France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Tribute, Serge
Torrano will grow more rants (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
We have learned with shock and great sadness the death of Serge Torrano, March 30, 2015,
in Agen hospital. Serge was a SUD-Rail union of the first hour, a libertarian communist
militant "historic" and an Alternative Libertaire companion. ---- The war in Spain, May
68. These two major events have marked the whole trajectory of Serge Torrano. ---- Coming
from a Spanish family refuge in France after Franco's victory, he was 18 in 1968, and
worked as a welder in a factory in the Pyrenees-Orientales, where he was born. He had
lived there his first strike, the first in a long series. Then had packed his bags for
Paris, where barricades had briefly flourished. ---- SNCF hired in 1969 as caleur triage
Juvisy, it then became switchman on the Paris-Southwest Region (Austerlitz station). There
he was to deploy most of its militant activity during the next forty years.
Antibureaucrate par excellence, brought to activism, to rant, but also laughter,
delightfully crafty, it was a charming personality and a strong and reliable friend. Not
doctrinaire, he never became an "old fart" preachy, and always had the easy contact with
young activists.
In protest,
September 22, 2010. * Sébastien / AL northeast Paris
In 1971, it was the powerful strike from June to SNCF imprint of radicalism May 68. In the
months that followed, Serge was excluded from the CGT, which he roundly criticized the
softness during the strike and joined the CFDT . That same year 1971 he joined the
anarchist Revolutionary Organization (ORA, ancestor AL). Within it, he participated in the
launch of a corporate newsletter, The chained Rail, which existed for several years.
With the majority of the ORA, he evolved however, from 1974 to the ultra-left positions.
At the April 1976 congress, it was the majority that excludes dissenting trend Workers
Union of Anarchist Communists (UTCL), which renamed and Libertarian Communist Organisation
(OCL). In 1977, won union busting, he slammed the door of the CFDT and with the majority
of Parisian OCL, engaged in the movement "autonomous" in full bloom.
It was ultimately unsuccessful and in 1979, Serge Torrano abandoned the OCL and the
"autonomous" movement to become the union of shock that he should not cease to be.
With Kaddour Hadadi,
HK singer and Saltimbanks, May 2, 2011. We see Serge appear in the video for the song is
nothing cowardly. © Sébastien / AL northeast Paris
During the winter of 1986-1987, he was a leader and leading large SNCF strike, for the
first time, saw the emergence of coordination of strikers, direct expression of workers in
struggle. During the movement, he supported the creation of a "National Coordination
intercatégorielle" which was heavily contested. Many voices - including that of UTCL -
blamed him indeed to be manipulated by Lutte Ouvrière[1].
Generous and unifying personality, Serge was unanimously elected secretary of the CFDT
trade union of Paris-South West in 1989. From there he took part in the animation of the
strike in December 1995 against breakage of pensions by the Juppe plan. Breaking with the
direction CFDT confederation who had betrayed the movement, he was among those who founded
SUD-Rail in early 1996, and he assumed the secretariat of the union of Paris-Left bank for
several years.
Retired in 2005, at age 55, Serge continued to deploy its action, with her union but also,
increasingly, to the interprovincial. We could see him on the street, the side of youth in
struggle in 2006 against the First Job Contract (CPE) but especially in the struggles of
the housing, with the Black Thursday associations, Housing and Macaq. It was at this time
that he began to subscribe to Ami.es of Alternative Libertaire.
In 2014, he had left Paris to return to the South, which he had always kept the focus.
Located in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), he was immediately joined the action with United and
Alternative Libertaire, taking little time its place within the local extreme left.
It has been a hard blow for everyone when, on March 13, it was learned that he had been
rushed to hospital following a heart and lung edema. After a brush with death, his
condition improved, and he laughed again with family, friends and comrades who visited
him: "Getting to race by the cops, it's over for me! " he joked. The respite was
short-lived. So we hoped an upcoming release from hospital, Serge died suddenly.
Alternative Libertaire, especially the comrades who knew him in Paris and Agen, direct
their thoughts solidarity to his family and friends. For everyone, it is a very big loss.
Claude Beaugrand (AL Paris-Sud), Guillaume Davranche (AL Montreuil), Rodolphe famous
Armagnac (AL Agen)
Goodbye Serge!
In protest September 21, 2009 in Paris. * Sébastien / AL northeast Paris
[1] On this quarrel, read "December 1986: The coordination of strikers open a new era" in
Alternative Libertaire December 2006.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Serge-Torrano-ne-poussera-plus-de
