Over a hundred organisations from around the world, including a number of anarchist groups and British organisations, are backing the callout for a massive march in Paris to take place on March 19th against police brutality. Led by the families of people who have died at the hands of police and following on from weeks of protests and clashes in the streets, organisers say that, as the law is adapting to the needs of the police rather than the people, France’s working classes must assert dignity and unity. The main callout is translated below.

One per month. That is, on average, the number of fathers, brothers, sons that we lose because of the brutality of the forces of order. A brutality that takes several forms, from restraint techniques that lead to asphyxiation of the victims, to punches, bullets or Taserings which, in the worst cases, prove fatal.

Regularly, for more than 40 years, our people are thus killed by the French State, at the hands of those who are ironically called “guardians of peace.” Regularly for more than 40 years, it is with the most abusive impunity and campaigns of criminalisation that they respond to the mobilisations of those who claim truth and justice for their dead. The police, judicial and political persecution against the Traoré family, to whom we express our solidarity, is proof of this. Every time, it’s the same story.

The repression that targets us, we families of victims, has been accentuated by the state of emergency. All abuses have become possible, leading to tragic consequences. It is no longer the police which must adapt to the law, it is the law that adapts to the police. And we are far from the only ones to have been targeted by the reinforcement of the security services and State violence. In 2015, the government declared what amounted to an internal war. It traced migrants and those who defended them, pursuing its traditional repression of “blacks,” “Arabs,” “Muslims,” “Roma” and more generally of working-class neighbourhoods, including searches, house arrests and the completely arbitrary closure of mosques. In addition there is the social quagmire that (Blairite former prime minister) Manuel Valls and consorts have created, especially in the context of mobilisation against the labour law. Faced with the resistance of working-class neighbourhoods and social movements, violence has been unleashed against previously protected categories.

The terrible attacks we saw in 2015 and 2016 have reinforced the arsenal of the security services, as they are the direct result of the war policy that France and its allies have been leading abroad. The French State, which still places all its weight on the peoples it dominates in Africa, extends this policy into the Middle East even as it ratifies the occupation of Palestine. The “fight against terrorism” resembles a permanent aggression against innocent people. It is, among other things, what fuels the humanitarian crisis of refugees, themselves treated cynically as a potential “terror” threat. It is the snake that bites its tail — this climate of internal war makes it possible to justify ever-more brutal control over the population and delivers a license for violence to the forces of order, which repress all those who voice dissent and all those, from the families of victims to demonstrators against the law, working through the militants of the working-class neighborhoods of the ZAD, dare to organise against the State, claim justice and assert their dignity.

We are all affected!

The presidential campaign is not going to fix anything. On the contrary. Almost every new statement is an insult to our struggles, our concerns and our needs.

Because we will not submit to arbitrary power,

Because the words “justice” and “dignity” still make sense to us,

Because we believe that it is essential to organise together to fight against this war on the poor, migrants, descendants of the colonised,

We call on all those who feel concerned by these issues to join us in all future initiatives and to participate very widely in the March for Justice and Dignity that will take place on Sunday, March 19th, 2017 in Paris. Against the hogra, against humiliation, against racism and police violence, against the cowardly wars made on our behalf against peoples who have done us no harm.

Let us find hope, strength and unity in order to be together in the name of justice and dignity.

First signatory families:

Family of Lahoucine Ait Omghar — Family of Amine Bentounsi — Family of Hocine Bouras — Family of Abdoulaye Camara — Family of Lamine Dieng — Family of Wissam El Yamni — Family of Amadou Koumé — Family of Mourad Touat — Family of Ali Ziri — Family of Jean-Pierre Ferrara — Family of Rémi Fraisse — Family of Babacar Gueye

With the support of :

Truth and Justice Committee for Lamine Dieng — Truth and Justice Committee for Mamadou Marega — Truth and Justice Committee for Abou Bakari Tandia — Truth and Justice Collective for Babacar Gueye

Collective signatures

Action-fascist Paris-Banlieue (AFA) — ACTIT (Cultural Association of Turkish Workers) — AG college Rennes 2 — Alternative Libertaire (AL) — Citizens’ Assembly of Turkey Hailing (ACORT) — Association Black is really beautiful — Association Against Racism (ACOR, Switzerland ) — Association of Active Citizenship (Chauny) — Equality Association Toulouse Mirail — Association for Integration and Invention of Republicans (AIIR) — Association Femmes plural — Association KÂLÎ — Association against Islamophobia and racisms (Alcir 20th) — Thales Association (Nice) -Maghreb workers’ Association of France (ATMF) — ATMF Bas Rhin — Assembly of Wounded, Families and Collective against police violence — ASTI Annonay — Brigade Anti negrophobia (BAN) — Brussels Panthers — Calima — Candidature of Unitat Popular (CUP — Països Catalans) — Cases of Rebels — Cedetim / Ipam — Center of Postcolonial Studies of Lyon — CGT-Culture National Cité of the History of Immigration — Confederacion General del Trabajo (CGT Spain) — The Cip-IDF (Intermittent Coordination of precarious and Ile-de-France) — CISPM (International Coalition of undocumented and Migrants) — Collective acid — Collective Agone — SKB (Union of Socialist women) — Collective decolonial Lyon — feminisms Collective of Rennes 2 — Collective for the future homes (COPAF) — teacher Collective for the repeal of the 2004 Act (CLAI) — Collective inter-neighborhood 49 — Collective James Baldwin — Collective Parisien for Protection Youth and Minors Isolated Aliens (CPMJIE) — Collective neither war nor martial law — Collective as R … — CRED (Collectif Racise-e and decolonial) — Collective Hands off my intermittent.e -Collectif 20th in solidarity with migrants — Anarchist Committee Paris 7 — Committee against police violence in Pantin — Justice support Committee for Theo and all other (Paris3 University) — Coordination of Groups Anarchists (CGA) — ZAD Committee Rennes — Convergence Citizen Ivryenne (CCI) — Social Co-operative Social Ecology — CRI Red — CSP75 (Coordination 75 of the Sans-Papiers) — Besides we are from here “67 (DNSI) — Let’s disarm them! — DIDF (Federation of Workers and Youth Associations) — DIEL (Rights Here and There) — DNSI37 — Emancipation Inter-Union Trend — FASTI — Federation of Tunisians for a Citizenship of Both Rives(FTCR) — SOUTH-PTT Federation — (FUIQP) — FUIQP (Saint Etienne) — Women in struggle 93 — Girls and Sons of the Republic — Frantz Fanon Foundation — Alsatian anti- racist front — Popular Front of Turkey and DEV-GENÇ (revolutionary youth of Turkey) — Historical materialism (Toronto) — Alhambra anarchist group — Antifascist Group Lyon and surroundings — plural identity — IJAN ( Argentina) — IJAN International — legal Shack — The indivisible — Islamic Human Right Commission(IHRC) — ambitious Youth Bobigny — friends science po Strasbourg — the inhabitants of the ZAD Notre Dame des Landes — the intersection — LKP — Libertarians against Islamophobia — London Campaign Against Police and State (UK) — March of Women for Dignity (MAFED) — Mwasi — Communist Organization Libertaire (Paris) — New socialists (Toronto) — Ontario Coalition Against Poverty — MDDM (Movement for the Dignity and Rights of Malians) — New Cahiers du Socialisme (Montreal) — New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) — New Way anticolonial — Night standing Rennes — NUS Black Students Campaign — OCML proletarian Way — Organization equality — Dare cause — Paris Against Trump — Paris standing — workers’ Communist Party of France (OFC) — pirate Party — PHARE for equality — platform Of the voice of the prisoners — Party of Indigenous People of the Republic (PIR) — Not without us — Not without us (Bouches du Rhônes) — Pride of night — Network of Decolonial Studies — Network for a decolonial left — Contretemps-Web review — the collective Seum — Socialist Project (Toronto) — Solidaires students (University Paris 3) — SolidaritéS(Switzerland) — Exit of colonialism — South CT Mayor of Saint Denis — SOUTH CT (93 Plaine Commune) — SOUTH (Local Authorities 93) — SOUTH education 93 — Tours Stand — Unef — Antiracist and Popular Union of Toulouse (UAPU31) — Union of Democratic Muslims in France (UDMF) — local Union SUD / Solidaires (St Denis) — French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP) — Union prolétarianne Marxist-Leninist(Section of Paris) — UFCM — Emergency Our Assassinated Police (UNPA) — 350.org

Individual signatures:

Hamé , the group Rumor (artist) — Kery James (artist) — Youssoupha (artist) — NOS ( PNL) — Opal Tometi (Black Lives Matter co-founder and Executive Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration-BAJI) — Eli Domota (LKP) — Medina (artist) — Boubacar Boris Diop (writer) — Oumar Diaw (actor) — Juliette Fievet (columnist and host of TV / radio) — Melha Bedia (actor and comedian) — Grand corps malade (singer and director ) — Cut Killer (International DJ) — Samy Naceri (actor) — Kiddam and the People (rap group) — Youkoff (Artist).

Upcoming related events:

March 4th , Paris 10th Arrondissement: march for Amadou Koumé, died in a police station in 2015

March 6th-10th, Court of Appeal of Paris: trial of the police officer who killed Amine Bentounsi with a bullet in the back in 2012.

March 19th, Paris : Walk for Justice and Dignity

June 17th, Paris 20th A: March for Lamine Dieng, died in a police van in 2007

Solidarity messages can be sent to [email protected]

This article is edited from a machine translation. The original can be found here. Any problems, let us know!