A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - He runs, he runs the rebel... (Part 1) (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Memory of antimilitarist struggles ---- Our friend Franck Thiriot, 
regular contributor to Le Monde Libertaire, sent us a text recounting 
his 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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