Statement by Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité & Progrès, the LaRouche-affiliated French organization:
Clichy, July 1, 2023
The outbreak of violence in our country comes as no surprise. The scandal is that, for so many years, nothing has been done to deal with the smoldering fire. The rioters not only looted stores, but also burned pharmacies and public buildings: town halls, courts, cultural centers, libraries, police stations and schools. The foundations of our society were targeted. In these circumstances, the challenge is not only to re-establish the right to public safety, but to rebuild a society that offers hope to all, without hypocrisy or naivety.
For if we continue to appear preoccupied with immediate violence and to communicate about it, but do not root it out, the institutions of the Republic will collapse.
The republican order we hear so much about, while being at ease with it, consists of three principles. First, it must be legitimate, i.e., it must not flout the people’s requirement for justice by manipulating existing texts against it, as it has with pensions [referring to the popular uprising in France against the government’s cutting pension benefits]. Second, it must be applied equally to all, whether rich or poor, without social or spatial segregation. And finally, the certainty that the measures provided for will actually be applied. To achieve this, we need to declare a state of social emergency, clearly identifying whom we’re aiming at: a financial mafia from the top, which makes the law against the law and is increasingly associated, not only through drug use, with the mafia operating below. In the absence of political will, this mafia gangrene of a new criminal capitalism will destroy everything and lead to a war of all against all.
Republican order: Listen to the mayors first and organize around them institutions for dialogue and consultation with mediators, associations, judges and police officers. We urgently need to set up a real local police force that listens to citizens, and gives it the training and human and financial resources it needs to do its job properly. Then we’ll be able to really apply the penalties laid down by law, and check that they are carried out in a suitable environment.
Republican order: at the very least, the Preamble to our Constitution, with its social rights, should be known and applied. I have proposed that it be read out every July 14th by the mayors of France. The current situation offers us an opportunity to make a start.
Republican order: the social dimension of our domestic policy must be matched by an international policy based on a new architecture of peace through mutual development, and not on the senseless financial speculation that brings with it war, through riots at home, and geopolitical warfare between blocs around the world. In concrete terms, we need to wage a real war against drug trafficking, which has so far never been waged against its financial and social roots. Instead of smashing up bank premises, public law must take control.
Faced with the riots that have spread like rumors on social networks, the only solution is to organize a policy of the common good and the public good. The police and army must serve this purpose. This includes investigating the nature and means of the provocateurs who gave life to the smoldering fire. It is by eliminating the causes of the blaze that we will succeed in extinguishing it, with the political will to build a better, more fair world, in the midst of a fight that will give us the reasons to believe in it.
