Solidarity with LFI!
How to push back the far right?
Last Thursday in Lyon, a young nationalist activist was killed following a clash between “autonomous” activists and far-right militants, notably from the racist and identitarian collective Nemesis, known for its provocative actions. This occurred near a meeting of Rima Hassan, an activist against the genocide in Palestine and a member of the European Parliament for La France Insoumise (LFI). LFI had no involvement in the action against the far right that took place.
The far right, like good vultures, seized upon the incident to orchestrate a torrent of lies and attacks, even going so far as to target the headquarters of La France Insoumise and about ten offices of members of parliament or candidates for the March municipal elections. In 2023, after the death 16-year-old Thomas Perotto, they had gone on a rampage of racist attacks in a working-class neighborhood.
We stand in solidarity with La France Insoumise and La Jeune Garde, who are accused of a murder for which they are not responsible!
It’s also important to remember that the far right, the same group that murdered Clément Méric and rugby player Federico Aramburú, as well as Djamel Bendjaballah, a special education teacher, and Hichem Miraoui, a hairdresser, represents one of the main terrorist threats in Europe, with plans for racist and misogynistic attacks. They have no right to lecture anyone on “political violence.” The methods of terror through violence are theirs. Ours: mass action.
Workers, young people, union activists, anti-racists… self-defense and the safety of our side against provocations and attacks by fascists or police officers with gangster-like methods is a necessity. And this self-defense must be organized collectively and democratically to be effective.
Push back the far right through the massive mobilization of workers and young people!
The actions of a minority of small groups who represent only themselves cannot significantly push back the far right. Worse, they could even alienate young people and workers and serve as a pretext for repression as an example. Ultimately, the primary winners of this operation are Macron and the capitalists, because it is their main political opponents, La France Insoumise, who are under attack.
This is a new pretext for suppressing meetings and demonstrations, but also for strengthening racist propaganda and attacks. The Minister of Higher Education, Philippe Baptiste, has already called on university presidents for “increased mobilization,” meaning: to “ban political and union activities,” such as when students demonstrate against the genocide in Gaza.
In the United States, it was mass mobilization that forced Trump and ICE to back down from their racist violence in Minneapolis. And across the country, hundreds of thousands of high school and college students, and workers of all backgrounds, are mobilizing and striking against racist violence and Trump’s policies that serve billionaires. The acts of self-defense, with people intervening not to start fights but acting collectively, demonstrate what collective self-defense truly means.
There, as here, such self-defense cannot be separated from the fight against the government’s racist policies. Whether for demonstrations, meetings, or other events, security services allow for free expression and self-defense if necessary, ensuring that their actions and methods are discussed and democratically controlled by the majority. It is by organizing politically, campaigning, strengthening the fight against racism, against Macron, the National Rally, and the capitalists, and by fighting for socialism, that we will defeat the far right.