10 novembre 2006
France: One Year After the Riots
by Jim Wolfreys, Socialist Review, November 2006
/.../ I asked Laurent from the LCR what kind of intervention was being organised by revolutionaries in the banlieue. "The main problem for activists of the radical left is their isolation from the associations of the youth in these areas," he argued. "When it comes to the LCR, our position during the riots can be criticised, but although we were behind the game, we didn't have the same position as Lutte Ouvrière or the Communist Party. We didn't lump the police and the youth together but there was a problem of clarity.
"There is a fundamental problem which concerns the way we integrate specific movements based on identity politics into a global logic of emancipation. Sometimes there's a tendency to see these movements as elements that divide the working class. In fact these movements emerge from genuine divisions within the class. It's by working alongside them that social issues, questions of class struggle, can be raised. But this means being able to listen to people and to work out where their ideas are in order to see what it's possible to achieve with them." /.../
/.../ I asked Laurent from the LCR what kind of intervention was being organised by revolutionaries in the banlieue. "The main problem for activists of the radical left is their isolation from the associations of the youth in these areas," he argued. "When it comes to the LCR, our position during the riots can be criticised, but although we were behind the game, we didn't have the same position as Lutte Ouvrière or the Communist Party. We didn't lump the police and the youth together but there was a problem of clarity.
"There is a fundamental problem which concerns the way we integrate specific movements based on identity politics into a global logic of emancipation. Sometimes there's a tendency to see these movements as elements that divide the working class. In fact these movements emerge from genuine divisions within the class. It's by working alongside them that social issues, questions of class struggle, can be raised. But this means being able to listen to people and to work out where their ideas are in order to see what it's possible to achieve with them." /.../
