4 ms·

It's worse than that. Of course the government can call the army against its own population, that's what armies were for before modern "crowd control". Counter-

It's worse than that. Of course the government can call the army against its own population, that's what armies were for before modern "crowd control". Counter-insurrection doctrines were specifically developed to reduce the bloodshed from military interventions so that social control and political repression would be more socially acceptable. Without even talking of the most famous colonial wars during which these techniques were developed (Indochine, Algeria), the French army has repeatedly massacred its citizens during the Paris commune in 1871 (10-50k dead) [0] or during the may first demonstration in Fourmies in 1891 (9 dead) [1]. Nowadays the army is still used against the population but rarely with actual bullets. The police has a much bigger killing record (including during demonstrations), but at least two anarchists i know of were killed by explosive grenades thrown by the military police (gendarmerie) during ecological protests: Vital Michalon in 1977 (physics teacher) [2] and Rémi Fraisse in 2014 (botanist) [3]. Even more recently, during the Gilets Jaunes protests, the army's anti-terrorist patrols (Sentinelle) were redeployed by the government to defend key buildings/institutions from a potential revolution. That move was criticized both by soldiers who said it was not their role, and by opposition parties. They even deployed the Gendarmerie's armored tanks in Paris, which was a first. [5] Despite teargas being banned by the Geneva convention against chemical weapons, these tanks were equipped with stronger chemicals, which the government denied, before acknowledging its existence (they did not use this "powder" during the protests). [6] On the countryside, especially in rural land occupations against GPII (Grands Projets Industriels et Imposées, or Grand and Imposed Industrial Projects), also known as ZADs [7], the Gendarmerie (military police) is heavily deployed, both regular "Gendarmerie Mobile" units as well as "PSIG". These units PSIG units, involved in fast deployment for crushing popular dissent on the countryside, were 37 in 1978, 138 in 1988, 310 in 2000 and 370 in 2015 [8], so we can say that aspect of counter-insurrection apparatus is growing. In Bure, where the local population is opposing the construction of an underground nuclear storage facility [9], there are more stationed gendarmes (both GM and PSIG) than there are inhabitants, and the operation has often been described as a military occupation [10] unseen since WWII. You have road blocks and mobile patrols doing ID checks on everyone, and the local forest has been privatized and is heavily guarded, and local residents have been regularly fined for just taking a walk in the forest. It is not uncommon for the local population to be ID-checked 3 times going to the supermarket and back. More information about this struggle against industrial capitalism can be found here [11]. This is just for France. In more democratic countries, the situation may be different. But i know in America (north and south) the situation is very similar with the national guard (or equivalent) called to crush popular insurrections against injustice, corruption police brutality, and privatization of public/indigenous land. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusillade_de_Fourmies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusillade_de_Fourmies [2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Michalon [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9mi_Fraisse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9mi_Fraisse [4] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/emploi/metiers/armee-et-securite/oui-malheureusement-il-risque-d-y-avoir-des-morts-les-militaires-tres-alarmistes-sur-leur-implication-dans-les-prochaines-mobilisations-des-gilets-jaunes_3244015.html https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/emploi/metiers/armee-et... [5] https://img.lemde.fr/2018/12/08/0/0/2000/1333/1872/1246/30/0/a77d59b_o7TR8LJXF6FaBiXoEjKf4bJ5.jpg https://img.lemde.fr/2018/12/08/0/0/2000/1333/1872/1246/30/0... [6] https://paris-luttes.info/macron-pret-a-utiliser-des-armes-11283?lang=fr https://paris-luttes.info/macron-pret-a-utiliser-des-armes-1... [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_to_Defend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_to_Defend [8] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloton_de_surveillance_et_d%27intervention_de_la_Gendarmerie https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloton_de_surveillance_et_d%2... [9] The storage is not operational yet, and there has already been serious injuries and collapses, so the inhabitants are concerned that the engineers promising the facility will store nuclear content safely for >10K years have no clue what they're talking about. [10] https://reporterre.net/Bure-En-Meuse-nous-vivons-sous-occupation-militaire https://reporterre.net/Bure-En-Meuse-nous-vivons-sous-occupa... [11] https://bureburebure.info/category/english/ https://bureburebure.info/category/english/

pasabagi 5y ago
I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard, having both pretty lively politics, and Napoleon's 'whiff of grapeshot' in its DNA. Still, this is more or less the basic pattern of how nations and armies work together. For example, the fascist coup that started the civil war in Spain was originally stymied by the fact that many of the insurrectionary military units were stuck in Africa in the Spanish colonies. The problem with armies is that even with the best of intentions, you end up using them, and if you use them, sometimes you win and end up having to do counterinsurgency in conquered territory. Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. From a UK perspective, it's always interesting to follow the careers of people in the early 20th century, as they move from one counter-insurgency to another, and they take techniques with them from one conflict to another, so you get guys who learned to torture people in Ireland ending up torturing people in post-war Greece, then they get jobs as police officers in the UK, and you can't help but wonder what they might have done there, what attitudes they brought to the job.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard Indeed, but this is true of any colonial empire, including USA, Russia, China, Turkey, and the list goes on. > Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. That's the history of modern french policing and the BAC, the "anti-criminal brigades" units patrolling in plain cloths and unmarked cars, often beating first then asking questions and regularly involved in trafficking/criminal schemes. They directly descended from the "Brigade Nord-Africaines" who were involved in controlling the north-african populations, as outline in Mathieu Rigouste books (if you speak french). Also worth noting that unlike some other countries, France mostly did not have a denazification process after WWII, and the police officials (préfets) orchestrating political/colonial repression under De Gaulle were the same officials collaborating with the nazis. This history and culture of police continues to this day, despite many police officers blowing the whistle on the corruption and abuse of the entire apparatus. It looks like the only way forward is a complete dismantling of the prison/police/military industrial complex (alongside MANY other social reforms, otherwise it'd lead to the formation of private militias, not community justice/accountability). This argument was of course common discourse in the anarchist circles since the 19th century, but gained notoriety in the 1960s/70s when many scholars (such as Angela Davis or Michel Foucault) refined those ideas and developed proper studies/explorations of the questions. Not that these reflections have died, if anything they've been revived by the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA (and equivalent anti-police-abuse movements elsewhere), but it's sad to see the current State of mainstream media where social critique is no longer welcome... unless it's from a fascist perspective (for example, notorious french fascist Eric Zemmour was for many years daily on public television spreading ideas of hatred, before moving to private channels after he was condemned repeatedly for hate speech).

pasabagi 5y ago

I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard, having both pretty lively politics, and Napoleon's 'whiff of grapeshot' in its DNA. Still, this is more or less the basic pattern of how nations and armies work together. For example, the fascist coup that started the civil war in Spain was originally stymied by the fact that many of the insurrectionary military units were stuck in Africa in the Spanish colonies. The problem with armies is that even with the best of intentions, you end up using them, and if you use them, sometimes you win and end up having to do counterinsurgency in conquered territory. Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. From a UK perspective, it's always interesting to follow the careers of people in the early 20th century, as they move from one counter-insurgency to another, and they take techniques with them from one conflict to another, so you get guys who learned to torture people in Ireland ending up torturing people in post-war Greece, then they get jobs as police officers in the UK, and you can't help but wonder what they might have done there, what attitudes they brought to the job.

southerntofu 5y ago
> I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard Indeed, but this is true of any colonial empire, including USA, Russia, China, Turkey, and the list goes on. > Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. That's the history of modern french policing and the BAC, the "anti-criminal brigades" units patrolling in plain cloths and unmarked cars, often beating first then asking questions and regularly involved in trafficking/criminal schemes. They directly descended from the "Brigade Nord-Africaines" who were involved in controlling the north-african populations, as outline in Mathieu Rigouste books (if you speak french). Also worth noting that unlike some other countries, France mostly did not have a denazification process after WWII, and the police officials (préfets) orchestrating political/colonial repression under De Gaulle were the same officials collaborating with the nazis. This history and culture of police continues to this day, despite many police officers blowing the whistle on the corruption and abuse of the entire apparatus. It looks like the only way forward is a complete dismantling of the prison/police/military industrial complex (alongside MANY other social reforms, otherwise it'd lead to the formation of private militias, not community justice/accountability). This argument was of course common discourse in the anarchist circles since the 19th century, but gained notoriety in the 1960s/70s when many scholars (such as Angela Davis or Michel Foucault) refined those ideas and developed proper studies/explorations of the questions. Not that these reflections have died, if anything they've been revived by the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA (and equivalent anti-police-abuse movements elsewhere), but it's sad to see the current State of mainstream media where social critique is no longer welcome... unless it's from a fascist perspective (for example, notorious french fascist Eric Zemmour was for many years daily on public television spreading ideas of hatred, before moving to private channels after he was condemned repeatedly for hate speech).