France – AIL: Down with the Repression by the Imperialist State in the Colonies
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement published by the French section of the International Anti-Imperialist League (AIL) on October 31.
For over a month, France has been rocked by intense protests. Launched by high school students and young people in September, this movement has spread like wildfire, drawing in workers, the original Yellow Vests, and popular neighborhoods, and finding support among farmers and union members.
This already explosive revolt reached a peak in intensity on October 17, a dark day for the bourgeois State, which found itself with its back against the wall, taken by surprise by the violence of the outburst of anger.
This anger swept through and shook metropolitan France but also found a catalyst in the French colonies. High school blockades, roadblocks, clashes, demonstrations – anger is boiling over and the demands are numerous. Accessible transportation, cafeterias large enough to accommodate all students, resources for schools, ventilation for the summer and heating for the winter, gas prices and the cost of living, police and racist violence, colonial administration, the list goes on.
The protests have intensified even further in recent days: since October 14, Guadeloupe has been affected daily by roadblocks and blockades, which are widely supported by the population.
October 17 was also a major day of revolt in the colonies: demonstrations, clashes, roadblocks, looting – the capitalist and imperialist order imposed by the metropolitan power was challenged and shaken here as well.
And while the bourgeois State forgets and abandons the residents of the colonies throughout the year, it did not miss the opportunity to violently and harshly repress the young people in struggle, leaving their mark on their bodies.
The full, excessive arsenal of repression wielded by the regime’s forces came down on the youth and the mobilized masses: rubber bullets, tear gas, grenades, charges, police custody, and mass arrests.
The consequences are severe: a man struck by a gendarmerie vehicle and placed in an induced coma, and at least one high school girl hit in the head by a direct flashball shot in Guadeloupe, violent arrests and police custody in Réunion. tear gas used against minors and a curfew imposed after clashes in Martinique, among other incidents.
In the colonies – for these territories are indeed modern colonies of the French state – the masses suffer from all the parasitic plundering of imperialism: the theft of resources, catastrophic health and environmental conditions, and the overexploitation of the environment and the labor force.
As a result, these territories are particularly hard-hit by inflation and the high cost of living, by abandonment and neglect by the government, and by poor living and working conditions in general.
Faced with colonial contempt and violence, the masses are fighting back and rising up. The youth – the shock troops of the struggle for liberation and revolution – are rising up and confronting the occupying forces of the dying imperialists, who have nothing but violence to delay their downfall.
Roadblocks and economic blockades put pressure on the parasitic imperialists, who depend on the plunder of resources and labor in the colonies.
The Anti-Imperialist League – Section France offers its unwavering support to the fiery youth of the French colonies who dare to rise up against injustice and the colonial occupier, in the name of their liberation.
The AIL – Section France stands in solidarity with those who have been wounded and repressed for having rightly rebelled!
In the face of the crimes of colonialism and imperialism, in the face of the plundering of wealth, the theft of raw materials, and the exploitation of labor, we are right to revolt!
Anti-Imperialist League – France
October 29, 2026
