Brigitte Marti

Brigitte Marti is an organizer researcher who has worked on reproductive rights and women's health initiatives in France and in the European Union and on women prisoners' issues in the United States.

Women say NO! to the new labor laws in France and across Europe that attack women

June 8, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Once more, labor laws and work conditions are under attack in Europe, this time in France. The labor code of France, a heavy book, probably needed some cleaning up as laws had piled up and sometimes were redundant. With the encouragement of the Medef (the union of employers), the current government has undertaken to reshuffle all the principles of labor protection. Using a rare executive order (Article 49-3 of the Constitution), the French President passed a bill that was once opposed by the same Francois Hollande, who then called it undemocratic. Since his action, a movement to remind the government of its democratic responsibility has grown, and demonstrations and strikes succeed each other daily.

The Medef has argued that to create jobs employers must be able to fire more easily with fewer constraints that guarantee employees’ rights. So the French government offered a new labor law that has the potential to erase the type of labor protection that is the basis of labor rights. The bill was largely inspired by other labor bills passed in other European Countries under the aegis of austerity measures. Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Spain have passed bills to feed the exploitative neoliberal system with precarious labor contracts, called zero hour contract in one place and one-euro jobs in the next. In Greece, despite all the critics, the Troika imposed its memoranda making firing very easy. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level (511Euros for those under 25) and the social security system, which was efficient and inexpensive, is now close to being totally destroyed. Additionally, the dismantling of labor rights is very handy in making migration another source of marketization.

In France, the opposition to the bill first came from the students, who are fairly well unionized in high schools and universities. They immediately organized, understanding that this law would create a transitional system to precariousness for the youth, either for intellectual work or blue-collar jobs. Soon after many unions joined, including the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), CGC (Confédération générale des cadres), and FO (Force Ouvrière). Meanwhile, Nuit Debout (Night Standing Up), a rather spontaneous movement, gathered in public squares in various French cities, including Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, and beyond.

Like other European labor bills, the French labor law is a double sentence for women. The bill ignores women’s rights while asserting its respect for the principle of equality. The bill’s language actually razes all means to attain this infamous gender equality. Flexibility supersedes gender equality. The law will limit the bargaining power of unions and fragment their negotiating power; it will aggravate the asymmetrical relationship between the employers associated with the financial oligarchy and the employees or the labor force in general. The obligations of employers toward their employees will be reduced tremendously. It will reduce the number of days off and possibilities for days off that made the leave of absence system a model for labor organizations.

The notion of flexibility has been used as a mythical term for progress while it’s real meaning for working class and particularly for women is increased precarity. In France, women make 80% of the part time labor force. Women also perform 80% of unpaid domestic work. The employers union never discusses this reality. Flexibility means lowering additional pay for extra hours, reducing delay for notices, and easing the firing process. This assault on workers’ time is a double assault on women workers.

The bill will also weaken the occupational medical system that has provided strong medical protection for employees. The risk in feminized professions of lowering the standard of protection is more than real.

Across France, mobilization is high. Feminists have been in the forefront, sending petitions and organizing demonstrations. The movement is also picking up in Belgium, for the same reasons. To understand what is at stake today, we should reread Emile Zola on the disastrous condition of the working class during the industrial revolution and especially women’s conditions. The struggle continues.

 

(Photo Credit 1: 20minutes) (Photo Credit 2: France24)

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Solidarity with the women prisoners of Fleury-Mérogis!

May 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment

In Fleury-Mérogis, France’s biggest prison and one of its worst, women detainees have been organizing against new conditions of detention arranged by the new software GENESIS (Gestion nationale des personnes écrouées pour le suivi individualisé et la sécurité, National management of imprisoned people for individualized monitoring and security), an acronym that blurs its material reality for women incarcerated in Fleury-Mérogis. The software was sold under the aegis of efficiency and harmonization between the men’s quarters and the women’s quarters. In practice, this harmonization meant worsening the conditions of detention: reduction of the number of promenades, limitation of access to the gym and cultural activities, and reduction of visiting room sessions.

In December 2002, France ratified the United Nations’ resolution, Optional Protocol to the Convention Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT). As a result of that ratification, in 2007 the French parliament passed a law creating an independent public body “contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté” in charge of monitoring all places and institutions where people are locked up.

This independent body released a report in January 2016 concerning the conditions of detention of women, which includes women in jails, prisons, administrative (immigration) detention, and psychiatric detention.

Women prisoners represent 3.2% of the prisoners in France with 5 to 6% of women prisoners in administrative detention. Juvenile delinquents may be locked up in educational centers, which resemble a prison anyway. Girls make up 6 % of incarcerated minors. Proportionately, women in psychiatric hospital are in greater number; 38.21% of those committed to psychiatric detention are women. Historically, women have been the targets of psychiatric control.

The report points out that women are more susceptible to suffer from separation from family circles, and especially from their children, than men. Although by law women are entitled to the same rights as men, the gap between them is even wider in prisons and jails.

With the consolidation of detention centers, women have been sent further away from home. This situation is well known in the United States but is relatively new in France. The report insists on the inherent injustice of this situation since about 75% of the incarcerated women are mothers. The law demands that women’s incarceration respects their familial responsibilities. Further, most of the women are incarcerated for minor offenses. Among the 188 detention centers and prisons in France only 43 may receive women. Often the women’s side in a prison is simply very basic compared to the men’s side.

The report stresses the lack of services for women detainees and disparities among the various prisons and jails receiving women; these services go from health services to judicial services such as parole and day parole. The carceral administration justifies the inequality by claiming that there are too few women to merit more equipments or services.

The report recommends adding services, improving the conditions of detention, implementing the required access to school and other activities, all in the respect of the principle of equality.

Despite this detailed and clear report that demanded actions for revising the conditions of incarceration for women, Fleury-Mérogis’s administration launched GENESIS March 3d.

Immediately, the Basque women political prisoners incarcerated in Fleury-Mérogis organized women prisoners against this injustice. A support group has also been organized. Citizens outside the prison have written letters to the prison administration. Signs of solidarity with the women inside are key when women are locked up and may feel isolated. So each rally outside has to be heard inside.

The women prisoners’ demand is simple: “We call for dignified living conditions, they talk about rules. We talk about mutual assistance and sharing, they talk about logistics and “traffic.” We talk about humanity, they talk about laws. We talk about communicating and coming together, they answer with security and solitary confinement.” The response of the prison’s management has been harsh, 4 women have been sent to solitary confinement. Since May 10th, 5 men and 2 women have been on hunger strike in solidarity with the women in isolation.

This is a struggle against the logics of over incarceration producing a carceral and societal aberration that started in early 2000. It is a fight against a higher degree of materialistic dehumanization of prison conditions, another step toward a harmonization with the United States’ penitentiary hell. Solidarity with women prisoners is required, today in Fleury-Mérogis, tomorrow …

(Photo Credit: L’Envolée) (Image credit: Paris-Luttes.info)

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WIBG Video Interviews Carol Mann, Director of Women in War

April 22, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Azra, who re-organized schooling in her neighbourhood under siege next to the destroyed school in Dobrinja (Sarajevo)

A trial in Istanbul, another deadly crossing of the Mediterranean Sea while security in the wealthier countries is a key word, refugee camps that are prisons with no rights, a drone program that executes blind death sentences, this is our time. Meanwhile, where is the exposure of violence against women perpetrated by official or self proclaimed States?

Carol Mann, the director of Women in War, an organization that concentrates its work and actions on the intersection of gender and armed conflicts, talked to us about genocide, female genocide, Rojava and the outrageous conduct of the supra national European Union in the refugee so called ‘crisis’.

Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide after witnessing and documenting the Armenian massacre and then the work of the Nazis. He wanted more than a name but also a convention and a UN treaty on genocide. The goal was to have a law to protect targeted populations. However “never in history had states even resolved to prevent atrocities,” and I should add in particular against women. When atrocities are committed and before an actual political action to stop them is attempted, a moment of no rights occurs during which minorities and other targeted populations face the atrocities alone.

In Turkey, scholars attempted to denounce the blind violence of the Turkish army, that some called genocidal, in Turkish Kurdistan. They signed a petition for peace that said ,“We will not be a party to this crime”, and now they are facing legal and social retaliation from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has also directed his wrath at journalists.

Let us not forget that the wealthy nation officials are turning their heads to the other direction but we do not!

In solidarity

 

 

(Photo Credit: Women in War) (Video Interview by Brigitte Marti)

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After COP 21, the murders that hide behind international treaties

March 30, 2016 by 1 Comment

The Women's Global Call for Climate Justice

At COP 21, Grace Balawag, member of the IIPFCC (the International Indigenous People’s Forum on Climate Change) told us her concerns as the language of the treaty being negotiated started to exclude indigenous people. She talked about indigenous right to land, about indigenous peoples’ knowledge and expertise and how, instead of being respected, they were excluded from negotiations while the world’s largest corporations were ubiquitous throughout those discussions.

Three months after the agreement, women and men environmental activists from indigenous communities are still being murdered by hit men working for vested interests often supported by governments, as was recently the case in Honduras and South Africa. Countries like Honduras with its violent repressive regime are just proxies for the violent global market.

As Billy Kyte from Global Witness said, “Indigenous people are being killed in alarming numbers simply for defending rights to their land.” Land means subsistence for indigenous people certainly, but also for the human population as a whole. However, land means carbon exchange market for vested interests. For instance, the REDD program (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is actually a carbon market mechanism that treats the business-made environmental deficiencies as more business and speculative opportunities. Indigenous people see carbon exchange value programs like REDD made by and for unscrupulous corporations as a land grabbing mechanism, a new form of colonialism, “Yesterday’s genocide was done with guns and blankets with small pox. Now they are using carbon trading and REDD.” All this entails murders, and fabricates aggressive justifications for “potentially genocidal policies.” Shouldn’t we all see that?

It is women who have suffered and are still suffering the most under this oppressive system. And so it is indigenous women who show the way toward real solidarity for transformative actions for “Climate justice and women’s rights.”

Why has this market mechanism superseded legally binding resolutions? For the first time, the Paris Accord recognized the climate catastrophic disruption, but by not expressing strong support for indigenous rights, the signers have been complacent with those powers that order the murder of people who fight against the causes of this environmental and human disaster. Therefore, it has failed to propose meaningful solutions.

Grace Balawag reminds us how difficult it is to negotiate under this corporatization and financialization of “nature” and the importance of collaboration.

(Photo Credit: Brigitte Marti) (Interview filmed by Joachim Cairaschi, conducted by Brigitte Marti)

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Three Months after the COP 21 the real fight for survival is on the ground

March 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Climate Survival Justice

Last December in Paris, under the aegis of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations organized the conference on climate change, or COP 21. Representatives from the Global South, Indigenous people, Women’s constituency, and more, came to attempt to weigh in on agreements that were already negotiated among vested interests of the planet.

Evidently, this situation originated in the industrialized countries where wealth was exponentially increased through the capitalist neoliberal order. Accumulation of wealth equating with accumulation of power was the hidden part of the official discourse. The United States along with the leaders of the G20 countries imposed its economic corporate power and forced the elimination of some language from the initial document. Elimination of public voices also took place in Paris where many demonstrations were banned in the name of security.

To get a better insight into the situation, WIBG interviewed Tess Vistro, a representative of the people of the Philippines:

We asked her recently what the agreement meant from the perspective of the populations who are the most at risk with climate change and the most affected in contrast with the official discourse.

Here is her answer:

“The outcome is highly skewed in favor of rich developed countries and the target temperature limit put the planet and people into greater risks of damage which experts would say could already be irreversible; on the basis of the submitted intended nationally determined contribution (indcs); we are on a path to an increase of 3 degrees centigrade in the middle of the century – 2050;

“Paris treaty did not grasp the urgency of the risk and threat climate change is posing on humankind and all species in this planet. It just is divorced from the reality now that coastal communities in large numbers are now submerged in waters, that farming and food production have become unpredictable, and unsustainable; that women already reeling from poverty and gender discrimination to face again the problem of climate change devastations, is pushing millions of women into deeper poverty and deprivation and sexual violence; that climate change impacts are right in our midst, are with us, intends to stay with us with greater ferocity and destructiveness, and we urgently need to take bold actions now.

“The essence of the historical and primary responsibility of developed countries in bringing the planet and humankind out of this climate crises, has been passed on even to poor and climate vulnerable countries.

“Reneging on this responsibility, the Paris treaty called on private corporations to pitch in, making the task of combating climate change a huge profit taking endeavor, not a social responsibility of governments particularly developed countries. The treaty offered immense opportunities to rake in huge profits at the expense of poor vulnerable countries. Endorsed solutions are clearly cut out for the needs of private interests. The failed mechanism of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation(REDD+) under the framework of market mechanism of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes is clearly spelt out in the treaty. Under this mechanism, developed countries can invest funds for REDD+ projects in developing countries, and can account the amount of reduced GHG emission in their respective INDCs, and thereby can continue to do business as usual in their respective countries. Worse as per practice, projects and investments for REDD+ invested in developing countries are false programs of reforestation and are actually plantation projects of high value cash crops designed for export.

“The Paris treaty gave a clear signal and mandate for private corporations to move in unhampered and with clear assurances of almost no regulation, with the treaty making sure that poor countries will not be able to hold rich countries and corporations liable and demand compensation for loss and damage that may result. The treaty stipulated that the `the Agreement does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.’

“The technologies for clean energy solutions are clearly in the control of rich developed countries, solar and wind and even seeds and production technology for biofuels are clearly in the hands of rich countries and corporations. Lands for the production of biofuels would surely come from countries in the global south, creating now the spectre of massive land grabbing, biofuels competing with lands devoted for food production, creating the spectre of food insecurity and hunger.

“In the Philippines an estimated 2 million hectares of lands is offered for the production of biofuels to foreign investors. This would have been enough to meet the rice needs of the current population of the country, based on a two cropping season. Another million hectares is allocated for palm oil plantations.

“The Philippines is one of the top 3 vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. And this is not a fiction. It happened already with typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon that made a land fall in this planet’s history. (Cyclone Winston that struck Fiji last month has come second only to Haiyan) and in one quick swoop has left dead 7,000 people and three thousand others who went missing to this day, destroyed infrastructures worth Php18 billion,1.1 million houses, devastated agriculture to the amount of Php 17 billion, displaced 1.4 million agricultural workers. About 20 typhoons lash out the country annually, inflicting damages and untold sufferings for affected Filipinos. But despite this, the Philippines and other vulnerable countries were still mandated to contribute through their INDCs.

“It is a great injustice for the Paris treaty to have mandated the poor vulnerable countries who have scant carbon footprint, and who can barely break out now from an endless cycle of devastation- rehabilitation- devastation, from climate change disasters, to contribute; it is clearly injustice to have unleashed the reins of private capital to profit from solutions proffered – which could be more of profit taking endeavors than solutions.

“But if there is anything positive or success that came out of Paris, it is the movement of peoples from different countries, diverse sectors, that have committed to work for a safe planet, for all of humankind and the generations to come. This was shown not only with the people’s actions in and outside negotiations in Paris, but also the people’s mobilizations from different at different dates parallel to COP 21.

“The failure of the Paris treaty to deliver, should be enough reason to sustain the work of CSOs, grassroots organizations and networks movements of people and women, indigenous people, youth, trade unions working collectively locally, nationally, regionally and globally for a more just , and fair climate change deal. Enough reason to stir up a groundswell of work in local, grassroots communities – the key to winning the fight for climate justice.

“Currently in the Philippines, the biggest issue continue to be the impacts of typhoon Haiyan and the continuing slow grind of work for rehabilitation. As it is election campaign period now, these climate issues are brought out by candidates criticizing the incumbent administration for its ineptness in delivering the funds for rehabilitation to the victims, three years after Haiyan. Among NGOs, this is taken as an opportunity to raise the issue of climate change.

“Globally for women, from my own perspective, issues related to solutions, financing and important role of women in mitigation and adaptation plans must be put forward in the forthcoming COP agenda. To be vigorously monitored further would be to ensure that the principles of human rights, gender equality, etc. as enshrined in the preamble of the treaty, ( a win for CSOs who have persevered for its inclusion in the treaty), be faithfully used as a guide in all decisions related to the implementation of the Paris treaty.”

Tess Vistro March 9, 2016

(Image credit: Brigitte Marti) (Interview filmed by Joachim Cairaschi, conducted by Brigitte Marti)

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What woman has the right to travel safely to escape violence, with or without a passport?

March 2, 2016 by 1 Comment

When 17-year-old Aminata fled Guinea Conakry, she did not have a passport. One of her teachers helped her to break free from a cycle of constant domestic rape and sexual assault. The helping hand handed her to a smuggler, who was also her torturer. He raped her and, once in Paris, stole her ID documents. This is how she landed in France with only her school card in her pocket. In 2012, Aminata applied for asylum.

She joined the cohort of vulnerable and isolated migrants targeted by Afro Beauty salon owners and managers in search of cheap and vulnerable workers in the “Château d’eau” area of Paris. The conditions of work were unspeakable and their wages not paid.

After 11 months of struggle supported by the CGT union, the workers finally managed to receive their salary and proper documentation. Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve promised Aminata that she would receive her “titre de sejour,” her temporary work permit necessary to stabilize her situation, now that she finally holds a regular job.

The day she was supposed to receive her permit, she was arrested and detained for 3 days.

She was accused of having provided a false passport. Aminata could not have a passport without returning to Guinea where she would have been in danger, and so she authorized a relative to secure her passport. Aminata never had any control over the process and is now accused of not providing a valid passport.

Who is going to bring to court the ones who have created this situation in the first place?

The CGT Union, who defended her and her colleagues last year against the “chateau d’eau” mafia, is now organizing to defend her rights to keep working in France, simply to have access to a decent life without sexual assault or work abuse. A petition is circulating to demand that the victim does not become the accused.

Having a passport or traveling documents is the biggest challenge for the most vulnerable populations like Aminata, especially those, mostly women, who are escaping violence. The differential of rights is growing as much as financial inequalities are rising, making violence more acceptable than rights. Who is going to defend the dignity of “the wretched of the earth”? Who has the right to travel safely to escape violence, with or without a passport?

 

(Photo Credit: l’Humanité)

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In Greece women’s solidarity faces and resists cynicism: Areti Karatasiou

February 17, 2016 by Leave a Comment

A meeting at the Women’s Solidarity House

In Greece, in July 2015 the third memorandum imposed on its leftist government, elected in January 2015, has precipitated its dissolution. This change of government was also perceived as capitulating. The measures are now being implemented, devaluating pensions, especially the lowest, and dispossessing the country of its assets.

After having opened public spaces and institutions to the wrath of the private market, the Troika and especially the IMF has succeeded in conveying the message that the “very generous” pensions of the Greek people must be reduced drastically to “save” the Greek’s economy. It is worth noting that beside unsustainable cycles of austerity measures producing higher unemployment and pension reduction, 45% of the pensioners live under the poverty line.

We met Areti Karatasiou at the Women’s Solidarity House in Thessaloniki, commonly referred to as “the venue.”

As a teacher in the public school system, she knows the meaning of the Troika/IMF’s discourse: it demands people to work longer time in order to collect retirement, while many are being laid off or forced to retirement. This seems contradictory, but it is not. The result is well known: increased precariousness for a majority of people while reducing the social fabric of the society and its safety net to its bare minimum. It’s a clear example of necropolitics.

Areti mentions that the pension she receives amounts, at the moment, to only 700 Euros (about $700), after 30 years of teaching and contributing to the social safety net.

For many women like Areti in Thessaloniki it is a struggle to keep decent conditions of life. Areti explains here what it means to be part of the Women’s Solidarity House.

 

No women alone during the crisis!

 

(Photo Credits: Marie-Hélène Le Ny)

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The global patriarchal market and violence against women

February 10, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Being a woman today is marked by violence.

On New Year’s Eve in Cologne, on a square between the cathedral and the train station, about 200 women were sexually assaulted and robbed after about thousand men circled them to isolate them from the rest of the crowd. This type of assault has been reported else where in Europe: Helsinki, Zurich, and others. It has also occurred in Cairo and Tunis.

On Tahrir Square in Egypt, in 2013, during demonstrations against the government, women who were present wielding their right to be in public spaces would be circled by hundreds of men and then undressed and raped. These attacks were constant. Women and men organized and formed groups wearing fluorescent yellow jackets and helmets, to liberate the women under attack. They knew that they could not rely on the authorities or the police. The military government also used violence against women.

The same occurred in Tunisia when women took to the streets of Tunis in support of a positive transformation of the society. Since then, they have been organizing and fighting to defend their rights to public spaces.

This violence belongs to a trend that has been ignored for too long. In Cologne, the police did not intervene right away despite the system of video surveillance that is part of the globalized economies with their security market. The assaults were publicly reported only five or six days after the fact.

The fact that in Cologne most of the aggressors were North Africans and/or asylum seekers blurred the big picture and fueled resentment against immigrants and refugees, thereby encouraging racist violence. German feminists have responded: no excuse for sexual predators or for racists. Other European feminists have simplistically associated this event with the rise of fundamentalist Islam.

That presentation is limited and ignores the globalized neoliberal economy’s reliance on various strains of neo-conservatism and religious fundamentalism including Islamic fundamentalism to increase its hold on society.

One could remember, how in 1936, the phalanges, Franco supporters, whose slogan was “viva la muerte” dispersed their cruelty against women and men. They violently commanded women to stay away from public spaces, to reproduce and take care of the household. All of that was supported and encouraged by capitalists.

Clearly, women’s emancipation is one of the biggest stakes of an oppressive society.

Today, the European militarization of its borders along with austerity measures within the context of fear of “terrorism” opens the temptation of a constant state of emergency. The ordeal of women in migration facing infinite sexual violence and death during their journey is rendered invisible. What is left is the growing rhetoric for more policing and more appearance-based prejudices, which allow security markets to develop. The current paradoxical protective and aggressive discourse of the authorities puts some women under surveillance, hidden behind security forces and at the same time normalizes the position of other women as victims of sexual violence, according to race and geographical locations and conflicts.

Similarly women’s reproductive bodies, again racially defined, are under surveillance in the United States, with the incarceration of women for miscarrying or having an abortion where it is more and more difficult to get one. These signs of patriarchal essence that justifies violence against women correlate with the expansion of the neoliberal economic order that disadvantages women and minorities and throws them into precarious situations, again rendered largely invisible.

The code of silence that covers the attacks against women in Europe is troubling. In France, a recent study on sexual harassment in public transportation revealed that 100% of the women’s answers indicated various levels of harassment. Generally in Europe sexual assaults have been reported around football games, and other public events. In Cologne few days ago, a journalist of the Belgian RTBF was reporting on the beginning of Carnival and the security measures to protect women participants, when a group of white men sexually assaulted her, all this in front of the cameras.

Without a broader transnational understanding of the causes for the regression of women’s social and political right to be in public spaces, the prospect for better women’s social and political equality with men are slim.

A large transnational solidarity movement, beyond judgment, must be the force against the current trend of violence against women, the basis of all violence that is fueled by the devastating unfettered market forces that consume bodies.

 

(Image Credit 1: Osez le féminisme 69) (Image Credit 2: Osez le féminisme)

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In France, Christiane Taubira steps up by stepping down

February 2, 2016 by Leave a Comment


Wednesday January 27th, instead of going to Parliament to defend reforms to the Constitution, France’s Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, tendered her resignation to President Francois Hollande. She was immediately replaced by a man in line with Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ ideas. The bill under discussion contains many questionable articles, but the one that will allow deprivation of nationality for French born citizens with dual citizenship convicted of act of terrorism is emblematic of the current trend personified by Prime Minister Valls, to curtail rights in the name of security.

This is the trend that Christiane Taubira has opposed particularly since the first attacks in Paris in January 2015. Her approach was to understand why some young French were attracted by DAESH and violent actions, while for Manuel Valls to find explanation to terrorist acts “is already an attempt to excuse them.” He takes an opposite direction: no explanation or understanding needed, just security measures.

Since her nomination in 2012, Christiane Taubira has committed herself to induce a turn toward restorative justice in France, a real shift from the Sarkozy years of repression and development of the prison industrial complex. She tried to instill a change in mentalities, from crude punishment to create means for rehabilitation and reinsertion, beginning by revoking mandatory minimum sentencing. Her unfinished project is the reform of the juvenile justice system and the elimination of the correctional juvenile courts. Many legal scholars and even magistrates supported her action and expressed their concerns after her departure. For many, she represented a change with her approach and her discourse from the previous administration. The latter endlessly tried to reduce the role of the judiciary to favor harsh policing and blind punishment for civil society, encouraging profiling and at the same time discouraging the judiciary from investigating financial arrangements of the elite.

Nonetheless, Taubira’s initiatives were often at odd with and even opposed by many in her own government, notably the Minister of the Interior and Manuel Valls. She was the target of racial and gendered attacks from an unfettered right and extreme right, especially at the time she defended equal rights for LGBT with the Marriage For All bill. Not to forget that one of the last cases of loss of citizenship was a gay man who married in the Netherlands in 2007. Now he can be French again thanks to Taubira’s bill on gay marriage.

Christiane Taubira’s departure is another blow for those who have cautioned against the excess of state violence and policing that this reform of the Constitution may produce. Last weekend many demonstrations were organized to oppose the reform of the Constitution. Taubira has described these articles as “absolutely pathetic inefficiency.” She is not isolated, Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, has declared on Radio France that what infuriated her was national politics especially the issue of loss of nationality and précised that it makes her fly off the handle. She concluded, “It is time to change radically the logic of politics in France.” Similar opinions and support have been expressed by former members of the government as well as many from the center to the left.

Despite heavy rains, thousands of people went to the streets, responding to the call of 123 civil associations and 19 unions, to oppose these reforms, the prolongation of the state of emergency, to demand justice, to defend rights for all including the more vulnerable rendered even more vulnerable at the time of increased economic gaps between classes and ethnicities, and to affirm that a just world is possible!

In the wake of the attacks a certain consensus appeared among various sectors of the society. This consensus against these security measures has upheld, with the president of the Observatory of the “Laicity” signing along with many Muslim organizations, women’s rights organizations, the collective against islamophobia, a declaration released in the newspaper Liberation.

Still Manuel Valls railed against this consensus, accusing some to be irresponsible and others to be undemocratic. In resigning, Taubira has shown her support for this consensus. Her method is to listen, to understand the struggle of the second generation French youth in “les cités”, in the suburbs.

In the United States, we have seen the effect of the ‘tough on crime’ approach linked to security measures in the so-called Patriot Act. The two curtail rights and bring impoverishment and violence. Maybe this is the real purpose of these measures. For Taubira to resist is to give “the last word to ethics and rights”. Let’s have the last word!

Meanwhile, in the past few days, Christiane Taubira wrote a book, “Murmures à la Jeunesse”, explaining her position. It was published today.

(Photo Credit: Slate / AFP / Alain Jocard)

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Radio WIBG: Sofia Tzitzikou: In Greece, despair is quietly settling in

January 11, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Sofia Tzitzikou

Sofia Tzitzikou

Sofia Tzitzikou, the acting president of UNICEF Greece draws attention to the quiet suffering of women, children and vulnerable people in Greece caused by economic manipulations.

With the best wishes of 2016 that everyone exchanges comes the true reality that goes beyond the turning page of the calendar. In Greece, nothing has been resolved and the measures that were imposed upon the population following the third memorandum are, as anticipated, aggravating the conditions of life for all, and even more so for the already vulnerable. As Sofia regrets, no policies are oriented toward the population in its individual and human representation. Nothing positive seems attainable at the moment, and a sentiment of despair washes over young people.

Notwithstanding, the UN report: Effects of foreign debt and Other Related Financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, that demonstrates and analyses the delirious effects of the system of debt, the harsh restructuring policies still go on.

Here is Sofia Tzitzikou who reminds us that the real danger is to become accustomed to such situations.

 

(Photo Credit: Brigitte Marti) (Interview conducted by Brigitte Marti)

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