Received on 17.02.2020:

Could the listing of attacks and sabotages have a sense? Maybe. But if you’re looking for a complete overview of everything that happens, there’s not much point to have a look at what follows: media coverage, the mayor source of the attacks listed here, is not systematic or exhaustive. Moreover, facts are easily distorted by media reports. Moreover, listing, a typical quantitative method, cannot express the quality experienced and expressed in the ongoing battles, amongst the individuals accomplishing an attack, amidst the reflections and projects that bring one to the decision to go out and hit the enemy. If this list were to induce a quantitative approach of conflictuality, it would completely fail its purpose. If it were to suggest an accumulative approach of attack and insurrection, where the sum of all attacks would stand synonym for a revolutionary perspective, it would totally miss the point that it should be making: the spreading out of small attacks, carried out by small autonomous groups or individuals, rather than concentration. The choice for targets linked to the functioning of this world, disrupting its communication, its production, its normality, rather than a hostile attraction towards its symbols. The bet for informality, affinity groups, autonomous coordination instead of the old models of party organization, social movement collectives, rigid organizations (even armed).

So if you are interested in a certain vision on what’s happening in France, this listing could be of some interest, as each attack and sabotage contains in itself a suggestion on how to attack. Obviously, much of the context in which these attacks took place (the local context, the social context, the timing, etc., let alone their potential projectuality, their perspectives) gets totally lost when compiling a list like this. Again, we are aware of these limits, but we believe that many of the attacks that have been happening lately in France are showing a fairly “new” approach and are tending decisively to attack power not only in its more visible structures like banks, companies, institutions, etc., but also in its infrastructures (energy, telecommunications, transport). This opens up quite different and challenging horizons for the development of anarchist projectualities in the current era of technological restructuring of dominion.

When attacks were claimed, you’ll find in this listings at least a phrase extracted from the claim as well as the name (if there’s any) by which the claim was signed. For those interested in reading the full texts of these claims, both indications should make it easy to find them back in publications or on websites.

Finally, we did not include in the list the many riots which erupted during social protests, especially in the framework of the so-called Yellow Vest protests. Almost every Saturday, the Yellow Vest call-outs for demonstrations in a specific city or in several cities have turned into pitched battles with police forces and destructing and ransacking of shops and institutions. Finally, in December, a general strike was called out by the syndicates against the reform of the pension system. If on the one hand this strike strongly disrupted rail traffic and let to some confrontations on demonstrations and blockades, one can easily see how this strike was also a way for the syndicates to try to “take back control” over the more wild social protests, quite systematically refusing any kind of political or syndical representation.

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