We Can No Longer Sleep Now That Our Eyes Have Been Opened.
Political Struggle in France and the Nuit Debout.
by John-Erik Hansson
‘Socialist’ Neoliberalization: the ‘Loi Travail’ and the Origins of the Nuit Debout
The ruling Parti Socialiste, under the leadership of the Hollande-Valls duo proved almost as ruthless as the UMP and Sarkozy in trying to bury the rights of workers (1). In the string of broken promises and political U-turns, that which occupies most minds today is the ‘Loi Travail’ or ‘Loi El Khomri,’ by which the government proposes to overturn many of the principles of French labour law. French labour law is in dire need of reform — the Labour Code is huge, sprawling, contradictory, and hard to handle — but the massive, nigh-600-page bill proposed by Labour Minister Myriam El Khomri has been shown, in its first version to be ‘directly inspired by the Medef and the right’(2).
While it has changed thanks to different parliamentary proceedings, the bill still represents the state’s clear attempt at ‘liberalizing,’ or rather, ‘neoliberalizing’ French labour law. The emphases on ‘flexibility,’ ‘mobility’ within the job market, and the concomitant challenges to the institutions protecting workers from the structural powers of employers provide clear evidence of this. The law has now passed its first reading through a constitutional mechanism (article 49.3) effectively allowing the government to shut parliamentary debates, and to vote a text of the government’s own choosing (3).
In the meanwhile it garnered even more opposition from the left, who still considers it to be an outrageous attack on workers present and future, and from the right, who now considers that the law no longer goes far enough. The economist Thomas Piketty, of Capital in the 21st Century renown but once close to the Socialist Party’s former presidential candidate and current Environment Minister Ségolène Royal, called the Loi Travail and the whole process of reform a ‘dreadful waste’ in a recent blog post (4). And yet, in this dreadful waste a social movement has bloomed: the Nuit Debout (‘Standing Night’), launched on the night of the massive demonstration of 31 March 2016.
Radical Democracy in the République
The movement took to the emblematic and central Place de la République in Paris, and quickly and quickly had it renamed Place de la Commune, calling up the spirit of 1871, by the power of its general assembly. The choice of this location is not simply accidental or practical. Not only are the language and symbols of the ‘République’ central to French politics, but since the attacks of November 2015, the place de la République has also, more or less spontaneously, become a memorial to the victims. From the outset, the Nuit Debout has coexisted and interacted with the different symbolic values brought to the French political and emotional imagination by the square, the République, and the Commune.
The movement itself is difficult to pin down because of its heterogeneity, though it is obviously inspired by the worldwide Occupy and the M15/Indignados movements, and also makes use of the red square of fabric held by a safety pin, showing its debt to the Québec Student movement and in particular the ASSÉ (5), as well as the student roots of many of the early organizers of the Nuit Debout. This should guard us from romanticising the movement and ascribing it an amount of spontaneity that it did not have. François Ruffin, an early organizer, editor in chief of the newspaper Fakir and the director of Merci Patron!, a movie of some importance for Nuit Debout reminds us that there was a significant amount of planning involved before the square was taken over (6).
Different projects and committees have sprouted… a library, an orchestra and popular education forums where students and academics can raise social issues.
Though some planning was certainly involved, the overwhelmingly positive, and much more spontaneous response to the Nuit Debout allowed the movement to grow in size and ambition. Not only have activists in other cities started taking over public spaces, but the occupation of the place de la République / Commune has also managed to ground itself more perennially — against all odds. Different projects and committees have sprouted, giving the movement and the square a refreshing air of radical — perhaps even utopian — fervour. These include a canteen, a library, an orchestra and popular education forums where students and academics take the time to introduce their fields and work, as well as raise critical social issues. Different focus-groups also evaluate more or less critically the movement and its progress, from the point of view of a variety of pressing social concerns, including, for example, issues related to gender, to homelessness, and to democracy in and out of the Nuit Debout.
Conscious of the necessity to establish channels of communication for itself, and perhaps more importantly, with the outside world, the Nuit Debout has also launched its own media. While the Nuit Debout website centralises crucial information, other channels of communication such as the ‘Stream Debout,’ ‘TV Debout,’ ‘Radio Debout,’ and ‘Gazette Debout’ create spaces of conversation in video, audio, and text formats (7). Related to this attempt at transparency and immediacy, and in accordance with an agenda critical of representative democracy but embracing more direct forms of democracy, the main decisions for the movement are taken in open General Assemblies, with committees reporting on the relevant issues.
Diversity of practices of Nuit Debout sets it apart from most of all social movements in France since 1968.
In the end, it is this combination of influences, formal and informal structures, media presence, democratic agenda, and the diversity of its practices which sets the Nuit Debout apart from most if not all social movements in France since 1968.
Contesting the Occupation: Internal and External Criticism
Of course, such a movement has not come without its problems, or without its critics. The infamous heckling on 16 April of the polemicist, essayist, and former ‘68er’ Alain Finkielkraut has led some critics, following Finkielkraut’s own analysis, to assert that the movement was anti-democratic and exclusionary, in contrast with what it purports to be (8). But this incident was, in the end, relatively quickly forgotten, in spite of the ink spilled by some journalists and essayists, who wondered whether this should be considered a fundamental fracture of the movement (9).
The French authorities, certain participants of the Nuit Debout, and other observers have criticised the direct action tactics of certain demonstrators, labelled with the derogatory ‘casseurs’ (‘rioter’).
More important than the Finkielkraut affair is a more divisive issue concerning protest tactics, and the use of direct (violent) action. The French authorities, certain participants of the Nuit Debout, and other observers have criticised the direct action tactics of certain demonstrators, labelled with the derogatory ‘casseurs’ (‘rioter’) (10). Violence, their argument goes, is counter-productive, leads to a notable increase in police brutality, and does not achieve the political goals of the movement. Other participants insist that the violence of the ‘casseurs’ is a consequence of the physical violence of the French police, not known for its delicate methods (11). Tactics and police violence have, in the end, proven to be enduring political challenges to the Nuit Debout.
Out of Breath? The Nuit Debout and Beyond
Since late May, the presence of the Nuit Debout in the media, its visibility across the board, and the participation in some of the movement’s activities has dwindled (12). The movement can even be thought to be losing steam. Some of this has to do with the authorities’ increasingly violent response to the occupation. Beyond the muscular police interventions that accompanies demonstrations, there is increasing control and surveillance of the place de la République / Commune, and, for example, the consumption of alcohol has been forbidden. What is perhaps the key cause of the Nuit Debout’s actual and perceived loss of steam, however, is also the most crucial challenge that such a movement has to face: maintaining the balance between its activities, the prefigurative aspects of its radical project, and the immediate, ongoing social struggle.
Maintaining such a balance explains why the occupation is no longer the central front of political contestation. The multiplication of punctual actions, such as official and unofficial demonstrations met with staggering police brutality and concomitant violent direct action, and has occupied most media columns since the infamous police car burning of 18 May (13). The French labour movement has also made more extensive use of its direct action arsenal, by striking, blockading, and generally disrupting a number of key industries and services (14).
In this context, though it only exists in the backdrop, Nuit Debout has continued to participate in the mobilization against the current government. Participants in the Nuit Debout are participating in all new fronts, and are often found acting in solidarity with workers across France, and disseminating relevant information. The place de la République / Commune also remains the meeting point for general assemblies that follow demonstrations, and in this way the Nuit Debout and its association with the occupation of the square maintains a key role in the ongoing social struggle.
Whether the Nuit Debout, and the obvious synergies between its participants, and the organized labour movement despite their programmatic, organizational, and demographic differences translate into a successful movement in terms of results is still an open question. There will doubtless be differing narratives whether the convergence is a success or a failure, whether the El Khomri bill is repealed or maintained, and whether some of the broader goals of participants in both movements are achieved or not. In any case, the Nuit Debout has shown that social movements are no longer stagnant in France, and that fronts of struggle and solidarity can be successfully opened, leading to significant, creative and powerful spaces of para-parliamentary political contestation.
Acknowledgements by the autor.
John-Erik Hansson is grateful to Paul-Arthur Tortosa for comments on an early version of this article.
Acknowledgements by Homeland Is Not A Series.
We would like to thank John-Erik Hansson for his enlightening piece for our blog. We would also like to thank all photographers who generously shared their photos for this article and the rest of our reports.
