French police infiltrated protests against Sarkozy austerity program

[Hannah Bell]

During the recent strike wave in France against the Nicolas Sarkozy government’s austerity measures and pension “reform”, demonstrators observed police infiltrating several contingents and carrying out a variety of provocative actions. The police have very conspicuously decided not to deny that they infiltrated the demonstrations.

The dubious role played by some of the rioters in the mass protests has had to be finally acknowledged by the media and leading bourgeois politicians.

A video taken by a Reuters journalist, released on October 16, shows one hooded rioter attacking a store window. “A man tries to stop him, but gets a flying kick in the back by another ‘rioter’ armed with a cosh , before being surrounded by four or five hooded persons. A few seconds later, the man responsible for the kicking is filmed dispersing demonstrators with the help of his baton”, wrote Le Monde.

Le Monde reported on this video in the article “On the web, more and more questions are being raised about ‘the police rioters’.” The article is linked to a report by a trade unionist who tells of another police infiltration incident at a demonstration, this time in Lyons, in east-central France.

He explains that his “union secretary was in Place Bellecour before the start of the demonstration on October 19 with his firefighter colleagues and groups of young people, when they witnessed verbal and physical aggression against a group of youth by individuals who wore CGT union badges.

“The firefighters intervened and managed to tackle the aggressors, with such success that they were surprised to see these individuals take out their police identity cards to defend themselves, as they were a plainclothes police unit from the BAC ! As a result the firefighters ripped off their CGT badges and told them it would be best for them to quit the scene rapidly, which they did”.

These infiltrations had a political goal: to blow the whistle on supposed “rioters” and thus discredit the demonstrations and opposition to Sarkozy’s austerity policies. The protests are widely supported in France; at the time of writing, 65 percent of the population in polls support further strikes. By making demonstrators appear to be violent and “out of control”, with the aid of the media, the government hoped to turn public opinion against the protesting workers and students.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/poli-n10.shtml

[Waiting For Everyman]

1. Firing the gov't infiltrators would be a better way to reduce the budget.

(Here too, of course.)

If all such government costs were ended, probably then the cuts in services wouldn't be needed that caused the demonstrations in the first place. But that would make too much sense, I guess.

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

Good for the firefighters!

[ck4829]

3. K&R.

[sabrina 1]

4. So, the French Police are on the side of the Elites in the class

warfare that is being instituted across the Globe. Idiots, they will be victims also.

So glad that citizens were able to expose them.

The corrupt, Global thieves who enriched themselves during the insane period of deregulation now want to make ordinary working people pay for their excesses.

I hope soon we start to see some prosecutions of these criminals and the confiscation of the money they stole. How about some austerity for the them.