work as bridging the gap between anarchists and the wider social base. In conversation, their style is as direct as their actions. On the collective’s beginnings: “Rouvikonas was founded in 2014. At that time, Greece had gone through social and political turmoil. Following the death of the young anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos, an insurrection broke out in 2008 and a whole generation was radicalised. Then from 2010 to 2014, a big part of the social base took to the streets to fight against austerity measures, but the movement died out and the unrest was channelled back into parliamentary politics and the State. “The comrades who founded Rouvikonas thought that anarchists had lost a great and rare revolutionary opportunity in those years. They were not able to offer a credible alternative to the State for the people of the social base. So, they started reflecting on the mistakes and dead ends of the anarchist movement, and how to fix them. This is the context that triggered Rouvikonas’ creation: to bridge the gap that existed between anarchists and the social base.” On the use of social media: “Our political choice is to publicly claim responsibility for everything we do. Every action is followed by a statement with video and photo material, and a text explaining what we did and why. This serves several goals. By documenting our actions, we prevent the enemy from making false accusations. We can demonstrate exactly what we did, so it’s harder for a judge to condemn us on false charges. “At the same time, video footage is a powerful tool of communication: people can see with their own eyes what we did, and it can be inspiring. We show our actions to break the state of fear in which the social base is kept by the State and its propaganda mechanisms. The aim is to break paralysis and apathy, and to encourage people to join the struggle.” Intervention in a department store following reports for poor working conditions On state repression: “Patterns of repression have changed over the years, depending on the government. … Now there’s an open investigation trying to classify us as a criminal organisation, using changes in the penal code. This is serious — penalties are harsher, and it’s harder to avoid prison by paying fines. But we continue to fight.” “What really scares them is that we keep bringing in new people. In their own investigation they admit this: every time they identify members after an action, they see faces they didn’t know before. People without history in other groups or demonstrations, of all ages, genders, lifestyles. Not the usual suspects. Ordinary people who had never been political, joining Rouvikonas and taking action.” On firefighting and disaster relief: “Following decades of state cuts to the fire department, every year vast regions of Greece are destroyed by fires. People watch their houses burn, firefighters do what they can but with limited resources they cannot do much. When they protest, they get beaten by riot police. This is why three years ago we created a Volunteer Firefighters Sector for forest firefighting. “We now have three vehicles and a well-trained crew of volunteers. All summer they patrol the countryside and intervene when wildfires break out. In the last two years they saved people, houses, and wild animals. The logic is that of self-organisation: not to depend on the State, but to count on our own forces. As we say in Greece, ‘only the people can save the people’.” Rouvikonas’ firefighting volunteers in action On Antifascism: “Golden Dawn was defeated. It was defeated in the streets first, and then declared a criminal organisation and outlawed. By then it had already become useless to the ruling class. Militant antifascism is essential, but is not the whole story. There will always be small fascist groups, and you keep them in check in the streets. “But the real question is: how do we prevent them from gaining ground among the social base? The reason they gained influence was the political void we created. If you’re absent from social and political struggles, people turn elsewhere. If you don’t represent a credible alternative to parties and the State, people look elsewhere for solutions. We must be on the front line of the social and class war every day. To the degree we succeed, people will turn to us and ignore them.” Palestine solidarity walk in Athens’ touristic centre On Palestine solidarity: “Greece is a partner in genocide with Israel. The Greek bourgeoisie has historic and existential ties with the Israeli ruling class. Here we have companies collaborating with the Israeli military, and Israeli investors buying property and hotels. As long as such targets exist, there will be ways to hit the Zionist state and its genocidal policies.” The full interview will be featured in the next issue of Freedom anarchist journal The post Interview with Rouvikonas appeared first on Freedom News.

WELL-COORDINATED DIRECT ACTION CATCHES THE POLICE OFF GUARD, SHOWING THE POWER OF SECURE AND STRATEGIC ORGANISING ~ Kevin Blowe ~ On 9 September, at around 7.30 in the morning, an advance bloc of about 150 protesters, their faces covered, suddenly appeared by London City Hall in east London, near to where Britain’s largest arms fair, Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi), was due to start at 9 o’clock. The protest bloc walked unchallenged to the entrance, where DSEi 2025 delegates were due to arrive, and blocked it. They then successfully held the space as police tried desperately to push them to one side, while more and more protesters began to arrive at the advertised 8am assembly time. Groups of senior officers stood in huddles trying to work out what to do, while the attempts of the ‘Police Liaison’ blue bib intelligence gatherers to engage with protesters were loudly rebuffed with cries of “free, free Palestine”. As delegates arrived, a few in military uniform but most in the industry’s favoured ‘casual suits and trainers’ combo, they were eventually diverted to another entrance, forced to run a narrow gauntlet behind a line of police officers as other groups of campaigners shouted “shame on you” and worse. The message was up close and unavoidable, and while some delegates were angrily dismissive, most looked embarrassed and deeply uncomfortable. It was magnificent. How was it possible that the Metropolitan Police so abjectly failed to see this coming, despite the leaflets and social media calling for campaigners to “Shut DSEi Down”? Clearly, the National Police Coordination Centre’s Strategic Intelligence and Briefing (SIB) team, who compile the intelligence for police forces on protests, thought this call to action was symbolic, rather than genuine. The last DSEI protests in 2023 had been quiet and in the absence of other information, they assumed it would remain so this year. However, SIB’s failure was fundamentally the result of decisions by protest organisers themselves. The ‘Big One’ Coalition had mobilised through trusted networks, sharing information internally based on an agreed plan of potential risks that, crucially, everyone had stuck to. At Netpol we have long argued that we can risk over-estimating how proficient the police really are at surveillance, when in fact they rely heavily on the information we carelessly share ourselves. That did not happen in advance of 9 September, and is a large part of why the police were caught by surprise. The DSEi protest was the clearest example, for some considerable time, of what is possible when groups start to take security seriously – and at one of the most heavily surveilled events in the country too. Later in the morning, the police turned to violence—as they often do when frustrated by protesters. At the alternate entrance for delegates, officers from the Territorial Support Group, the Met’s thuggish riot unit, along with officers from British Transport Police’s equivalent, the Operational Support Unit, were assembled and then rushed protesters, knocking people to the ground and then pointlessly kettling a small group. Photo: Netpol One older peace campaigner from Bristol was, fortunately, helped to his feet unharmed, but a young woman left the kettle in an ambulance with a broken ankle. Not long afterwards, another protester was knocked unconscious and also taken to hospital. An independent legal observer monitoring the policing of the protest also suffered a broken wrist. Remarkably, despite the disruption and this heightened level of police aggression, only three people were arrested all morning, all for self-evidently dubious “assault on an emergency worker” allegations. The protester taken to hospital was arrested just after he was discharged, but was later told the police would take no further action against him. We hope he is already talking to lawyers about suing the Met and we have released a call-out for witnesses for all the injuries. This is what also makes this year’s DSEi protest stand out: for showing it is possible to take powerful, decisive action against the arms industry without centring mass arrests as a core strategic aim. The contrast could not have been greater, then, with the Defend Our Juries protest against the banning of Palestine Action, which took place three days earlier in Parliament Square in central London. There, around 1,300 people, many of them pensioners, were deliberately anticipating a terrorism arrest for holding up signs in support of a proscribed group. The early pace of arrests was slow, with groups of officers first carrying out the wheelchair users and then sign holders at the edges of the crowded square. Onlookers’ disgust and anger at the sight of grandparents, nurses and teachers treated as ‘terrorists’ led to voices raised even louder. The police became more uneasy and aggressive as they were jostled and during several of these terrorism arrests, people were pushed over and batons were drawn by some officers. Photo: Defend Our Juries After 3pm, more demonstrators began to arrive from the Palestine Coalition’s National March for Gaza, having decided to skip the speeches in Whitehall to come and show their support. The crowd swelled, as did the tension. More and more officers were required for each arrest, as they were quickly mobbed by angry protesters, some of whom seemed ready and willing to help with de-arrests, if only that hadn’t been the exact opposite of what these particular detainees wanted. As well as almost 900 arrested under the Terrorism Act on 6 September, which continued late into the evening, there were also 17 other arrests, mostly for “assault on an emergency worker”. Just as at DSEi, these arrests were highly questionable. The following day, senior officers leaned heavily on the “intolerable abuse” that police had received, as if they deserved praise for enforcing an unjust law. Certainly, some officers in Parliament Square appeared as demoralised as some of the delegates at DSEi, but like the arms traders, that’s the choice they have made. The direct action of the Shut DSEi Down protesters and the civil disobedience of the sign holders represent two strands of the current movement against Israeli genocide in Gaza, alongside the regular marches through the capital (now the 30th organised since October 2023). Both, in different ways, are also trying to navigate the crackdown on the right to protest in Britain that Netpol described last year, even before Palestine Action was banned, as “state repression”. The action at DSEi left protesters exhilarated, but those in Parliament Square who believe the government might at last listen to the mass power of moral example may have felt disheartened. The question now is whether the time and energy needed to outwit police surveillance can be replicated, persuading allies to treat security as central to their organising. The post London arms fair disruption: A stark contrast to mass arrests for Palestine appeared first on Freedom News.

YESTERDAY’S DAY OF ACTION SAW BLOQUONS TOUT STEPPING OUT OF THE SHADOWS NATIONWIDE—AND FACING MAJOR POLICE REPRESSION ~ punkacademic ~ Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Wednesday (10 September) as the first day of action organised under the banner Bloquons Tout (“Block Everything”) saw widespread protests and blockades in defence of jobs, pensions, and public services. By the evening, mainstream news outlets reported 812 individual actions across the country, along with 262 blockades. The police had deployed 80,000 police officers and gendarmes, making over 500 arrests by late afternoon. Government sources had been briefing that only 100 thousand protestors could be expected to turn out, but the Interior Ministry conceded that the numbers on the streets had been at least double that. The CGT said that a quarter of a million people had mobilised in the course of the day, while anti-capitalist website Contre Attaque reported up to 360 thousand protesters. https://contre-attaque.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/signal-2025-09-10-125917.mp4 Several universities closed in anticipation of potential occupations, and local authorities across the country pre-emptively ordered shops and businesses to close—effectively surrendering before action began. In Paris, a major demonstration took place at the Place de la Republique, and at Les Halles the shopping complex was blocked off to prevent access. Another demonstration against the government’s foreign policy and in support of Palestinian freedom took place at the Gare du Nord, where a thousand protestors attempted to enter the station. Activists also attempted to blockade the Paris ring road, but these actions were only briefly successful, as police on motorbikes dismounted and brutally pursued the protestors. Paris, Place des Fêtes Outside of Paris, blockades had greater success. Huge crowds marched in Marseille and Rennes, where a bus was torched and major roads effectively blocked. In the northern town of Laon, the Anarchist Federation was involved in actions alongside feminist comrades, opening a free thrift store which was attacked by police. One comrade described scenes of ‘almost unprecedented violence‘. With Macron’s most recent Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou, toppled by the National Assembly days before the mobilisation, tensions were heightened by the President’s choice of conservative defence minister Sebastien Lecornu as a replacement. Many protestors cited Bayrou’s budget cuts as a motivator, with Lecornu’s appointment seen as clear evidence that the oligarchical politics of Macronism would never change. Supermarket action, Perpignan The mainstream media has characterised Bloquons Tout as far left extremists and implying far-right involvement. There has been a persistent sneer at the idea of a ‘leaderless’ movement, betraying the anxiety caused to social and political elites. While the unions have only called a major day of action on 18 September, strikes already took place yesterday at hospitals bearing the brunt of cuts, building the momentum towards a continued wave of disruption. The post France blockades: The leaderless escalate appeared first on Freedom News.

ARRESTS OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT RISK CENTRING LIBERAL FREEDOMS INSTEAD OF PALESTINIAN SURVIVAL ~ Kell w Farshéa ~ Its 9pm, last Saturday (6 September). I’m standing on the pavement in the dark, watching the arrests. Police vans queue down the side of Parliament Square, engines idling. Police in high-vis jackets wade through the crowd of chanting singing people. Every five minutes cops emerge from the crowd carrying someone pron,e whilst another cop walks alongside telling them that they are being arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000. A group of supporters chanting “we are the revolution” accompany a man walking to the police van. Others shout “shame, shame” or “are you proud of yourself”. On and on it goes. Yet how English and polite and obedient it is. People are quietly carried to the vans where they climb inside unaided. I see people chat to the police officers as if we are all on the same side—decency, civility, democratic values, common outrage. The hours pass, more people are driven off through the police road block to the police cells. Its relentless. Google tells me that in August 2025 there were only 900 cells available in UK men’s prisons. Yet almost 1,500 people have been charged for explicitly stating they support Palestine Action. Indeed the internet suggests many people charged will face a fine rather than imprisonment. The Prime Minister and his new Home Secretary look like paper tigers, not resolute law makers. 1,500 people showing they are not afraid of the consequences in breaking one of the more serious crimes on statute because the law is seen as morally bankrupt. There is something powerful in this spectacle of defiance played out in front of parliament at night. And yet If passive resistance is so powerful, if the prison and police cells are in such short supply—why have the mass protests against genocide not brought 100,000 marchers to sit down in the streets of London? Indeed why was it only when UK citizen’s rights were threatened that people were prepared to be arrested en masse? I am absolutely sure that members of Palestine Action still want the focus to be on Gaza, but it seems like white liberalism is now more focussed instead on the proscription itself. And beyond the sight of elderly pensioners bedecked in military medals being arrested—how effective is this protest at stopping the genocide and ending the occupation? How much has the proscription taken the focus off the millions being starved to death in Gaza? Perhaps in the face of almost two years of mass demonstrations, emails and petitions it is understandable that people grasp for some kind of meaningful protest. Yet in an age when Parliament is uninterested in moral, genocidal, ecocidal or democratic principles, this may no longer be relevant. And yet, the questions must be asked. How can we more effectively resist the actual genocide? How can we avoid centring the debate over liberal democratic ideas and conditional freedoms, and instead re-centre it on the colonial capitalist murder of the people of Palestine? Let us remember that Mr. Starmer is not sympathetic to principled ‘gesture’ arrests. He is on record saying XR actionists should get long sentences. Starmer endorses segregationist policies for trans people and leans into Farage and the EDL’s fascist language on immigration. He would leave every pensioner in London on bail and still not allow PA to return. The mass arrests on Saturday were magnificent, cinematic even. But lets not pretend it’s not a sideshow distracting from the real issue—ending the genocide and fighting for a Free Palestine. Not one Palestinian child’s life will be saved by any of these arrests unless they refocus on the key issue: that while the government mouths platitudes about the man-made famine, it provides logistical support for drone attacks on children and targeted assassinations of journalists. > — “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre” (French General Pierre > Bosquet on the charge of the British Light Brigade at Balaclava, 25 October > 1854) > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Photos: Peter Marshall The post Proscription Action: It’s magnificent, but it’s not war appeared first on Freedom News.

WHILE ISRAEL BRANDS IT AS ‘TERRORISM’, GENOA DOCKWORKERS THREATEN MASS ACTION SHOULD THE FLOTILLA BE INTERCEPTED ~ Santiago Navarro F, Avispa Midia ~ As the Sumud Flotilla sails through the Mediterranean, Israel’s stance has been swift, threatening to label its crew, from more than 44 countries, as terrorists and to arrest and imprison them. Following these threats, Italian dockworkers in the port of Genoa have warned that if they lose contact with the flotilla for even 20 minutes, they will block the departure of 14,000 containers of merchandise to Israel. The flotilla of over 50 boats set sail on Sunday (30 August) from Barcelona, carrying trade unionists, doctors, parliamentarians, and activists such as American actress Susan Sarandon and Portuguese actress Sofía Aparicio, as well as Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was detained and deported last June while attempting to break the Gaza blockade with the then-called Freedom Flotilla. Their objective is threefold: to deliver aid directly, to break the media and political isolation of Gaza, and to denounce to the world what they describe as a “genocidal war” and an “illegal siege”. Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians and injured more than 157,000. Meanwhile, it continues to systematically obstruct the entry of food and humanitarian aid into the enclave. “It’s unfortunate that we have to do it ourselves; that we have to load ships with humanitarian aid to try to break the blockade and stop the genocide”, said Saif Abukeshek, a spokesperson for the flotilla, who was detained by Egypt last June during the Global March for Gaza. “We’re not just announcing the mission itself, but the building of a global solidarity movement that works with all oppressed peoples”, he explained. Abukeshek speaking in Barcelona. Photos: Albert Hernández Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned that activists travelling aboard the flotilla will be subjected to prolonged detention and will be denied privileges. “We will not allow people who support terrorism to live in comfort. They will face the full consequences of their actions”, Ben-Gvir said. Responding from Genoa, Riccardo Rudino, representative of the Autonomous Committee of Stevedores (CALP), issued an ultimatum in a video warning that if contact with the fleet is lost for even 20 minutes, “we will block Europe”. He also emphatically stated that “not a single nail will come out. We will go on an international strike, block roads, and block schools”. In Genoa alone, more than 300 tons of humanitarian aid were collected prior to the flotilla’s departure. This cargo was sent to the port of Catania and distributed to Italian ships that will join the humanitarian voyage. The voyage is planned to last seven to eight days. Strict security and discretion measures have been implemented, mindful of previous experiences with Israeli repression. This year has already seen two bitter precedents: the Madleen, with Thunberg on board, and the Handala, which were intercepted in June and July respectively by drone attacks and boarded by Israeli commandos in international waters. Their passengers were beaten, kidnapped, deported, and had their phones confiscated. Despite the drone overflights of the vessels near the coasts of Mallorca and Menorca, which the Flotilla has reported, they continue on their way to Gaza. The vessels advance each day toward their destination, with actions in different countries taking place at all times, ranging from words of encouragement to the addition of more vessels and people. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edited machine translation The post Sumud flotilla heads to Gaza “to break the blockade and stop the genocide” appeared first on Freedom News.