1) Bizi has not made any treatment with the authorities

Late life entered the G7EZ platform, sued by the latter. When we started participating in the meetings, a few months after the platform was created, the platform had already decided to organize a counter-summit and a major demonstration, as well as an act of civil disobedience (7 concentrations, the so-called “Rainbow”). It had already begun negotiations with the State and its services and had approved the ban on the event against the summit, which was planned at Baiona at the beginning. He had already agreed to organize these events and demonstrations in Hendaia and Irun, and to camp in a land offered by the State in Urruña. However, some of those who are now giving us lessons in radicality, some anarchists or antifas and other collectives or people, at that time, were on that platform, and they have also been there after those negotiations and decisions. They followed these life-long meetings, because the platform asked him, saying they needed people, because they were busy. We did so with solidarity, setting from the very beginning the limits of our commitment, although we were aware of the composition of the platform and of the strategic choices that were made (1). We did so by assuming all the responsibilities, not by the authorities, but by an alternative movement and in favor of the society of Euskal Herria, others decided and tore the event to ensure that, in general, the best possible was done.

As for the people who do not participate in the G7EZ Basque platform and the Alternatives G7 platform at the level of France, they insult us, they threaten us and they treat us as collaborators, these people have participated in various events (intergalactic week, manoeuvre or several talks), they have met and lived in Hendaya and the Urruña camp. It has therefore been approved to live and organise the place that the State has found in order to move away from Biarritz, in an area granted by the multinational Nestlé, and the buses that the Basque College has established to go to Hendaia have been used, knowing that, later on, the Basque College will ask G7 to pay the cost of using the bus from the organisational budget. So let us all be humble and humble about the true degree of radicality and rupture of each of us.

2) Alternatiba, ANV-COP21 and Bizi ez egin dira president

Alternatiba and ANV-COP21 have never been on the two platforms and have not participated in their meetings. The militants of these associations have offered their support, at the request of Bizi, in the camp (e.g. in the mediation services) and in the counter-summit (workshops, training, mediation services). But these two associations have only carried out two activities, both with Bizi, the withdrawal of the portrait of the French president of the House of the People of Irisarri and the march of the potrets on 25 August. There has been no treatment with the authorities on these two actions. However, the leaders have tried to contact Bizi on more than one occasion because they wanted to know about the progress of the potrets and try to obtain a negotiation in some sections. They wanted to know the route of the march, the place of the press conference, how many of the president's potrets were going to be there and what we thought about doing with them. We were asked whether we were going to parade with little pots and were told that the state could not accept this. The sub-prefect also called for a meeting with a representative of Bizi, on Tuesday of the same week of the march, to which we had two militants.

Apart from the information we have made public, we have never informed the authorities of anything else. We have said nothing, neither about the route, nor about the place of the press conference, nor above all about what we thought we would do with the foals. The sub-prefect has explained this to us with a friendly tone, that we have understood everything in sight as an attempt at intimidation, and that the authorities could not accept what could be "the history of the presidential image". We have never told him what our intentions were, but it is clear that we never thought that we would not get to see the foals during the march, even more so, putting Macron’s image upside down. We have never known what the State's intentions were (for example, if I tried to let the potrets go or hinder the march, when surrounding the neighborhoods we were going to pass through or when I put my hand there would be a few potrets, and arrest the militants who were carrying in the hand, etc. ). ).

The authorities, for their part, did not really seem to know what our intentions or purposes were: the meetings to prepare this march passed through apartments or residences "safe" or safe, with activists without a phone, who followed safety protocols that we did not specify here.

3) The success of the walking of the potrets

He who wants to drown his dog says he's a rabid animal. Those who want to show that nonviolent people are collaborators, join all the lies that go in that direction, even though the source is the police. They become collaborators and diffusers of this poisoning. The Weekly Canard enchaîné confirmed the following Wednesday to the G7, in a brief information: "In exchange for suspending the seven concentrations of civil disobedience, the leaders of the two local activist groups have had an unofficial permit to parade in Baiona on Sunday, for the so-called "(reverse) potretas" march. The anonymous journalist who has written this short article has not respected the rules of deontology. The organizers of the march of the potrets have never been contacted to gather their views on what has happened and to compare surely that information coming from the Ministry of the Interior.

A group of ‘radical’ militants have joined this ‘information’ on social networks to spread it, insult the Bizi, ANV-COP21 and Alternatiba movements, to say that they have been complicit in the state, etc.

However, this false information ran counter to logic and served the interests of the authorities, of course:

(a) This false information shocked the logic. In fact, none of the organizers of the march of the potrets participated in the organization of the 7 concentrations, and vice versa. We do not participate in the meetings on your organisation (2) or participate in the discussions and the meeting that have decided to cancel the 7 concentrations. None of the organizers of the 7 concentrations participated in organizing the march of the potrets. The two parties at no time mentioned the annulment of the 7 concentrations. For our part, we were aware of this cancellation at the end of the march of the potrets, at the time of the press conference that was held.

As the two platforms have informed us, the meeting that decided to cancel the 7 concentrations took place at 8:30 a.m. in the Urruña camp. At that time, the police resources corresponding to the march of the potrets were already in place and have not changed their place. And anyway, we had already won our wager: a few days ago - over several weeks - we put the president's foals inside the town of Baiona to get them out during the march. At the beginning of Saturday afternoon, we packed and housed 200 militants - all ready to be arrested - in a handful of apartments and residences of Baiona Ttipi and Gran Baiona, to ensure the march of the potrets, even if the interior of the village comprising both neighbourhoods was surrounded by police. In any case, we were victorious: either we managed to make the potrets go, or the police had a mandate to stop our militants, multiplying the media impact of our message and the international impact. So we could not negotiate anything!

(b) This poisoning is in the interest of the authorities: In addition to the new harpons and reparations that it would forcibly create between the opponents of the G-7, it cleansed the authorities a little. The appearance of the President ' s portraits in one of the safest places in the State, bewitched by police and gendarmerie from all over the country, was not due to the fact that the authorities could not dodge them, but to the fact that they had been forced to accept them for treatment: “When the facts outweigh us, let us get them organised by us.”

Some are astonished that the authorities have not adopted the same attitude with the march of the potrets and with the concentration on Saturday afternoon, as an anti-dimensional device was installed for this purpose and a wave of arrests took place. Either they are politically idiots, or they are in bad faith. Evidently, it was not the same media and political cost for the State to drag masked activists who were accused of torturing the police or imprisoning militant climates who did not use masks or violence when they believed that they had some covered boxes. In the first case, there is no political cost to the State, which can also justify the state of siege it has placed in the cities of Biarritz, Angelu and Baiona. In the second case, it shows even more that President Macron denounces that he does nothing ecologically and that he stops the militant climates of his country. This is a central point of non-violent strategies, that is, that repression and arrests do not mean, in any way, the failure and weakening of the action, but rather that, on the contrary, most of the time, they affect the success and positive impact of it (such as that of the Millau McDo or that which the Pacifiers have led in Luhuso), and it is more difficult to use these violent actions.

4) ‘Lives as a collaborator, as bank supervisor’

This is one of the graffiti that was carried out in our headquarters after the G7 and which the "radical" social networks have broadcast with ease, to the agency Crédit Maritime, with a photograph of the mediation service of the demonstration on 24 August. Thus, Bizi has actively participated in the mediation service of the event on 24 August in Hendaia and assumes its responsabilidad.Tuvimos to supply one third of the 300 members of this mediation service and a significant part of those responsible. We were not the only ones, not even close, and above all the Basque institutions, the independence left and the anti-capitalist Abertzale actively participated in it. This mediation service was located at the end and at the end of the demonstration and in front of all the shops and establishments on its way, including this agency Crédit Maritime. So, have we supported the “banks”? No, we supported and enforced the collective decision of the two platforms that organized the march, that is, a popular and peaceful demonstration.

When the G7EZ platform came to demand that Bizi take us to them, we remind them that we only participate in actions and mobilizations without violence 100%. Then they told us that the platform only organized peaceful mobilizations, that those who wanted to organize other kinds of mobilizations could organize themselves outside of them. They had chosen this option before committing to the Bizi platform. As far as we are concerned, we are merely consistent and honoured with those who follow us and trust us. Since the proclamation in Hendaia that the demonstration on 24 August was to be peaceful and popular, all steps had to be taken to that end, because it seems that the useless have no value. Moreover, last year has been a year full of repetitive clashes and violent repression, and in the context of the G7 and police occupation.

That is to say, our conception of militant action is to take the means to achieve our objectives, and not only to wish objectives. And to respect the part of the society that entrusts us: if we invite you to a peaceful demonstration, we must do what we can to make it so, even if nothing is 100% assured. Beyond that obligation of coherence and honesty, that also coincided with our political reflection on what had to be done and what had to be avoided, as we wrote in the Bizi internal text that we have already mentioned: “Now, we have to adapt this manifestation to make it happen as best as possible, because if there were ever clashes, the state would win the game from the beginning of the G7. It would easily explain that he was right to ban the counter-summit in Baiona and to militarise the areas close to Biarritz, and to do so he would use the clashes of the previous counter-clock in Hendaia and Irun. Although then the conflicts took place in Biarritz, in the heads of the people, the origin would be in the mobilisations against the G7 and not the police and military occupation of Biarritz, Angelu and Baiona. Consequently, we would have lost the battle of public opinion for the greatest joy of the organizers of Macron and G7.”

And as for the protection of the banks, those who wanted to attack them, who know that it is not just the Crédit Maritime agency of Hendaya in Iparralde. HSBC, BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, LCL, etc. In the cities and towns of the north. During the week of the G7 and the Counter-Summit, none of them have been subjected to attacks of all kinds. Live! Since its inception, we have regularly, without violence and continuously attacked these banks and their policies (boycott campaigns, first bank recovery against tax fraud, various occupations and actions to denounce banking investments that are devastating climates, etc. ). ).

All this has led us several times to police and trial, the police have registered our headquarters (in search of the chairs we had required at the agency of the HSBC bank of Baiona), where a painted one has just appeared: “Bizi collabo, protège les banques” (in Basque, “Bizi kolabo, defending banks”).

5) Declaration of disability

The concern that the G7 (let us remember that it happened in Biarritz and not in Hendaia or Irun) there is hardly any kind of aggression or violent rebellion, that rage of imposing oneself on non-violent strategies and movements, is above all what hides, the refusal to look at the truth in the face and to make real political assessments of the G7. Those who wanted to block or hinder the G7 (for their part, Bizi had never set such a strategic objective, because they seemed impossible to him), did not achieve it, on the one hand, because of its weak mobilization and, on the other, because of the enormous resources established by the state. Bizi participated in the mediation service of the Hendaia demonstration that took place last Saturday. The organizers wanted it to be peaceful. But we never tried to obstruct or hinder any violent or non-violent action, as long as they did not touch the acts and mobilizations of which we were a part.

We do not want to judge other strategies that do not follow our line, and we do not lose energy or time to attack them, if they are organised on their part and do not intend to impose themselves on ours or in which we organise them. Although on Saturday 24 August we were a lot of people on the streets, apartments and premises of Baiona, we would never have been overhead making it difficult for those who wanted to confront the police. However, it seemed to us a mistake. The demonstrators had been caught in a real cepo, in which the excessive police force led the situation to a single script: that the security forces - even less G7 - would not suffer any discomfort, but would obtain images of violence, which would justify the police occupation of the Basque coast, as well as dozens of arrests.

But we did not participate in that demonstration and, therefore, we have not introduced our strategic conceptions or slogans. And we demand that advocates of violence act with us in the same way. We ask them to act by obstructing the state and the capitalist system, and not other movements that disagree with them. We have read: “The real enemy of this summit was not the inexpugnable carnival in Biarritz, but the Left who is trying to bring it back together with peaceful demonstrations. The most fruitful thing that week was to dissolve and overcome those mobilizations. What to do? Overcome the manifestation of Hendaia. The old world has not been given room in the new context.”(3) or “The alterglobalists of the Bizi or Attac organizations are our worst enemies”(4). They are no more frightening than police repression. On the other hand, we believe that they are the recognition of the impotence of some strategies. Without being able to destroy the system, they set another goal within their reach: to destroy those who do not think like them.

To conceive, we would like to point out that by using the word 'radical', we use quotation marks regularly. We do not mix radicalism and violence. We believe that strategies and actions that weaken the enemy and strengthen the alternative side are radical.

Every day we try to be radical through the struggles with many others and the alternatives that we build. We have opted for a 100% non-violent strategy. In the last 10 years, we believe that we have strengthened the alternative part in general and have achieved victories that have weakened the system that we sometimes struggle, even if it is in our weak part.

Bizi, September 4, 2019

(1) See the following paragraph of Bizi’s internal text entitled ‘Some specifications of Bizi in relation to their participation in the mobilisations against the G7 in the North’: ‘As a result, we were following in a long way what was being prepared and we did not in any way add to the organizational modes themselves, to the establishment and development of the G7EZ platform and to the initiatives that the great logistical platform had already put forward. No, and after that, when the prefect banned any concentration in Angelu Biarritz, the decision to transfer the entire organization to Hendaia and Irun, resulting in an even more serious and less politically interesting act of organisation. We couldn't say anything, because we weren't part of the platform when these decisions were made. But if we were to manage a situation like this, we would do the opposite: we would keep the clock in Baiona, even if it was banned, and we would turn it into a gigantic civil disobedience action.”

(2) The passage in Bizi's internal text has already been mentioned: "From the beginning Bizi has made it clear that we would not participate in the organisation of the 7 concentrations from Sunday to noon, knowing that we had serious doubts about how to pass and that we did not want to do anything that could hinder those organised by the other members of the platform. Consequently, we do not participate in the preparation of them, or in the discussions on them.’

(3) Article “Un G7 en la cumbre del absurdo, sobre el contrapunto de Biarritz, desde Euskal Herria” published on the website of Lhanover Matin on September 3, 2019, anonymous text, Bizi! Like most men who attack and insult.

(4) Read in the Twitter account of Luttes Pays Basque. A story that, thanks to an anonymization full of courage, spends time casting uncertain insults and lies on the militant movements of the Basque Country. Being the almost systematic anonymity in the characteristics of this type of political practices, we do not know who is hiding in the Twitter account or in the background of these messages or Facebook graffiti: Did the militants, the provocateurs or the flika “create the division to dominate” and thus reinforce tensions, extending the call to the conflict, as did the flika that had infiltrated the Urruña camp?