France

The eviction of the Calais "jungle" migrant camp took place in early November 2016, and saw thousands of migrants who had gathered in the port town moved across France. The camp had become one of the best-known examples of how free movement in Europe is only an option for some, and shows us how a militarised border regime functions. New research by the Calais Research Network has found over 40 companies profiting from security guards, walls and fences, border technology, deportation and detention systems, police support, and police weaponry.

The Eurosatory arms fair took place in Paris this month. The 'Defence and Security' fair, one of the largest in the world, takes place every two years. For many years, opposition to Eurosatory took the form of one woman, Yvonna Kressman, faithfully standing outside on her own, over decades. Gradually the word has spread, and this year campaigners from Germany, England, Belgium and the Netherlands joined French antimilitarists and others to make sure it wasn't “business as usual” for the arms trade. There was significantly more disruption, protest and awareness-raising than ever before.

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Pacifists in Europe will be travelling to Paris in June to protest the Eurosatory arms fair. Some will travel as part of a pilgrimage from Germany, via Strasbourg and arms factories. There will be actions on train stations as delegates arrive, vigils, and a demonstration on Tuesday 14th June at 6.30pm at Les Invalides. Follow @noneurosatory on twitter and sign their petition online. Also this week in Wales, activists have been disrupting the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology and Exportability Fair in Cardiff. The event was previously held in nearby Bristol, but had to be moved because of protests here. Find photos here.

Read more, or write to noneurosatory2@gmail.com for more info...

Militarism is guns, armored tanks and drones, but it’s also a state of mind. Militarised mentalities have permeated many police forces and amplified dramatically the force of police violence against our communities.

The Limousin group of Union Pacifiste, a member of the French section of War Resisters' International, learn with huge pain of the attack against our old friends of Charlie Hebdo, which killed twelve people, including the well known cartoonists and journalists Cabu, Wolinski, Charb, Tignous and Bernard Maris. The souls of these pacifists expressed themselves through pencil and pen, struggling and denouncing all kinds of recruitment by religious, societal or economic fanaticisms. Weapons ended their lives.

When spirit, heart, intelligence and humour leave the human being, it is violence that enters the scene. This violence is, of course, found in assassins, but it is also found in this militarized society, which manufactures war here for export over the whole world, in order to protect, hypocritically, the interests of French arms dealers, under the guise of patriotic values.

Headquartered in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, United States, Combined Systems Inc. (CSI)—often manufacturing under the brand name Combined Tactical Systems (CTS)—supplies Tunisia, Yemen, Germany, Netherlands, India, East Timor, Hong Kong, Argentina, Chile, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, as well as its most high-profile clients as of late— Egypt and Israel.

Bringing together statements and analysis on January 2013's military interventions in Mali.

Militarized politics at their worst: Mali An article from Peter Dörrie, published by Waging Nonviolence. Mali: Hijacked Autonomy and French Intervention An article from friend of WRI René Wadlow, published by Toward Freedom. Why western intervention is destined to fail in Mali from Ben Zala and Anna Alissa Hitzemann of UK-based Oxford Research Group. The bombing of Mali highlights all the lessons of western intervention by Glenn Greenwald - looking at the west African nation that has become 'the eighth country in the last four years alone where Muslims are killed by the west'. Algeria, Mali and beyond by Paul Rogers: 'The seizure of an international gas-plant in Algeria follows closely the escalation of conflict in Mali. The response of western states to both reinforces the worldview of their Islamist adversaries'. Read the full article on openDemocracy

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Mali: peace is not war!

Statement from WRI section Union pacifiste de France. Also available in French here.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States annually does a survey on important "transatlantic trends", which can make an interesting read. One of the questions asked is: "Please tell me to what extent do you agree with the following: Under some conditions, was is necessary to obtain justice." (Q29.2). The answers are quite revealing (see graphic below).

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