DIRECT ACTION OPPOSES DEFORESTATION AS YEAR COMES TO A CLOSE ~ Gabriel Fonten ~ On 17 December the Ada’itsx / Fairy Creek Blockade released footage of the latest raids by Canadian police, who arrested activists camped in the Walbran Valley in British Columbia. The activists, who have continued to blockade logging roads despite the damage to their camp by police and harsh weather, stand as the most recent iteration of a 30 year long campaign to defend Canada’s old-growth forests in the region. The existing old-growth forest represents just 3% of what existed pre-colonisation and protects some of Canada’s richest biodiversity and endangered species. On the other side of the world in Australia, South West Forest Defenders ended the year with a victory, successfully forcing the cancellation of planned burns of Mt Clare, Nornalup and Coalmine/Knoll Tingle forest blocks for 2025/26. Their campaign parallels activists in Canada in many ways: both came to the fore in the 1990s, oppose the ruthless expansion of the logging industry in their regions, and have used similar tactics such as blockades, tree-sitting, and mass civil disobedience. Both have also put forward an alternative understanding of the forests to the capitalists and politicians they oppose, emphasising shared responsibility, intertwinement, and indigenous rights to the land that are incompatible with its current exploitation. Image: South West Forest Defenders of Facebook Crucial to both is also their sustained efforts, including when victories are achieved. In both cases, the Australian and Canadian governments have compromised with the activists by creating national parks, delaying logging operations, and cancelling burn plans. Yet campaigns have been ready to continue when these protections ultimately give way to industry pressure once more. In both cases this has led to decades of continued struggle, to both win protections and ensure their enforcement. In the Canadian case, where mass civil disobedience had been a crucial tactic, this has meant that the campaign to defend Fairy Creek holds the record for the highest number of arrests in Canadian history. In an interview with Canada’s National Observer one organiser at the Fairy Creek blockade stated that “Blockading is not a marathon; it’s a relay. We just hope people will be here to pick up the baton”. Both campaigns stand as a testament to the resilience and longevity needed to stave off the relentless exploitation of the environment in a capitalist world, even when the pockets of old-growth forests still left are tiny compared to the expanses already stripped bare. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top image: Fairy Creek Blockade on Facebook (not AI) The post Forest defence in Canada and Australia appeared first on Freedom News.

PROTEST IN SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER STRIKING PALESTINE ACTIONISTS ~ Scott Harris ~ Sheffield group Stop Arming Israel says its activists today blockaded the Ametek-Land factory in Dronfield, protesting the company’s supply of infrared temperature measurement components to Israeli arms company Elbit. Protestors closed off the entrances for about an hour, chanting and giving speeches in support of the hunger strikers currently on remand in British prisons for taking action against companies involved in Gaza genocide. The prisoners demand a a shut-down of Elbit’s operations in Britain as well as immediate bail, an end to the censorship of their communications, the right to a fair trial, and the de-proscription of Palestine Action. All the hunger strikers have currently been hospitalised, with two of them—Qesser Zuhrah and Amu Gib—having passed 50 days without food. Several of their families have received little or no updates on their situations, according to the Prisoners for Palestine collective. “The hunger strikers are on death’s door”, said the Sheffield group, “Keir Starmer and David Lammy have Palestinian blood on their hands—and they will have the hunger strikers’ blood on their hands too if they do not act now”. Ametek, whose annual sales top $7 billion, increased its share price by nearly 30% during the first 14 months of the Gaza war. The company supplies Elbit with components for fighter jets and tanks used by the Israeli military. The post Sheffield Elbit supplier blockaded appeared first on Freedom News.

MORE THAN 35,000 OPPOSED THE FOUNDING CONFERENCE OF AFD YOUTH PARTY ~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~ Tens of thousands of people arrived in Gießen, Germany as part of a united front against the formation of a far-right youth party, relaunched by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 29 November. Political actions organised by the antifascist alliance Widersetzen saw multiple highways and roads in the district of Hessen blocked by activists. Photo: Wiederzetzen Around 800 people attended the launch of the youth party Generation Deutschland, an event that was postponed for more than two hours as a result of anti-fascists’ disruption. German police responded with heavy repression including pepper spray, rushing protesters with baton charges, and water cannons from police tanks, causing multiple injuries. Photo: Mouafak Mahmalji “Thank you for standing firm despite the massive police violence,” Widersetzen said after the event. “The scale is shocking and aligns with the decisions of the city of Gießen. Anyone who tries by all means to ban protest is willingly doing the dirty work for fascism.” This was the AfD’s second attempt to launch a youth party, after its predecessor Junge Alternative (JA) became uncontrollable, was classified as an extremist organisation by domestic intelligence and disbanded by its parent party last March. With Generation Deutschland, membership in the parent party is now mandatory and the AfD is hoping it can keep it in line. Photo: Wiederzetzen However, the current reboot appears to follow directly in the former youth party’s tragic fascist footsteps with the election of Jean-Pascal Hohm as chairman, himself classified as a right-wing extremist. “Germany is not lost yet,” he said after becoming the leader. “We will argue decisively, for a real migration turnaround that ensures that Germany remains the country and the homeland of the Germans.” Hohm himself has previously been part of the far-right Identitarian Movement and Pegida, as well as a proponent of conspiracy theories including ‘population exchange’ and the resistance the medical-led preventions of Covid-19. Photo: Mouafak Mahmalji The last elections in Germany saw the AfD gain 20.8% of the total vote and it is now the second largest part in Germany, gaining more than 69 seats, and surpassing the power of the former government run by Social Democrat Party (SPD) for the first time in its history. This was seen widely as a political disaster, considering the leading Christian Democrat Union (CDU) have become increasingly extreme. This was shown in January, after a lethal stabbing committed by Enamullah Omarzai, an Afghan asylum seeker with untreated schizophrenia. Before the investigation had begun, CDU and AfD joined forces for the first time to pass legislation stopping arrivals of all refugees on Germany’s borders. In contrast, those who requested to the court that Enamullah receive psychiatric support instead of imprisonment were those who survived his attack. What ‘generation Antifa’ have proved on the streets of Gießen is that the youth are not so easily manipulated to fight a cause only beneficial to billionaires. “It continues,” Widersetzen writes in the aftermath, “because today was not the first day: we struggle in everyday life and remain uncomfortable. We have the hope that the new AfD youth can count on our protests.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: Mouafak Mahmalji The post Clashes at “Generation Deutschland” blockades appeared first on Freedom News.

STOP ARMING ISRAEL TARGETS FORGED SOLUTIONS OVER ROLE IN SUPPLYING FIGHTER JETS USED IN GAZA ~ Scott Harris ~ Sheffield-based protest group Stop Arming Israel says its activists this morning once again blockaded the River Don site of weapons manufacturer Forged Solutions. The action follows the group’s previous blockades of the same site in August and of the company’s Meadowhall factory in July. Protesters halted traffic entering the River Don site, standing in front of the gates with banners, chants and speeches denouncing the company’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Despite a heavy police presence, they continued turning cars and lorries away until 8am. Later in the morning, a larger protest organised by local pro-Palestine groups gathered outside Forged Solutions’ Meadowhall site. The blockade formed part of a national day of action against the F-35 fighter jet, currently being used by Israel in its ongoing assault on Gaza. Called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the coordinated actions also targeted F-35 supply-chain sites in Brough, Cheltenham, Havant and Rochester, demanding a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. > “We’ve lobbied the council and mayoral authority countless times about > Sheffield’s complicity”, said one participant, “Two years into this genocide, > campaigning is not enough—we must halt the activities of these factories and > disrupt the supply chain”. The post Protesters blockade Sheffield weapons factory in national day of action against the F-35 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.

A DECENTRED LEADERLESS MOVEMENT AIMS TO SHUT DOWN FRANCE ON 10 SEPTEMBER IN A POWERFUL ATTACK ON THE BANKRUPTCY OF MACRONISM ~ punkacademic ~ It’s unusual that the loss of a Prime Minister and their government might not be the worst thing to happen in a week for a sitting French President, but this week might be the exception. Emmanuel Macron’s intellectually-bankrupt political project hit the skids again on Monday night when his Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou, was compelled to resign after losing a confidence vote in the National Assembly. The writing was on the wall (literally, in some places) – the reaction to Bayrou’s proposed austerity budget, which would have frozen pensions, implemented 44bn in cuts, and axed two bank holidays, had made his demise inevitable. But a greater threat to Macron looms; the threat of direct action on the part of a leaderless, decentralised movement, which has one simple call to arms – ‘Block Everything’. The bloquons tout, as they are known, originated online and have evolved into a mass movement which has drawn parallels with the Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vests) of 2018-2020, but which has a vastly different political profile. With many participants aged between 25 and 34, the bloquons tout are often graduates and hail from a different end of the socioeconomic spectrum than the disappointed retirees who manned the Yellow Vests’ blockades. These rebels are of the left, as recent research has shown. With mainstream political parties and unions not wanting to miss out on a train leaving the station, they have drawn support from the CGT, the Socialist Party, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise. The energy comes from outside the parties and unions, however, with the French authorities preparing for significant disruption in centres of left-wing activism including Nantes, Rennes, and Lyon. The Federation Anarchiste is mobilising in Rennes, Paris and across France, manning blockades, encouraging workers to strike, and broadcasting an online radio show covering developments from the participant perspective. French analysts are divided on whether Bayrou’s resignation will draw the sting of the Block Everything movement, with some claiming the fall of the government will demobilise the protestors, whilst others claim it will ‘galvanise’ them. Estimates from the French security establishment that 100,000 people can be expected to take part across France seem like wishful thinking on their part and an attempt to demotivate protesters. Block Everything represents a rejection of conventional politics that has repeatedly been shown wanting in France. In mid-2024, following a disastrous political gamble in calling an election to face down Marine le Pen, Macron’s determination to freeze out the left-wing New Popular Front which had gained a plurality of seats has led to crisis after crisis and a revolving door of Prime Ministers. Each time a Macronist Prime Minister seeks to raise the rhetorical temperature in political terms is a clearer demonstration than the last that French political institutions cannot deliver the change younger voters want and need, with some economists claiming the fiscal ‘crisis’ has been blown out-of-proportion. The Federation Anarchiste is using this moment as a teachable one, with comrades using the venues and spaces opened up by the 10th November day of action to communicate the nature and possibilities of anarchism. Though one pundit (rightly) stated that the CGT has strayed far from its revolutionary roots at the dawn of the 20th century, their ability to close down workplaces remains pivotal. Calls for a general strike have been heard from the left. Though a general strike is unlikely, workplace occupations and cross-sector action have been mooted. With air-traffic controllers also set to go out on strike the following week, the potential for continued disruption is real. ‘Block Everything’ promises to be significant, with some pundits claiming it could witness the biggest turnout since the May ’68 events. Whether it does or not, it represents a major challenge to Macron’s politics of zombie neoliberalism, with the mainstream press claiming France ‘may have become ungovernable’. We can but hope. The post Tomorrow, France revolts appeared first on Freedom News.