[The following is the text of the platform adopted March 14 by the national conference of the Committees of Struggle Against the Debré Law in France. It appeared in the March 23 issue of Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
We are struggling to demand the repeal of the Debré law:
• because this law increases social stratification (how many youth from modest financial backgrounds will be able to take up their studies again after a year of systematic bludgeoning and brutalization, while at the same time they find themselves confronted with practically insoluble financial problems?); April 9, 1973
example of covering up youth unemployment, and it transforms us into bargain-rate laborers (for young workers who come out of the CES [Collège d'Enseignement Secondaire- Institution of Secondary Instruction] at age sixteen, the choice is simple: either starve to death with a poorly filled their military service, or else anticipate the call and enlist); militarization of youth. It's a matter in order better to be able to indoctrinate and brutalize us; normalization in the universities (it's a means of eliminating the extra students, like the DEUG [Diplôme
• because this law is a beautiful paid job because they haven't yet ful-
• because this law accelerates the of taking us in [to the army] earlier
• because this law intensifies the the youth.
d'Etudes Universitaires Générales - General University Studies Diploma, part of an educational reform sponsored by the regime]);
• because this law strengthens the normalization in the high-schools/barracks and the blackmail of labor (It is no longer permissible to repeat a year of study, to waver, or to change a course of study);
• because this law is a new encroachment of the military caste on
We do not demand the mere return of the old system of deferments based on class privilege.
We demand the repeal of the Debré law, the reestablishment of the deferments and their extension, and the freedom of choice about the time of induction for all youth.