In the wake of the U.S. media’s typical barrage of lies and obfuscations regarding the November wave of riots in France, we thought your readers would be interested in this illuminating declaration which we just received from the Paris Group of the Surrealist Movement. For the Chicago Surrealist Group, Franklin Rosemont
"Warning Lights"
A Surrealist Statement on the Recent Riots in France
Paris Group of the Surrealist Movement
For three weeks, in the ghettos of the poor suburbs, euphemistically named “sensitive neighborhoods,” on the outskirts of the outskirts, thousands of cars were burned, public utilities devastated, troops of police deliberately attacked.
There is nothing new about what sparked these incidents: the absurd death of two adolescents seized by panic, in the course of “normal police behavior.” Comparable police blunders also occurred in the past, and nearly always lootings and burnings were the inevitable response. But such incidents were localized.
Nor is there is anything new in the methods employed or the visible targets: For many years now, notably in Alsace, cars are burned on New Year's Eve or at the time of more obscure commemorations. And for a long time schools have been vandalized by schoolboys expelled from school; buses or police cars stoned; passengers methodically robbed in public transport.
What is new today is the immediate extension of this violence, its rapid spread to the provinces, well beyond the borders of a spontaneous and unpremeditated movement.