Summer end. Robin Campillo's film has just been released 120 battements per minute (120 beats per minute) in all of the French State's cinemas. The filmmaker, militant of the movement, proposes a moving, penetrating and unworthy portrait of the Act Up-Paris association, which at the end of last century was fighting AIDS, the Acquired Immunity Syndrome. In view of the enormous success of the film, they have started to raise a number of voices to remember that today the same people who praise the Up-Paris Act movement had their militants in the 1990s, because, together with AIDS, they defended homosexuals, drug addicts, prostitutes, prisoners… That is, the powerful wanted to keep them and exploit the laboratories. The street was the scene of the Up-Paris Act. Through symbolic actions, they made the invisible visible.
Reality is on the street, not in government reports or in officials' Excel tables (like me). Karrika versus bureaucracy is more current than ever
Mid-summer. This same weekend, Joseba Álvarez wrote about the mobilizations against tourism, which passersby are accused of "doing wrong" things from their offices to those who do "good" things. Reality is on the street, not in government reports or in officials' Excel tables (like me). Karrika versus bureaucracy is more current than ever. If things had been so badly done on the street, so many charges would not have come out to justify their policies. Max Brisson himself, chairman of the tourism committee of the Atlantic Pyrenees, wanted to defend himself before the press because of a dozen mattresses he has seen on the streets. The street work has had, at least, the virtue of giving the discussion on the table. And from a political-media agenda to a change, it's just a matter of intensity of the struggle.
Start of the summer. Data on the use of the language street are presented. In the case of the Northern Basque Country, the lowest rate ever measured is recorded. It has changed the occupation of the street (gentrification, privatization of public space) and worsens the socio-linguistic situation (the sacrificed generation lies in the middle of the age pyramid, family transmission has almost been interrupted, the school Basque does not have the same spontaneity as the house Basque). But that does not detract from the fact that the situation is worrying. The next battle will revolve around the use of Euskera. And this also has to be carried largely down the street.
Summer is over. It is entering, but the reasons for going out on the streets are not scarce: in defence of immigrants, against labour reform, in favour of the Basque country or in bringing the issue of Basque prisoners to Paris. The street beats will be heard from the Colegio Público which is being structured to the ministries of Beauvau Square in Paris. Who said he was not ruled by the street?