[The following article on the actions of the French far right appeared in the November 23 issue of the French Trotskyist weekly, Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
On November 4 and November 9 the fascists came out again. On Sunday [November 4] they attacked newspaper sellers at two Paris markets. On Friday [November 9] they attacked student militants at two universities, sacking their offices. Since then, hardly a day has gone by without some fascist aggression taking place in front of Paris high schools.
At the same time, a series of minimeetings have been organized by the far right all over the place, all in preparation for a big meeting in the Mu- 1418
tualité "against wildcat immigration" and "in support of the Chilean junta" scheduled for December 19.
It is quite obvious that if the fascists are coming into the open this way it is because the regime is allowing it; or rather, wants it. Frequent and violent brawls between the "extremists of both sides" make an excellentdiversion from the current heavily charged social situation. And also, friends are friends. The French government has been one of the most open supporters of the Chilean junta in the West, and at the same time it is well known that Alain Robert [the head of the supposedly dissolved fascist organization Ordre Nouveau] and his friends have very serious political, material, and financial ties with the Chilean organization Patria y Libertad [Fatherland and Freedom].
If they are given free reign, the fascists in France will utilize a "strategy of tension" that could prove very useful to the regime. The fascists are a card that can be played some day, and the gangster government is holding it in reserve, even though the far right is still too weak and too badly divided to be really useful.
Divided it is, and violently. In April 1973 a hardline wing walked out of Ordre Nouveau, which was then part of the Front Nationale [FN - National Front, a far-right bloc], in protest against Ordre Nouveau's "frontist" orientation, and it carried outa raiding operation in order to form the GAJ [Group Action Jeunesse- Youth Action Group]. It was the GAJ that was responsible for the November 9 attacks. At the end of September 1973 there was another split in the Front
Nationale, this one between supporters of a permanent "frontist" strategy and those who supported frontism only as a conjunctural tactic.
The Front Nationale is still led by Le Pen, but Alain Robert's group also uses the FN's emblem and the name of its newspaper, Faire Front The three organizations are in direct competition. The,two "Fronts Nationales" are suing each other over use of the name. As for the GAJ and the Alain Robert FN (which is a direct continuation of Ordre Nouveau), they are now escalating their militancy (holding meetings and carrying out raids) in order to win hegemony on the far right.
Nevertheless, Ordre Nouveau was supposedly dissolved on June 28, 1973, along with the Ligue Communiste. But bourgeois justice recognizes its own. Trotskyist militants get the mailed fist:
- Alain Krivine and Michel Récanati, indicted for violation of the "antiwrecker law," arrested, jailed, finally released on bail and under the court's December 10, 1973
supervision.
- Pierre Rousset, indicted on charges of possessing arms because two old rifles were found in the Ligue's headquarters, imprisoned, sentenced to two months in jail.
But there has been a certain indulgence for the banned sectors of the far right:
- Alain Robert, leader of Ordre Nouveau, indicted for violation of the arms law, freed.
-Jacques Bethbèze, who had rented the van seized by the police in front of the Mutualité on June 21, 1973, in which were found 100 Molotov cocktails, sixty bottles, and sixty iron bars, indicted but then freed. (The drivers more fatly released with. of the van were flatly released without any legal action against them.)
— Guillaume d'Aram de Valada, arrested June 28 in possession of a disassembled hunting rifle shown to have come from the Ordre Nouveau headquarters, in which were also found two grenades and some practice mines, indicted and then freed.
The dissolution did not do much harm to Ordre Nouveau. It was not Ordre Nouveau they were aiming at on June 28. And so, counting on people's memories being short, the far right is moving out again. The meeting scheduled for December 19 is a provocation just as much as the June 21 meeting was, or the one held on
March 9, 1971. It must not take place. The Communist party and the Socialist party have already stated that.
Rouge has published an initial communiqué on the matter. [See box.] Beginning now, all antifascists must assert their opposition to the holding in France of a meeting to support the murderers of the Chilean peopie.
'Rouge' Communique on December 19 Meeting
The newspaper Rouge vigorously protests against the holding of the meeting that the ex-Ordre Nouveau has scheduled for December 19 in the Mutualité. The themes planned for this meeting, opposition to wildcat immigration and support for the Chilean junta, are new provocations indentical to those the same group carried out with the complicity of [Minister of the Interior Raymond] Marcellin on June 21, 1973, and March 9, 1971. Once again, the regime seems to be keeping silent, just as it let the authors of the racist words of June 21 go unpunished, just as it let those responsible for the attacks on the campuses at Censier and Tolbiac go scot-free. No doubt the proximity of this meeting to the Paris visit of the ministers of the Chilean junta who arecoming to participate in some economic meetings on December 11 and 14 is not coincidental. This meeting must not take place. All antifascists must establish the broadest unity to see to it.