Coupat Julien: "The extension of my detention is a little revenge"
V ere are the answers to questions we asked in writing to Julian Coupat. Indicted Nov. 15, 2008 for "terrorism" with eight other people arrested Tarnac (Corrèze) and Paris, he is suspected of having sabotaged the railway catenary. There is always the last to be incarcerated. (He asked that some words are in italics).
How do you live your detention?
Okay thank you. Traction, running, reading.
Can we recall the circumstances of your arrest?
A gang of youths wearing balaclavas and armed to the teeth was introduced in our break. They threatened us, handcuffed and taken away but not without any prior shattered. They have abducted aboard powerful cars traveling at over 170 km / h average on motorways. In their conversations, often returned to a Mr. Marion [former head of counterterrorism police] whose manly exploits the much amused as the objective to slap in a good mood one of his colleagues in the midst of a farewell. They have kidnapped four days in one of their "people's prison" in matters where we are knocking on the absurd to the obscene disputed.
He appeared to be the brains behind the operation apologized vaguely explaining that this circus was the fault of "services", up there where all sorts of people waving that we wanted very much . To date, my captors are still at large. Some facts various recent even attest that they continue to operate with impunity.
The sabotage on railway catenary in France have been claimed in Germany. What say you?
At the time of arrest, French police is already in possession of the press release claiming, in addition to sabotage it would award us, other attacks occurred simultaneously in Germany. This leaflet has many disadvantages: it is mailed from Hanover, written in German and sent to newspapers across the Rhine exclusively, but mostly it does not fit the story the media on our behalf that of the small core of zealots on the attack in the heart of the state in three pieces hanging on the lines of iron. We will, therefore, very careful not to over state this release, nor in the proceedings, either in the public lie.
It is true that the sabotage of railway lines loses much of its aura of mystery: it was simply to protest against the transport to Germany by rail and nuclear waste ultraradioactifs denounce the passage of the big con of "crisis". The statement concludes with a very SNCF "we thank the passenger trains concerned for their understanding" . What tact, all the same, from these "terrorists"!
you recognize yourself in the qualifications of "anarcho-autonomous" and "ultra-left"?
Let me go a little high. We currently live in France, the end of a period of freezing historic founder whose act was the agreement between Gaullists and Stalinists in 1945 to disarm the people under the pretext of "avoiding a civil war" . The terms of this agreement could be formulated as to quickly: while the right to renounce openly fascist overtones, left abandoned among themselves any serious prospect of revolution. The advantage that plays and enjoys the last four years, the clique Sarkozyist, is taking the initiative to unilaterally break the agreement in reviving "unashamedly" with the classics of pure reaction - the crazy, religion, West Africa, work, the history of France or national identity.
Given this power at war who dares to think strategically and divide the world into friends, enemies, and negligible amounts, the left remains paralyzed. It is too loose, too compromised, and frankly, too discredited to the least resistance to a power she does not dare, she treated as an enemy which delights him one by one the most malignant of its elements. As for the extreme left-the-Besancenot, regardless of their electoral results, and even leaving the state of small groups where she has always been floundering, she has no perspective to offer more desirable than the gray Soviet barely retouched in Photoshop. His destiny is to disappoint.
In the sphere of political representation in power has nothing to fear from anyone. And they are certainly not the union bureaucracies, sold more than ever, which will annoy him, they who for two years dancing ballet with the government if obscene. Under these conditions, the only force that is able to play the gang Sarkozyist, his only real enemy in this country is on the street, the street and his old revolutionary instincts. Alone, in fact, in the riots that followed the second round of the ritual plebiscite in May 2007, has managed to hoist a moment at the height of the situation. Alone, the Caribbean or in the recent occupation of companies or sacks, was able to hear another word.
This brief analysis of the theater had to assert itself early on as general information were published in June 2007 under the pen of journalists with orders (and in particular The World ) the first articles exposing the terrible peril that would place all social life the "anarcho-autonomous." We lent them to begin organizing spontaneous riots, which have in so many cities, praised the "election victory" the new president.
With this fable of "anarcho-autonomous", it drew the profile of the threat which the interior minister meekly employed, arrest raids targeted media to give a bit of flesh and some faces. When we can no longer contain the overflow, we can still assign a box and incarcerate. Now that the "cracker" which now intersect jumble Clairoix workers, the kids in cities, students and demonstrators blocking the cons-highs, though still effective in the routine management of social pacification, lets criminalize acts, not lives. And it is the intention of the new power to tackle the enemy as such, without waiting for it expresses itself. Such is the vocation of the new categories of repression.
It does not matter, ultimately, it is no one in France to recognize "anarcho-autonomous" or that the ultra-left is a political movement which had its heyday in the 1920s and has subsequently, never produced anything other than harmless marxology volumes. Moreover, the recent fortunes of the term "ultra" which allowed some journalists eager to catalog without firing a shot rioters Greek last December owes much to the fact that nobody knows what was the ultra-left, or even that it has never existed.
At this point, and in anticipation of overflows that can only be the face of systematic provocations of a global oligarchy and French at bay, the police use of these categories should soon suffer debate. We can not predict, however, that an "anarcho-autonomous" or "ultra" finally prevail favor of the Spectacle, to relegate the inexplicable revolt that justifies everything.
The police regard you as the leader of a group on the tipping point in terrorism. What do you think?
A pathetic claim can not be that of a regime on the verge of falling into nothingness.
What does the word terrorism to you?
Nothing can explain the department's Intelligence and Security Algerian suspected of having orchestrated with the knowledge of the DST, the wave of bombings of 1995 is not classified as international terrorist organizations. Nothing can explain either the sudden transmutation of "terrorist" in the liberation hero, as a partner to hang around the Evian in Iraqi policeman or "moderate Taliban" today, according to the latest reversals U.S. strategic doctrine.
Nothing, except sovereignty. Is sovereign in this world, that means the terrorists. Who refuses to share in this sovereignty will be careful not to answer your question. Who covet run with a few crumbs promptness. Who does not choke in bad faith will find a little instructive the case of these two ex - "terrorists" become a prime minister of Israel, the other president of the Palestinian Authority, and both having received to crown, the Nobel Prize for peace.
The uncertainty surrounding the classification of "terrorism", the obvious impossibility of defining it does not take some temporary weakness of the French legislation: they are the principle of the thing that we can, it very well define : Anti-Terrorism they are rather operating condition. Counterterrorism is a technique of government rooted in the old art of insurgency-cons, the war called "psychological", to be polite.
Counterterrorism, contrary to what the term would suggest, is not a way to fight against terrorism is the method by which one product , positively, the political enemy as a terrorist. This is, by any luxury provocation, infiltration, surveillance, intimidation and propaganda, through a science of media manipulation, the "psychological operations" of fabricating evidence and crimes, as the merger of police and judicial powers to destroy the "subversive threat" in linking together of the population, the internal enemy, the enemy policy to the affect of terror.
The essential in modern warfare , is this "battle for hearts and minds" where all shots are allowed. The basic method here is invariable: individuate the enemy to cut the people and the common reason, expose in the trappings of monster, defame, humiliate publicly engage in the vilest 'overwhelm their sputum, encourage them to hate. "The law must be used as just another weapon in the arsenal of government and in this case represents nothing more than a propaganda cover for getting rid of undesirable members of the public. For maximum effectiveness, should be that the activities of legal services are related to the war effort as discreet as possible ", advice given in 1971, Brigadier Frank Kitson [former British Army general theorist of war-cons insurrectionelle] , who knew something.
An Unusually, in our case, counter-terrorism was an oven. We're not ready, in France, let themselves be terrorized by us. The extended my detention for "reasonable" is a little revenge is understandable given the resources provided, and the depth of failure, as is the understandable eagerness a bit shabby "services" since November 11, to assist us in the press and harm the more whimsical, or Filoche the least of our comrades. How this logic of retaliation control over the police force, and the little heart of the judges is what qu'auront had the merit of revealing in recent times, the arrests of timed "Coupat near Julian.
must say that some play, in this case, a whole section of their dismal career as Alain Bauer [criminologist] , others launch their new services, like poor Mr. Squarcini [director of central intelligence inside] , others credibility they never had and they will never, as Michèle Alliot-Marie.
You come from an environment that could very easily point you in another direction ...
"There are the mob in all classes" (Hegel).
Tarnac Why?
Go ahead, you'll understand. If you do not understand, no you can the explain, I'm afraid.
You define yourself as an intellectual? A philosopher?
philosophy was born as mourning talkative native of wisdom. Plato already hear the words of Heraclitus as escaped from a bygone world. At the time of diffuse intellectuality, it is not clear what could specify "the intellectual", if not the extent of the gap that separates him from the faculty of thinking the ability to live. Sad songs, in fact, than that. But who , exactly, would it be defined?
Are you the author of the book The insurgency has ?
is the most formidable of this procedure: a book full paid to the investigation file, questioning where we try to make you say that you live as it is written in The insurgency comes, you show as advocated The insurgency has , you sabotage of railway lines to commemorate the Bolshevik coup of October 1917, since it is mentioned in the insurgency just , an editor called by anti-terrorism agencies. From memory
French, he had not seen for a long time take power because of fear a book. It was more usual to consider that, as the leftists were busy writing, at least they did not revolution. Times change, certainly. The serious historical returns.
What founds the charge of terrorism, for us, is the suspicion of the coincidence of thought and life, which makes the conspiracy, is the suspicion that this coincidence does would be left to individual heroism, but would be subject to a common attention. Negatively, this means that we do not suspect any of those who sign their names as fierce critics of the system in place to practice any of their firm resolutions, the injury is significant. Unfortunately, I am not the author of The insurgency has - and this whole case should rather convince us complete the essentially police function author.
I am, however, a reader. Rereading it, not later than last week, I better understood the hysterical spite that we put in high places, as to chase the suspects. The scandal of this book is that everything contained therein is rigorously true catastrophically, and continues to be a little more each day. For what is, in the guise of "economic crisis", a "collapse of confidence", a "massive rejection of the ruling classes," it is the end of a civilization, the implosion of a paradigm: that of government, which governed everything in the West - the ratio of people to themselves no less than the political, religious or corporate organization. There are, at all levels of this, a huge loss of control what maraboutage no policeman will offer a cure.
This piercing is not in us by imprisonment, surveillance finicky, judicial reviews, and connect bans on the grounds that we would be the authors of this lucid statement, we will vanish what is found. The peculiarity of truths is to escape, barely contained, to those who formulate them. Rulers, he will do anything we used to sue, on the contrary. You read
"Discipline and Punish" Michel Foucault. This analysis seems you still relevant?
The prison is the dirty little secret of French society, the key, and not the mark of social relations les plus présentables. Ce qui se concentre ici en un tout compact, ce n'est pas un tas de barbares ensauvagés comme on se plaît à le faire croire, mais bien l'ensemble des disciplines qui trament, au-dehors, l'existence dite "normale". Surveillants, cantine, parties de foot dans la cour, emploi du temps, divisions, camaraderie, baston, laideur des architectures : il faut avoir séjourné en prison pour prendre la pleine mesure de ce que l'école, l'innocente école de la République, contient, par exemple, de carcéral.
Envisagée sous cet angle imprenable, ce n'est pas la prison qui serait un repaire pour les ratés de la société, mais la société présente which is the result of a botched prison. The same organization of separation, the same administration of misery by the shit on TV, sports, and porn certainly prevails elsewhere with less method. Finally, the high walls not to steal glances that this explosive truth of a commonplace: these are the lives and souls in every point like that hang from either side of the barbed wire and because of them.
If so avidly tracking the testimony "from within" that finally expose the secrets that the prison holds, it is to hide the secret that she is : to your servitude, to you who are deemed free while his threat hangs invisibly on your every move.
Any righteous indignation surrounding the blackness of their French jails and suicide repeatedly, all the coarse-propaganda against the prison administration staged for the cameras of the prison guards committed to the welfare of the inmate and Directors sheet concerned the "meaning of the sentence" in short, all this debate about the horror of incarceration and the need for humanization of detention is as old as the prison. It is even part of its efficient to combine the terror she must inspire his hypocritical status punishment "civilized." The small system of espionage, humiliation and devastation that the French state has more fanatical than any other in Europe around the inmate is not even shocking. The state pays the daily hundredfold in its suburbs, and this is obviously just the beginning: revenge is the hygiene of the plebs.
But the most remarkable sham judicial / prison system is certainly claim it is there to punish criminals when he only managed illegalities. Any boss - and not only that of Total - any president General advice - and not just the Hauts-de-Seine, any cop knows what it takes to illegalities to properly exercise his profession. The chaos is such laws, nowadays, one does well not to try too hard to enforce and the stupa, too, are wise to only regulate the traffic, not to punish, which would socially and politically suicidal.
sharing thus does not pass, as would the legal fiction, between legal and illegal, between the innocent and criminals, between criminals but we judge it appropriate to continue and those who were left in peace as required by the General Police society. The race of innocents is long extinct, and the sentence is not what you condemn justice: punishment, is justice itself , so there is no question of my classmates and I "proclaim our innocence," as the press has given way to ritually write, but to defeat the risky political offensive that is infecting the whole procedure. These are some conclusions that the mind is inclined to read Discipline and Punish for Health. We can not suggest too, given that Foucaliens do for twenty years, the work of Foucault, ship board, some time around here.
How do you analyze what happens to you?
Think again: what happens to us, my comrades and me, you sometimes as well. It is also here, the first mystification of power, nine people would be prosecuted in the judicial proceedings "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise" and should feel particularly concerned by this serious charge. But there is no " case Tarnac" no more than "business Coupat", or "case Hazan" [Editor's coming insurrection] . There, Flicker is an oligarchy in every respect, and becomes as fierce as any power becomes fierce when it feels really threatened . The Prince has no other support than the fear it inspires when his view no longer excites the people that hatred and contempt.
The thing is, before us, a fork, both historical and metaphysical: either we move from a paradigm of government to a paradigm of living in the cost of a cruel but shattering revolt or let us be established, globally, this disaster conditioning where coexist under the rule of management "relaxed" an elite Imperial citizens and plebeian masses held in the margins of everything. So there, indeed, a war, a war between the beneficiaries of the disaster and those who make life an idea less skeletal. He has never seen a ruling class committed suicide with a good heart.
The revolt of the conditions, it does not cause . How does it ministries of National Identity, layoffs at Continental fashion, raids of undocumented or political opponents of kids botched by the police in the suburbs, or ministers threatening to deprive them of degree who still dare to take their college, to decide that such a regime, even installed a democratic plebiscite to appearances, has no right to exist and deserves only to be laid low? It is a matter of sensitivity.
The easement is intolerable that much can be tolerated. Because it is a matter of sensitivity and that this sensibility is immediately political (not in that it asks "who do I vote?" But "my existence is compatible with this ? ") is a matter for the power of anesthesia to which he responds by doses ever more massive entertainment, fear and stupidity. And where anesthesia is no longer operating, this order which brought him all the cons reasons to rebel attempts to dissuade us by a small terror adjusted.
We do, my classmates and me, a variable of this adjustment there. We suspect like many others, such as "young", as so many "tapes" to dissociate ourselves from a world that is collapsing. On this point alone, it does not lie. Fortunately, the bunch of swindlers, impostors, industrialists, financiers and girls, this whole yard antipsychotics under Mazarin, Louis Napoleon Disney version, Fouche Sunday which today is the country lacks the most basic dialectical sense. Every step they take to control all approximate their loss. Each new "victory" which they pride themselves on spreading a little wider desire to see defeated in their turn. Each maneuver by which they are consolidating their power to bring make hateful. In other words, the situation is excellent. This is no time to lose heart.
Interview by Isabelle and Caroline Monnot Mandraud (25/05/2009)
