30.10.2008
Free Jean-Marc Rouillan
Jean-Michel Edwin calls for the release of the co-founder of Action Directe
The co-founder of the far-left individual terrorist group, Action Directe, is back in prison. Jean-Marc Rouillan was sentenced to two life terms in the early 1980s for the execution of army general René Audran and Renault boss Georges Besse. Rouillan, who, together with other Action Directe members, had served more than 20 years in jail, was allowed out on day release earlier this year.
During his incarceration he became a prolific writer - he was the author of nine books and numerous articles in the press - but had always refused to express any regret for his past action. He remained a militant leftist, and as a result had to face inhuman treatment and conditions in prison. Rouillan had recently been allowed to work for his publisher during the day, returning to jail in the evening - this despite the fact that he had already served more than the 18-year minimum tariff. He was to due to be fully released in December.
The French authorities strongly resented their inability to prevent Rouillan joining the Marseille committee for the new anti-capitalist party (NPA) set up by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire - he was welcomed into the NPA by LCR leader Olivier Besancenot. But the anti-democratic character of the quasi-monarchist Fifth Republic regime was demonstrated once more when the authorities seized the first available opportunity to take action against Jean-Marc Rouillan.
This came with the interview he gave to the magazine L’Express - although, under the terms of his parole, Rouillan was not banned from speaking to the media, he could not say anything that would ‘justify his crimes’. When asked whether he felt any regret, he replied: “I am not allowed to express myself on that … But the fact that I don’t express myself is an answer. It is obvious that if I spat on everything I had done, I would be able to express myself. This condition of silence also prevents any critical accounting of our experience.” Comrade Rouillan added, however: “It has to be said that the process of armed struggle, as it came about in the aftermath of 68, in that tremendous spirit of emancipation, no longer exists … But as a communist I remain convinced that armed struggle is necessary as a moment in the revolutionary process” (October 2).
For the French justice system this was an intolerable example of the exercise of free speech and Jean-Marc Rouillan was sent back to jail full-time. His non-answer was deemed to be sufficient to establish the absence of remorse. Yet the notion of ‘regret’ does not exist in French law. If you are convicted of a crime, you are obliged to serve the proscribed sentence, not express regret. But it seems that prisoners on parole can be declared guilty of what George Orwell called ‘thought crime’: Big Brother is watching you!
Is Jean-Marc Rouillan considered a threat? Does he intend to re-establish Action Directe? Even if he did, under French law an intention is not in itself a crime, but in any case Rouillan has stated clearly enough: “… the process of armed struggle … no longer exists.” By joining the NPA, Jean-Marc Rouillan has decided to become a member of a legal party.
What is the LCR position? In a statement published on October 1 (before the official publication of the interview, but after its contents were already well known), it denounced the furore whipped up by the media as “a political operation aimed at criminalising the NPA, at a time when the main preoccupations of the French people are the economic crisis and its consequences, and at a time when the political answers of the NPA are more and more finding an echo.”
The LCR stated that, while it has always defended democratic rights and the rights of prisoners, it has also “rejected and condemned the actions and politics of Action Directe”. It “disagrees with the recent declarations of JM Rouillan, published in the latest edition of l’Express”. Nevertheless he has “fulfilled his punishment” and has the right to engage in politics. “From the point of view of the LCR, he could take his place in the new party from the moment he renounced his past actions.”
This position contains obvious ambiguities. What exactly does the Ligue disagree with in his interview in l’Express? The fact that at a certain moment of the revolutionary process, violence may prove to be necessary? Does the LCR think that the working class should remain disarmed before the police, army and private militia of the bourgeoisie? Does it disagree with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels or Leon Trotsky on this question?
The fact is that left reformists such as the feminist, Clementine Autain, a French equivalent of George Galloway, also want to join the NPA. Autain, who has stated that she will not be in the same party as Rouillan, is enthusiastically embraced by the LCR leadership. So will the LCR choose her over Jean-Marc Rouillan?
On the contrary, we communists should unconditionally support free speech and the right of the comrade to join the new party. We should also welcome his intention, stated in his L’Express interview, to engage in “critical accounting of our experience”. The real debate, to which Jean-Marc Rouillan could make an important contribution, is not over the question of armed struggle, which nobody favours at the present time in France. It is over the question of how to build the party of the proletariat. Can a small, so-called ‘vanguard’ group, isolated from the masses, substitute itself for the class? The question remains identical whatever the means employed - armed struggle or a campaign for “better education now”. And a critique of ultra-leftism, of the sort Rouillan could provide, would be just as valuable for the NPA as a critique of reformist opportunism.
The NPA has decided to campaign for the release of Jean-Marc Rouillan - although at present this seems a little tentative. Meanwhile the Parti Communiste Français daily l’Humanité has correctly protested against the state’s decision and a number of writers and film-makers, including leftwing PCF member, poet and publisher Francis Combes, have launched an appeal “in France and abroad” for intellectuals to come out for the release of Jean-Marc Rouillan. It condemns “the hypocrisy of the French state, which, having made him pay for his actions, refuses him the right to turn the page and wants to impose on him a form of repentance that cuts off debate”.
The appeal notes that since 2001 Rouillan has published narratives and novels which “are the political expression of a writer and individual claiming his place alongside the oppressed and amongst proletarian literature”. It calls for his immediate release without conditions.
To sign the online petition go to marginales.free.fr/spip.php?article94
