"Is this the rabble? Well I'm one of them!"

(The Commune of Paris, 1871)

More than one century ago, whereas the bourgeoisie already called proletarians "the rabble", these ones answered while asserting through insurrection their own contempt for this society that only has misery to offer them.

Today, the capitalistic society herds us and packs us into deprived and garbage estates where brutal misery and boredom rule supreme. Once the unrest began, the state wanted to turn them into a matter of "immigrants" and as ever denounced the "rabble", the "riffraff". Against this division the struggle of our class answered:

"Is this the riffraff? Well I'm taking part!" (*)

Today, in several cities all over the world, proletarians identify with social unrest in deprived estates of 300 districts in France!

Attacks on town halls, banks, post offices, law courts, social security centres, jobcentres (ANPE), schools, sports halls, police stations, warehouses, stores, urban transports, journalists, etc.

Proletarian, yes indeed, private property, commodity and the institutions that defend them are responsible for our misery and exploitation, for murders and "police blunders", for jail and everyday deportations... The state does everything to trap us in neighbourhoods, factories, schools: distances, transportation, cops, social workers and other community policemen, mindless state through education and sport, etc.

Proletarian, break through these quarantine lines, get out of the suburbs! Look at Argentina: they got out of their different neighbourhoods to hold up the traffic, paralyzing the economy and organizing the riposte towards repression.

Politicians (current or alternative ones), either right- or left-wingers, journalists and other official lies-tellers, associations praising citizenship, careerists and crooks of "Suburbs Respect", imams,... all of them try to make believe that the resignation of such bastard of minister, the mass involvement in the next elections could change things... All of them try to buy our obedience to better send us to the slaughter.

And you proletarian who has a "steady" job, you whose it's said that you took "the social ladder", don't forget that increasing exploitation or unemployment are waiting for you on each floor; already the CRS [riot police] are waiting for you on the floor of your future revolt. Don't join today the state in its contempt of "the riffraff", don't be accomplice of the repression against those who dared to take to the streets.

Against the divisions the state tries to impose us between youngsters and old folks, between suburbanites and city-dwellers, between immigrants and people of French origin... Let's answer together: "Is this the riffraff? Well we're taking part!"

Let's destroy what destroys us! Let's leave this society only but its ashes.

Let's oppose proletarian violence to violence of the state! Let's get out of the suburbs, let's get organized to defend us against the capital and its state.

Internationalist Communist Group (ICG)

BP 33 - Saint-Gilles (BRU) 3 - 1060 Brussels - Belgium
www.geocities.com/icgcikg - icgcikg[at]yahoo.com
Comrade, don't hesitate to copy parts or the whole of this leaflet, it's an expression of a class living and struggling to suppress its own slave condition. - November 2005 -
(*) Untranslatable play on words in French with "Canaille" and "Racaille" we translated as "Rabble" and "Riffraff": 1/ "Canaille" ("Rabble") is a pejorative term that has been historically used by the bourgeois to refer to people considered as being insignificant and dishonest persons, the "populace", the "mob" or the "proletariat in rags". The song written during the "Commune of Paris" refered to this "rabble" and proclaimed this identity as a class expression. 2/ "Racaille" ("Riffraff") is an insulting term, which meaning is: infamous, vile, disgusting, shameful, rubbish, garbage, scrap, scum, dregs of society, etc. The French Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy, launched a campaign of repression against the struggling young proletarians of suburbs, while describing them as "riffraff".