"Bring the War home.” Here was a slogan that resonated throughout the Vietnam War era. It was a good formula, and temporarily successful in that it expressed and reinforced combativeness on the part of those who contested the war. The idea was that the anti-war movement must force the state to confront, within the United States and other western, industrialized countries, a mirror image of its imperialist actions abroad.
In France, today, this idea is taking a surprising turn. It is the French president who is bringing the war home.
One of the particularities of France has been that the propensity to go out into the streets to fight oppressive institutions is accepted as part of a long established political tradition. This is still the case. But another particularity of this country is the tradition of state repression. If the contemporary history of France is punctuated by revolts and revolutions, it should not be forgotten that bloody crushing of popular movements followed the events of 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and 1936. Overseas, the French military carried out genocidal “pacifications” of populations in Indochina, Morocco, Algeria and Madagascar that have been emulated by other imperialist states, with the United States in the lead.
In a country once called the “political laboratory of the world” (by Karl Marx), the present French government is quickening the pace towards the creation of a “police state” in which the forces of repression are not only centralized but also militarized in the strictest sense of the word. The French state is now perfecting its police power in dealing with “civil disturbances” by militarizing population control.
http://www.counterpunch.org/portis12212010.html
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