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People have gathered here 
to discuss their struggles,

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so that local struggles, 
usually condemned to invisibility,

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now become visible for all to see,
so that those who lead

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these struggles know that 
they are not alone.

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It started with a big protest on the 31st,
under apocalyptic rain.

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We gathered straight after it on 
Republique Square,

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we had our first general assembly, and
the first commissions were created

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People are on this square because 
they’re tired of this system,

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and to put it simply they want to 
recreate something collective,

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human, militant and I wanna say revolutionary.

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Nuit Debout is a sum of individuals, 
it's a gathering of different people

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who don't have a labels, 
don’t wear partizan symbols,

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they come as individuals and come 
with their knowledge

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to enrich the debate, or suggest alternatives.

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From the 31st onward, I didn’t leave 
the Republique Square,

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at my age, I feel it is important to mention,
I am 60 soon 61,

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so at night I go home to sleep, 
but if at some point

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I had to spend the night here, I would.

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We’ve organized in different commission
in order to efficiently

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share the tasks and focus on a 
particular issues,

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so there are several commissions; 
the democracy commission,

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the constituant commission, the 
alternative labour law commission,

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the climate and ecology commission.

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If you’re interested in something, 
you gang up with likeminded people,

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it can be 20, 30, 40 or close to 100 
people for some commission,

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and everyone can suggest ideas, 
if it's validated, then you do it.

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The garden was validated 3 days ago,
and we did it within 3 days.

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The commission you chose in some ways 
determines the hierarchy

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of your values, without saying one is more 
important than the other,

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but if you join the Action commission, 
it means you don't

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wanna be behind a computer at a media center 
all day, it's just different forms of activism

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We try to promote 
the convergence of struggles,

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and to stay vigilant in regards 
to police brutality,

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to preserve the physical integrity of the 
activists while fucking the system up

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What can the government do for us,
Im homeless, I have no where to sleep,

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nothing, but today I'm happy,

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to me Hollande, all government,
left wing or right wing, they're all the same,

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we should put them in a basket
and take them to the dumpsite.

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We're looking for McDonald's' profits, 
has anyone seen them?

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Sensibilizing people to the problems 
that we're tackling today

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on the Republique Square, that goes to say
for struggles to converge we start with

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individual issues and synthesize them
into one great movement

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So concerning the refugees, I was told
'convergence of struggles',

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so I thought: great, I know 50 
guys sleeping outside,

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I can find about 200 before the end of the week,
or more, so yeah it's gonna be great.

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Well, it didn't go all that well cause 
from midnight onwards people are drunk,

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then people leave and the next morning, 
the refugees wake up with the police,

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which they're pretty used too...

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We need to give people some time 
cause first they'll party,

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and once they've partied, they’ll try 
something else, it’ll be more constructive…

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People take part in commissions, but it's 
maybe not enough yet,

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you know what I mean, it's still is a lot of talk,
but it's a good place to start.

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Now we have a lot of newcomers at the 
Republique Square,

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and that's great, but that also diluting the core,
there are many people that don’t

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seem to be on program regarding 
anti-capitalism, and if they become the majority,

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and if the law passes, then that would
would clearly suck.

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On the question of the Right wing 
or the Left wing,

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I hear lots of people say we're neither
one nor the other,

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we're apolitical and so on, while clearly 
we are the radical left,

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and what does apolitical even mean? 
Nothing is apolitical.

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You're not partisan if you do not subscribe to a
party or an organisation,

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if you do not take a stance for or 
against anythings, but you're not

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apolitical because precisely you're fighting
against a law that is political.

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You’re trying to create a space for
common living.

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Neutrality doesn’t exist, 
you can’t be apolitical.

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The space for the real left-wing discourse
in the media is getting small,

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that was also the point of 
the Republique Square,

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to provide a space for serious left wing
ideology and exchange

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and not complete freedom of speech, 
where everyone is welcome.

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We never said everyone's welcome, 
from the start it was clear

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that we wouldn't tolerate certain
ideas and Finkielkraut clearly fits

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in the category of the discourses
we won't tolerate here.

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He has clearly islamophobic tendencies,
and if you listen to him,

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the dominate evil in France are
‘islamized suburbs’, it's ridiculous he thought

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he would be welcomed here…

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And people complain saying : «Oh my god, 
you chased him away »,

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but of course we did, he's on TV 
and radio everyday,

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saying absurdities, and you still want to 
listen to him? If you think

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about it, 5 minutes of Finkielkraut are 5 
minutes stolen from us.

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It's not even a restriction of Free Speech,
which I have issues with

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but that's a different subject, you're 
just preventing people to speak at

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a general assembly, in a given space.
Freedom of speech is not the duty

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to listen to all the people that talk 
bull-shit, that’s a different thing.

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Nuit Debout we exclude no one, we're inclusive, 
but we'll always fight fascists.

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There's something like an ideology of
self-expression, they seem to think that

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it’s through some sort of epiphany that 
something like organization or strength

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will be achieved, and that 500 people
speaking one after the other on a stage

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is all you need to end capitalism, 
as if it was enough in itself.

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People say 'yeah Nuit Debout hasn't done much,’
there have been 30 days of general assembly,

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not a single thing has been decided, 
it's really absurd, 30 days !

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Nothing came out of it but people still say
it's a great thing.

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Ultimately, what happened at Nuit Debout,
is simply that

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the Republique Square was used as a square;
people meet from 5 pm after their work,

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and they argue until 11 pm, 
at which point they go home,

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but that’s just the normal use of a square
in any country that isn't France, in any city

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that isn’t Paris, in any society where individuals
haven’t been atomized to this extent...

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People come together to talk, 
but it's a bit like TV, you come and go

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without really taking part, you can sit, 
leave, have a beer, listen for two minutes

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and flick. It's always flicking, there is no 
common thread,you can follow parts of it,

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so, as a place for expression it's great but it
really isn't a place to meet, it's very massified,

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the way you speak is formatted by the mass
in the audience...

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A lot of slogans, a lot of hashtags, 
but in the end there's a lot of loneliness,

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a lot of atomization, in fact Nuit Debout
did not manage to overcome the

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loneliness of its participants. It’s loneliness
that pushes people to come to Nuit Debout

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and that's what's good; that people still chose
to come to a square with 3000 people

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rather than to stay at home, but this solitude
isn’t overcome by people coming out to say

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'it's terrible, Im alone', it's surpassed by
people sharing practices on the square,

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elementary practices like making fire, building 
a shelter, playing football, dancing, partying,

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confronting the police...

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The general assemby did not set clear 
political goals for itself, it’s still in a

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structural blur, in the absence of real
decisionary power, it votes stuff

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but doesn't give itself the means 
to carry out the corresponding tasks,

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However, real political actions are organized 
in small groups, and those small groups

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are made by the trust we build between each other
and with the time that we share together.

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Nuit Debout also has this function.

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It helps re-engage a discussion among us, 
among activist that don't know each

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other or than through unions and 
pseudo-revolutionary parties such as

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the NPA or the likes, it gives us 
the opportunity to exchange in new settings.

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I have resigned from all my mandates 
because of a disagreements

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with my union during the last month 
long strike at Radio France,

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Why ? Because it abandoned the revolutionary
ideal, internationalism and class struggle,

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to speak bluntly and vulgarly in our day an age.

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Today they're a bit disconnected from real 
struggles, from today's potential for struggle,

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It was painful with the CGT’s group of steel
and railroader workers,

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on that evening I swore 
I'Id never give out leaflets again.

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All the protest was like ‘Hey Nuit Debout,
can't we do it

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laying down, how do I find you,
at yours at mine ?'

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On the labour law, it's as if they were forced, 
to call to protest faced

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with citizen anger, but they didn't seem eager.

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'Work = Goulag with AC'

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A lot of the interesting initiative that were 
launched at Nuit Debout emerged in its periphery,

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I'm thinking of the  unauthorized protests
to help the migrants at ‘Stalingrad’,

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or to try and free comrades taken to the 
police station after protests,

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or the apéritif at Valls’s where 3000 people 
went on a night protest from the square,

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the cops kettled part of the protestors in Rue
Keller, obviously this got people pretty angry.

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On their way back to Republique, there was
around a thousand people

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protesting through the streets and all the banks,
all the employment agencies,

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all the real estate agencies were smashed,
and the protestors were shouting

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'everyone hates bankers', and people were 
applauding those breaking the banks.

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There was also this incredible concert: 
'Orchestre Debout': 300 musicians answered

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a Facebook event and came to play. It was Great.

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If the the movement has difficulties confronting
its antagonism with the police,

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although it's obvious for a social movement to 
come into conflict with the police,

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it's because it has difficulties confronting 
the internal conflicts within the movement

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between different subjectivities, different 
types of actions and practices, different types

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of relationships to space, the body, time,
alcohol, life, joy, dance, music, etc..

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Between those who want to destitute, 
those that want to constitute,

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those that want a new republic, 
those that want an insurrection,

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those that want a confederation of communes, 
those that want the Z.A.D. everywhere,

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those that want the same thing as now but 
with less police brutality etc.

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Breaking up banks and throwing a stones on cops 
doesn't come close

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to the system's level of violence, and if some 
answer to institutional and capitalist violence,

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in that way, we're in no right to judge that, 
whether this act is pertinent or not is

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another debate, one can chose to think 
it isn’t, but that is another topic.

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The people who say 'we need to exclude 
those who throw stones on the cops',

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in my opinion are wrong because we're all in the
same boat, we all get screwed by our boss’s,

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we all getting screwed by capitalism, by the
necessity to pay the rent at the end of the month,

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and that's much more violence than degrading a bank.

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My back ins’t strong enough anymore, but
if I could have in my backpack,

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a few pétanque balls, (I love playing pétanque),
I'd throw them on a few banks, I swear,

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I don't do it, but I just might one of these days,
so I’ll never condemn those who do.

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It's part of the elementary practices of 
of men and woman organizing together,

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it's part of an elementary political lexicon, 
In fact, to this, people want to substitute

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a new political lexicon about moving your
hands in the air or to turn the other cheek.

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They break lives, what’s a broken window 
compared to a broken life?

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Since the beginning, our limit was physical
violence we don't put people’s lives in danger,

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we don't call to harm policemen, 
then people do what they want.

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Among the inconveniences of being a cop
is getting hit a few times,

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but they're the ones usually hitting people
so I won't say it spoils protests.

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How could you imagine that big owners, financial 
groups and the government

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wouldn’t defend themselves, the proof is that
they won't even tolerate a canteen,

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they throw the food that people make in the
gutter, while there are people who are starving

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that come to Republic to find food.

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A real convergence of struggles in 
the movement undoubtedly occurs,

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but it occurs at the front of the protests,
where you have goodyears (fired workers),

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suburban youth, high school students from
eastern Paris, autonomists, normal peeps,

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citizen with ‘Melenchon’ stickers, etc., 
nurses in struggle, psychiatric workers,

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that all find themselves at the front facing the
police, that's just a fact, that's what happened,

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so you don't need to call for a convergence 
of struggles, it happens, you simply

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need to accept it where it happens, and not where
you wish it would happen, and start from there.

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Do I think Nuit Debout will intensify, yes, 
if not on the Republique Square,

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it will amplify in other ways unfortunately, 
because if you take away platforms for change,

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the status quo rigidifies, and the more 
it rigidifies, the more it’ll have to

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face persistent threats

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We should expose police brutality, 
and the fact that comrades get their noses

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broken by shots of flashball, or that they 
were blinded in one eye at a protest last week,

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we don't hear or speak about it enough because 
we think it's gonna scare people

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and they won't wanna come back to Nuit Debout,
but the thing is, the struggle isn't carried

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out by the idiot in his 5 bedroom flat who
comes down to Nuit Debout

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because it's cool, and there's is a good 
atmosphere, they're not

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the ones who carry out the struggle, they're
coming because there's an event in their street.

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People love to say  : 'Yeah the Arab Spring 
was really great,

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it was beautiful all those peeps on a square …'.

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Before people got together on Tahrir in Egypt, 
they lit 70% of the police stations on fire,

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after a three day protest that destituted 
Moubakarak,

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his party's office was burnt, and it wasn't 
just an office,

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it was an entire building on Tahrir Square. 
What i’m trying to say is that these practices

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come logically; in the North of Tunisia, all of 
the police stations were lit on fire too.

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Police brutality existed before, it just got a
little worst  in the city centers,

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they just  started doing what they were doing
when they weren't filmed in the suburbs,

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now they just do it in front 
of everyone, they don't give a fuck anymore.

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Also as they're always mobilized they're worn out,
the riot cops and the police,

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so we can say that if it goes bad, it's gonna
be even more complicated for them.

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But if there hadn't been this state violence, 
we would still have very cute movement,

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if planting leeks is political, for some people, 
maybe they'll understanding that burning

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symbols of capital is also political.

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We need to be ready when shit gets rough, you 
need to have your helmet and gas mask with you,

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It's almost a good sign when things get rough, 
it's always a question of defining our objectives,

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if our objective is to have an ‘happening’ 
on the Republique Square,

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then yeah it's not cool that we get maced,
if our objective is to topple the governement,

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that's another story, and it's a good sign 
if they beat us, it means we're disturbing.

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Nuit Debout hasn't surprised us, that's because, 
when it comes to social movements,

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things take time, what is certain is that 
if we do nothing, nothing will change,

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but being critical is necessary 
and we hope constructive.

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As I’m from the suburbs, and I've worked 
with NGO’s in poor neighborhoods,

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I have a bit of a network there 
and the first few days of Nuit Debout

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people prompted me to bring them 
which, to this day, I haven't done,

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because I'm committing on a personal level 
to all of this, but I don't want

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to engage other people to come under the pretext 
that we are from similar social backgrounds,

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in order to legitimate this struggle
I won't embark them into something about which

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I still do not know all the ins and outs of.

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Im just gonna take one example 
that occurred several time, with people

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with who I shared political opinions 
and struggles with, who discovered I was muslim

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and asked me absurd questions like 
"How come you don't wear a scarf?

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Are you not married ? Can you go out ?" etc.

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Is the aim to reach the suburbs ? Or is it to 
give a signal to the suburbs that it's possible,

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I believe it's up to the suburbs to self-organize,
we're not gonna do yuppy neocolonialism

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and explain to them what they should do.

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We have to decolonize the french left.

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What’s the bulk of [Nuit Debout's] demands, it's 
the El Khomry labor law, it's not police crime,

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it's not islamophobia, it's not negrophobia, 
it's not historical issues,

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it isn’t even the North-South divide.

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What you’re currently denouncing 
as your under-classing,

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is what the suburbs have been living with forever.

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A part of the French population is rising up,
feeling that its social condition is threatened,

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even though before the law
there was police violence,

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migrants dying by thousands in the seas 
due to the consequences of neocolonialism,

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colonialism and before that of slavery. 
This is continuous process which explains

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the current situation, yet, a movement like 
Nuit Debout didn’t materialized on those issues.

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The spotlights aren’t directed at, 
I was gonna say a dark, I would rather say pale,

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side of france’s history.

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So we're used to saying they’re 
the two sides of the same coin,

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Dr Jekil and Mr Hyde, the country 
of human rights and ‘Françafrique’,

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the country of human rights and slavery,

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So we're getting the impression that Nuit Debout,

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from the outside and until proven wrong, 
is rising to defend certain forms of privilege.

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We aren't gonna criticize yuppies for being 
yuppies and then criticize them when

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they want to engage in a resistance movement,
we need to be a bit serious, I prefer yuppies here

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than on the terraces of cafés, and I know it's 
a bit harsh to say that they’re just yuppies,

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the fact that people react in function 
of their interest, honestly,

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when you're slightly materialist, 
is understandable.

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We'll never have a majority on our side, 
we need to be ready to lead our struggle

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within minorities, a convinced minority.

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But we are not saying that it’s unnecessary 
to unite, to complete each other and collaborate,

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what we're saying is that we don't have 
great ambitions in regards to Nuit Debout,

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we won't try to convince the movement 
it should see things in other ways.

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If at some point, they find that 
what we say makes sense,

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and if they're up to try 
and think of an alternative,

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we'll be up for it, but our aim isn’t to come as
professors and say you're wrong and we're right.

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However, in France, there is a pernicious taboo 
that forbids us from speaking about racial issues,

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and instead we only speak of class 
while pretending that everything

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explains itself through class, and that’s where 
there's some kind of a confusion between

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Remy Fraisse and Zied et Bouna 
(victims of police violence),

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because it's necessary by all means 
to have a good conscience at a discounted price.

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The more white people are ready to invest 
themselves in our problematics,

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the happier we'll be, we encourage white people 
to understand what we say, understand the struggle

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of socially racialised people, 
understand the notion of white political choices,

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and the concept of ‘de-colonial majority’,
understand the strategy that we are building,

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understand that it's together 
that we'll get out of this.

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but not on the same ground though, 
we need to end up converging,

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we hope for alliances, 
while respecting the agendas,

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the temporalities, the spaces 
and the autonomy of each other.

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If we must collaborate, it will happen 
on fundamental issues, and not around ideals

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that we are all together and equal, 
because we've suffered enough

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from these democratic mascarades which 
justified the biggest crimes against humanity.

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What type of people can bond on what 
kind of practices. Let's make a list and see.

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Typically, defending yourself against the police 
can bring together a big part of the youth,

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regardless of class differences, 
blocking the economy can bring together

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parts of the youth and workers,
squatting can bring together…

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you see what I mean, it can bring together 
homeless people, migrants, activists, students.

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Depending on whether you're at the top 
or at the bottom of the hill,

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you won't have the same perspective on things.

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Our perception is different, which doesn't mean 
that at some point it can't become complementary,

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so we won't say that Nuit Debout is in the wrong 
and that we're on the right path,

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we'll say that if we want to understand 
each other, we'll first have to debate together

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and it is very necessary that no one feels 
entitled to speak on behalf of anyone else

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I believe we're in a pre-fascist era, 
I believe it's a worrying moment

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but that everything is possible,
I don't feel it's an insurrectional moment,

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I don't feel it,  I hope I'm wrong, 
I hope something will come out of this,

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I hope we'll have time to prepare for it, 
and when I say we, I mean in a wider sense

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the small organizations that derive from 
immigration, the suburbs, those who struggle

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against islamophobia police brutality, 
racism, lack of housing, prison conditions.

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All in all, I hope we'll have the time to prepare
ourselves to face a serious movement.

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The convergence of struggle, isn’t about 
waiting for workers to come and see us

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at the Republique Square, on the contrary, 
thats one of our errors;

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I say the workers, but also 
the racialised and precarious.

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What are our key words, is it anticapitalism? 
feminism? is it anti-imperialism?

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is it social values that are non racist, 
non homophobic, non sexist etc.?

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let us be clear, from then we'll be able 
to implement real strategies

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on how to we bring them forth.

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As soon as there will be many of us 
on the barricades, we'll witness

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new relationships, ones of solidarity: 
‘you can't pay your rent

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because you're on the barricade, that's fine, 
2000 of us will come help you out

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and you won't get evicted.’

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Even if the movement dies off, 
which will probably happen,

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in the street, in Paris, around the labour law,
we all know that the joy and the courage

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which have been felt at all the protests or 
at the occupations, at celebrations,

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this courage will not disappear, 
this courage won’t die off

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just because of a survey claims 
that 75% of the French people

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want a strong man to bring order back 
to the country, this courage has been conquered,

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and that's already a victory.

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Maybe first we need a defeat 
in order to do better next time,

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00:29:24,132 --> 00:29:29,641
maybe Nuit Debout is going 
to translate into a revolution

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that will occur in one or two years, 
who cares, that's not the problem.

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The situation is gonna get worse, 
and in some ways, it's because

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00:29:39,162 --> 00:29:42,162
it's gonna get worse that we'll be able 
to achieve something bigger,

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it's really up to us, all those who call 
themselves the avant-guard,

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the first among activists etc., for all of you,

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take the right path because 
what follows depends on you.

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Paris Stand-up , Rise-up !