The 12th of September marks the beginning of protests against the new (yet again!) french government’s proposed labour law reforms. Exit the socialists François Hollande and Manuel Valls, enter the golden boy, “I belong to no political party!”, politician as pure spectacle, Emmanuel Macron and the “I join whatever political party brings me to power!”, Edouard Philippe, and the political script … remains unchanged: weaken collective bargaining and collective labour contracts, weaken labour unions, weaken protection against firings, expand temporary contracts, in sum, intensify and expand labour exploitation in the name of competition and national well-being. (the guardian 31/08/2017)

With no illusions regarding the radicalness or militancy of labour unions (even the french “communist” CGT), the call for a day of strikes and protests led to over four thousand work stoppages and brought forth some four hundred thousand people into the streets across the country. (le monde 13/09/2017)

To strike and protest for a day is little, against the oppressive political and economic order of our time. But in every protest there is the unpredictable, the unmanageable … the eruption of the ungovernable that for however brief a time allows one to breath freely and opens a door on another imaginary. Those who Macron had earlier called the lazy, the cynical, belonging to the extremes, that is, all of those who refuse the sovereign’s light, on this day, reveled amid dark autumn leaves. The response of the State: the only one that increasingly it seems to know: physical violence.

Paris, September 12 (from Taranis news) …