Part of the political left, as well as about fifty organizations including the CGT, and NGOs like Attac, launched a call on Tuesday August 1 to “take back the streets” during a “unitary march” on September 23, to demand police reform and social justice in working-class neighborhoods. Among the various organizations are collectives of working-class neighborhoods and victims of police violence, NGOs such as Attac, Last renovation and Friends of the Earth, left-wing parties – from the NPA to LFI via EELV, but neither the PS, nor the PCF – as well as the CGT, FSU and Solidaires unions.
The authorities had twice banned demonstrations planned for July by around a hundred organizations. One of them, which had all the same taken place on July 8 in Paris and brought together around 2,000 people, had led to the muscular arrest of Youssouf Traoré, the brother of Adama Traoré, who died in July 2016 at the following his arrest by police. Several journalists had also reported having suffered violence from the police.
“We call for people to take to the streets on Saturday September 23, to organize demonstrations or other initiatives throughout the territory, to stand together against the repression of social, democratic and ecological protests, for the end of systemic racism, police violence , and for climate, feminist social justice and civil liberties, ”write the fifty or so signatory organizations in a press release released on Tuesday.
They denounce in particular “a neoliberal policy imposed by authoritarian methods, security laws and a doctrine of the maintenance of order decried even in the largest international bodies, a regressive policy which makes the bed of the extreme right and always tramples plus our civil liberties, our social model, our future in the face of ecological collapse”. These organizations are calling in particular for an “ambitious public investment plan in working-class neighborhoods” and “in-depth reform of the police”.
