This government knows nothing but violence

Hello, my name is Pierre, I’m 21 and a student at Nanterre, France.

As you know Moscow and Washington have been at war for the last 500 days.

The macabre consequence is that 300,000 soldiers have already fallen. How many of them youths among them?

It has become normal in society to assume that being young is being poor. And yet to vote a 413-billion-war budget the Parliament has no qualms. You should see the long lines in front of the food banks, people my age.

When on June 27th 17-year-old Nahel was executed in Nanterre 650 yards from my university the news went viral on social networks. A frightful question crossed many a citizen’s mind: how many Nahels had not been recorded on video? The police is what enabled Macron to stay in power against the yellow-vest protest

And so we come to the question of who is responsible for the current situation?

Instead of responding with social measures, the government prefers to give the screw yet another turn. This takes the shape and form of unheard-of methods of repression against environmental movements. This takes the shape and form of the regimentation of high school students. There is no money for teachers to teach how to think but there is money for the military to teach how to obey. With institutional racism in the police force, a government that fuels youths and the suburbs with anger and this national service for young people we can wonder what has France come to. Is the government seeking a civil confrontation?

Every year hundreds of thousands of young people are thrown out of higher education because the government limits places.

Finally, this resolve to keep young people in line is to be connected with the reaction of the French government to Nahel’s death. It is the government and its justice system that commit state violence. To wit, 17-year-old Nahel was shot in the head by a police officer for failing to comply to his order. It is not surprising, then, that the youths of these working-class districts react so badly; not surprising, then, that such underprivileged populations should loot food stores. Young people, accused of violence? While this government knows nothing but violence against them! Social violence! The violence of the war they are waging in Ukraine with its consequences! The violence of repression when young people refuse the fate the government dooms them with!

In a statement, 100 political and trade union organizations and associations call for the march in memory of Adama Traoré, another suburban youth who fell to police State violence in 2016.

The demonstration has been banned. A symbol of repression if any. So now we are currently demonstrating in Paris. A symbol of resistance if any.