Bus burning: only the bourgeoisie benefits

During the night of 25/26 October in Nanterre, Montreuil and Grigny on the outskirts of Paris, as well as in Venssieux in the Lyon suburbs, several buses were attacked and burned, causing panic among passengers and drivers.

What is striking about these violent actions is their highly organised character. They make you think of real commando operations, more or less simultaneous and very well orchestrated. In Montreuil, the attackers were hooded and half of them armed; they coldly forced the occupants to get off the bus and blew it up a few metres away from them. These methods look much more like gangsters robbing a bank than a cry of despair from the young urban dispossessed.

There’s nothing surprising about such events. For weeks now, the bourgeoisie has been fanning the fires. Not a day has gone by without newspapers, radio or TV going on and on about the events of October 2005. The message was loud and clear: the anniversary of last year’s riots could once again plunge the suburbs into violence. If the bourgeoisie didn’t organise these criminal operations itself, it has certainly done everything possible to provoke them. Why? Quite simply, to sow fear in the workers’ ranks and prevent them from thinking. Keeping quiet about the exemplary and victorious struggle of the students against the CPE is not enough to block the process of profound reflection going on in the working class today. To prevent the lessons of this struggle being drawn, to stop the development of solidarity, the ruling class is trying to create a permanent atmosphere of insecurity and suspicion. To persuade every worker that they should look to the state for protection. What’s more, when these attacks took place, the police immediately stepped up its presence in the transport system.

The working class should be in no doubt: it is the target of these repressive measures. The patrolling of working class neighbourhoods, buses and metros is a preparation for the strikes and demonstrations of tomorrow. Workers should not be taken in by these intrigues.   TR 27/10/6   (From RI)