France, Alternative Libertaire AL #248 - 1937 The riot
Clichy divides the Popular Front (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation]
March 16, 1937 evening, the streets of Clichy, police from the Popular Front government
opened fire on a crowd of several thousand people protesting against a film screening of
the French Social Party (PSF) of Colonel de la Rocque. The rally turns to riot and six
protesters die, 276 are injured. When police Marx Dormoy, Socialist interior minister, is
the anti-fascist committee Clichy, the socialist part, the tear in the antifascist
movement seems irreversible. ---- After the killings, the funeral of the victims. ---- If
this riot was somewhat overshadowed the memory of the Popular Front, is remembered by more
readily against the great strikes of June 1936 that prompted the government to concede
number of social reforms and dissolve the nationalist leagues. A few months later, the
specter of the far right riots of February 6, 1934 appears to depart for the government
and reflux struggles allows him to decree the break in reforms.
In March 1937, it's time to launch the largest loan of three billion francs decided by
socialists and radical government. So they show particularly anxious to give pledges
Republican legalism. It is in this pivotal period that the PSF chooses to organize his
film show on aviation relations between France and South America in Clichy, genuine
workers' bastion. For local activists of the Popular Front, it is nothing but a provocation.
The steps they undertake to Marx Dormoy do not succeed. The PSF is a legal organization
and the meeting was private; under the law nothing prevents it from being held. The
anti-fascist forces Clichy do not see things exactly the same way and appeal to workers.
Since the anti-fascist startle February 1934 rallies or extreme right meetings are
frequently prevented by the mobilizations of the Popular Front. The meeting on March 16
PSF therefore leads the clash of two different orientations within the Popular Front:
Republican legalism government and popular antifascist action based committees.
Be up to the challenge
In Clichy socialist town, the old fire Cross involved in hostile territory and direction
of PSF seems well aware of the insult the evening of March 16, represents for the local
forces of the Popular Front. On 15 March, she mobilizes several dozen men to occupy the
Olympia cinema where the projection is to be held. The next day they are a hundred to
watch the film edge. These men belong to fly propaganda teams (EVP), which form the highly
militarized security service of the PSF. Other teams focused at points North of the
capital, to come and strengthen those already present in Clichy in the event of an attack.
Displays the popular Clichy Front calling for the event.
PVRs are working for the occasion with rather tolerant authorities. The side of the
security forces also are preparing actively to ensure the good performance of the evening.
General information is solicited, but it is difficult to estimate the anti-fascist
mobilization capacity. The information provided estimates of the anti-fascist rally
largely undervalued until the day where they finally announce the participation of
5000-8000 protestors.
This does not preclude an impressive deployment of police: the general direction of the
Municipal Police provides about 1,800 mobile policemen and guards to close the Town Hall
Square where gave themselves appointment antifascists. Eight dams are planned around the
town hall on the streets Jaurès, Union, Villeneuve, Dagobert and Marte.
Anti-fascist organizations, having noted the intentions of PSF late, only have a week to
prepare the response, but the mobilization is intense, unitary and carried by the local
labor movement. The secretary of the trade unions in the Paris region lance, for example,
a call to mobilize anti-fascist front of the workers in the public service gathered in
Clichy Sunday, March 14. It should be noted also that the against-gathering meets only a
faint echo in national newspapers FCP or the SFIO, the revolutionaries of the Paris region
have grasped the challenge of the evening and prepare themselves as to the event.
The "People's Front of struggle" in battle
Clichy Committee of the Popular Front prepares tirelessly mobilization. The walls of the
housing estate are covered with posters and leaflets are multiplied broadcasts. The
Committee may rely on the municipality of Clichy which also edit a poster calling the
gathering, signed by Mayor SFIO Charles Auffray, MP Maurice Honel and general counsel
Maurice Naile, both communists. Charles Auffray and Maurice Naile know each other well.
They are two former officials of Proletarian Unity Party (PUP), an organization of
dissidents of the PCF and the SFIO activists reunification Marxist parties.
So the left of the Popular Front, which mobilizes a great unity of atmosphere. The
People's Voice, the local organ of the Communist Party will even write: "We are delighted
with the attitude of our comrades in the Socialist section of Clichy who, like us, are
shown is determined to do everything to make the factious, genre La Rocque and Doriot, not
just cause of the working class Clichy.»
This is perhaps the incarnation of the popular fighting Front is trying to organize
Marceau Pivert and the Revolutionary Left tendency (GR) of the SFIO. An important part of
the SFIO disapproves of lukewarm government policy Blum and revolutionary trend Woodpecker
gaining ground in the federation of the Seine. It also is about to take the lead. The
Pivertists militating for making illegal power of the Popular Front in the spring 1936,
are calling for the emergence of a "people fighting front," aware that a government - even
the left - can not move forward without the pressure of the masses.
On March 16, we can have a strong participation in the Paris SFIO. It also mobilizes for
the occasion his self-defense organization, the Always Ready To Serve (STPP), known in the
Paris region for their radical action against nationalist groups. The socialists of the
Seine are not the only ones to prepare for battle. The prefecture has information that
workers Geoffroy-Delore institutions have made in the workshops, hundreds of batons for
not coming to the rally fascist empty handed ...
Antifascist organizations met yesterday to discuss the latest technical, so can show
determination and despite the ban of the event, they plan to march in procession in the
city. The appointment is 19 hours in front of the mayor and is provided a path forming a
loop that would encircle the cinema.
Rally to riot
At 19h 30 Tuesday, March 16 evening, despite the good hundred members of the TEU, OGP
supporters are probably not very confident in the clichyenne adventure of their leader and
are only 400 to go to the cinema Olympia . La Roque itself does not come. The important
information is law enforcement service is willing to cinema, which from the early evening,
was besieged by hundreds of demonstrators. Repressed by the police, they are on the Town
Hall Square where their ranks swell gradually. At 20h, the police counted 4,000
anti-fascists gathered on the Town Hall Square to them was nevertheless prohibited.
?
A bus arrived as reinforcements of police in riot: broken windows, damaged bodywork.
It is shortly after the first incidents qu'éclatent. Demonstrators, apparently organized
sink the first lines of police blocking the street leading to the Union cinema. Police
lifting counters contain the crowd but the situation becomes explosive, while a good
thousand reinforce the anti-fascist rally. At 20h 30, Maurice Naile gives the starting
signal of the event, whose career has finally passed through the gate of Clichy, 3000 but
protestors still trying to force the police roadblocks. For them, the goal is always to
prevent former Cross Fire to meet.
After 21h, while the rioters are now nearly 4,000 on the Town Hall Square, the disorder
becomes "unprecedented" according to police reports. The reinforcements that support the
dams Union Street are riddled with cast iron pieces, stones and bottles, to the point that
many police officers were injured before they get out of the trucks. After 45 minutes, the
shooting broke out; and it is the "massacre de Clichy".
The massacre in Clichy
According to police, the first shots came from the town hall, or roofs of adjacent
buildings and even the first lines of the demonstrators. In the labor press the following
days, we do not insist deny this version of events. It is against-unanimous in denouncing
the extreme violence of the reaction of the security forces who opened fire on the crowd.
The shooting short 21h 45 to 22:30. Yet the crowd of rioters only grow to reach the number
of 6,000 individuals. Those who had followed the procession towards the Porte de Clichy
are alerted by the municipal siren and returned to the square.
In the police marshals, one officer was wounded by a bullet, but there are cons by six
dead and 48 injured by firearms in the antifascist ranks. The front of the town hall where
took refuge large number of demonstrators is riddled with bullet holes. Protesters
demonstrate revolver shots at close range on some of their attempting to rescue the wounded.
In the great confusion Union Street, police opened fire their muskets on unarmed
protesters. The testimonies of protesters reported numerous abuses. Andre Blumel, a member
of the cabinet of Blum himself is reached twice by police bullets while he went to the
town hall to try to appease the protesters.
A Pyrrhic victory for the anti-fascist
For the PSF, the balance of the evening is hardly glorious at first glance. After ten
minutes the projection organizers had to clear the room and return to Paris was not always
easy for supporters of Colonel de la Roque. The officer side, the party has not been easy.
It reports 255 injuries to police and death: the guardian of peace Auguste Meunier who
dies on 11 May, after being hit in the liver by a piece of iron.
The human toll of the evening of the event Clichy is however very heavy for protestors. It
lists, in addition to the dead already mentioned, 276 injured, 54 are hospitalized. The
first five victims in the ranks of the Popular Front are all CPF members. The sixth,
Solange Demangel, who died shortly after his hospitalization, militates in the 18th
section of the federation of the Seine of the SFIO. She is a member of STPP, the socialist
self-defense organization. The scars are not just for the wounded: the FSP has managed to
cause a profound break between the Blum government and the Revolutionary Popular Front.
The issue of responsibility
The maneuver was so successful that one comes to suspect even a nationalist ambush. Some
elements reinforce this view. Police arrested two men in the hands of the anti-Soviet
rally Committee (Cras) - a reconstruction of franciste party - who admit to be paid to
disrupt meetings and left the gathering. Now one of them is among the injured Clichy.
Although the police headquarters is interested for a time in this track, it alone can not
explain the outbreak of the shooting.
The official explanation of the socialist and communist press are not much more
satisfactory. She denounced the actions of the extreme left, but reports indicate that
general information Trotskyists and anarchists are only a handful to be potentially
involved in the clashes. Within the SFIO, it is more accurate and accuses Marx Dormoy
Marceau Pivert and his STPP have led the crowd to attack the police roadblocks.
Marceau Pivert does not deny the participation of its troops in the battle, but blames for
his political responsibility for the massacre in the government, accusing them of treason
in the supplement of red Cahiers of May 1937: "Yes, it was close[...] the measures taken
by the government to restore the confidence of owners and protective measures of
Croix-de-Feu meeting. Yes, it was difficult to understand that the public gathering, the
federation of the Seine, the socialist municipality Clichy, call an against-protest and
the interior minister, socialist, does not prohibit the fascist meeting " .
The portrait of Solange Demangel socialist activist killed in Clichy, adorns meetings
Socialist Workers Party and Peasants (PSOP) created by Marceau Pivert after exclusion of
the SFIO in 1938.
It should finally little about who is behind the first shots at the initiative of the
clashes. Anyway, March 16 evening, thousands of women and men were ready for battle to
silence the extreme right. This same extreme right that has been defended by the Popular
Front government.
On March 16, a split within the Popular Front
The dead are in Clichy, following the March 16, elevated to martyr and the entire Popular
Front communion in one of the largest demonstrations in history to make their last
respects. Nevertheless, the break between the People's Front government and the extreme
left is about. Within the SFIO, Marceau Pivert and the Revolutionary Left (GR) have
beautiful take the leadership of the Federation of the Seine, they are excluded in 1938.
Among the charges against the revolutionaries, there including the events of March 16 1937.
Emile (AL Paris Sud)
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