France: Declaration of AIL Section France Against Repression
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a declaration published by the International Anti-Imperialist League – Section France, published on November 8.
There were “no orders to exercise restraint (directed at law enforcement) and no orders not to use all available intermediate-range weapons.” This is what Laurent Nunez stated regarding police action during the high school student movement and on October 17.
Mired in “crisis,” the bourgeoisie will do everything in its power to stabilize itself and attempt to stifle the revolt at the cost of the most extreme violence. This vital necessity for the French bourgeoisie to triumph over the masses and crush them is always aimed at attempting to ward off the crisis inherent in the capitalist mode of production, which thus dictates the bourgeoisie’s tasks. That is, to restructure the productive apparatus, break the revolutionary process, and prepare for the imperialist war to redivide the world. It is this process of reactionary consolidation that paves the way for fascism – toward which we are heading – in order to ward off “the permanent crisis,” that is, the class struggle, and to halt the revolutionary process.
In France, we are witnessing this process of reactionary consolidation, which is accelerating further amid the ongoing political and social crisis and as the 2027 elections approach. The French State is becoming increasingly authoritarian, and the erosion of basic and constitutional rights is accelerating.
The ruling bourgeoisie is in the process of overhauling and restructuring the productive apparatus through pension reform and attacks on labor laws, health insurance, unemployment benefits, and so on. We can clearly see, in the repression that has been unleashed since the start of the high school students’ uprising, or in the imprisonment of the Lyon antifascists in the Quentin Deranque case, how the State, as an instrument of bourgeois power, is attempting to crush the revolutionary tendency, the ongoing revolt, and all expressions of popular defense, protest, and antifascism.
Finally, the mass production of weapons, the constant increase in the military budget, and the ultra-aggressive stance of French imperialism toward its colonies and semi-colonies, particularly within the transatlantic NATO alliance, illustrate the preparations for imperialist war and this march toward the next conflict over the repartitioning of the world.
In France, basic democratic freedoms are being trampled upon a little more each day: bans on demonstrations, on public gatherings, and on going out at night; constant attacks on freedom of expression; threats to dissolve political parties and student unions; curfews; the imprisonment of hundreds of people; police custody for nearly 13,000 protesters, military personnel deployed in front of government buildings, the deployment of special anti-terrorist forces for crowd control, two deaths during the protests, people maimed, hundreds of broken bones and injuries, and an outburst of violence against France’s youth and children.
Since October 31, the State has implemented a new repressive administrative measure, the MICAS (Individual Measures of Administrative Control and Surveillance), which administratively aims to prevent activists from attending demonstrations, accompanied by a daily check-in at the police station. Several dozen, perhaps even a hundred, of these measures were issued for October 31, and this will likely continue and intensify. All of this is happening without any due process – the police State, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in all its glory.
All of this is not happening in a vacuum, but is closely linked to the march toward imperialist war. The capitalists must silence all internal opposition in order to prepare for future wars. Wars of plunder abroad and war against the masses at home are the two aspects of the contradiction that is the march toward war. Wars of plunder to loot resources and exploit the labor power of the colonies and semi-colonies; war against the masses to preserve the imperialists’ enrichment.
The class war waged against us by the State must be denounced and fought. Our response must be organization and struggle. Thus, without a struggle for democratic freedoms, we cannot support and advance the struggle against French imperialism. The struggle against French imperialism is directly the struggle against French capitalism.
For this reason, we call for a struggle against repression and the French State’s authoritarian advance. It is urgent that we develop forms of struggle to defend our democratic freedoms and to oppose the State’s security offensive, which is nothing more than a barricade, an attack on the people’s legitimate anger.
We say STOP. This unprecedented situation has gone on long enough, and it is up to anti-imperialists, revolutionaries, and democrats to unite to denounce and combat all attacks on our democratic rights.
Down with reactionary policies and repression!
It’s right to rebel!
Let us unite for our democratic freedoms!
Our response is struggle and organization!
Anti-Imperialist League (France)
November 3, 2026
