Occitania: Greenpeace breaches security at Tricastin nuclear facility

Tricastin, near Avignon, is one of the most important nuclear facilities on Earth: it is not just a huge nuclear power plant of four reactors, producing some 6% of France's electricity, but also holds one of the main uranium enrichment plant of Europe. It's shadow is so ominous that nearby wine producers recently changed their official denomination from Coteaux du Tricastin to Grignan les Adhemar.

Today activists of Greenpeace breached the security perimeter and deployed a banner at a stairway just besides one of the reactors. Meanwhile from the opposite side of the canal their comrades projected on the reactor images of a luminous crack and the words "Tricastin nuclear accident", later replaced by an image of President Hollande and the legend "President of the catastrophe?"

Tricastin had a very serious accident in July 2008, when 18,000 liters of uranium solution (containing some 75 kg of enriched uranium) were released to the nearby rivers Gaffière and Lauzon, which have been since then restricted for all normal activities. Also that same month a hundred workers were exposed to radioactive particles and another spill was detected lagging from 2005.

According to Fukushima Emergency...:

The 33-year-old plant is the third-oldest in France’s nuclear park. Multiple cracks on the reactor vessel no. 1 and its location in an area at risk of flooding and tremors make it a safety hazard, according to Greenpeace.

Police only appeared more than an hour after the break-in had been executed. All in all the activists were only arrested six hours later, with full deployment of helicopters and a mountain police special team.


Main source: Greenpeace[fr].

Occitania: march in Avignon against Zionist corporation Mehadrin

From Electronic Intifada (emphasis mine):

More than 500 people demonstrated in the French city of Avignon on Saturday as part of a extraordinary mobilization against Mehadrin, the major Israeli agricultural export company that operates inside illegal Israeli settlements and is deeply involved in the ongoing colonization of Palestinian land. 

At least 350 people then marched the 14 kilometers from Avignon to Mehadrin’s French headquarters in the small town of Chateurenard (video here). As they passed over a major bridge near Avignon, the huge crowd chanted: “Sur le pont d’Avignon, on boycotte, on boycotte! Mehadrin, Mehadrin, on boycotte, on boycotte!” — a play on the famous French nursery ryhme about Avignon. 

The march finished with a rally outside Mehadrin’s warehouses where tents bearing the names of Palestinian villages were erected in tribute to Palestinian resistance and an audio recording of a speech by Palestinian Farmers Union executive director Dawood Hamoudeh was played. Dozens of police surrounded Mehadrin’s warehouses to prevent activists from getting too close to them. Activists from more than twelve cities across France joined the mobilization. 

Mehadrin is increasingly under fire as the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement works to expose how it operates farms in illegal Israeli settlements using stolen Palestinian water, exploits Palestinian workers and helps tighten Israel’s grip on occupied land. Mehadrin operates the Jaffa brand of fruit and exports its produce to supermarkets throughout Europe. 

The march was heralded by activists as a successful first step in pressuring major French supermarkets not to stock Mehadrin goods and to create mass public awareness about the importance of boycotting Israeli products. 
The French BDS movement played a leading role in the campaign against Agrexco, a company that used to be Israel’s largest agricultural company before it entered liquidation in 2011.

There is a second part to this article under it, scroll down.

Motivated!

I was reading about an armed robbery with hostages in Tolouse and my mind wandered to this great activist band from that city: Zebda, which I had not listened to in a while but has a great "partisan hymn", Motivé! (Motivated!), which was sort of a hit in the 1990s and I thought I'd share because, as they sing, one must be motivated to fight...

I just thought I'd share (with special dedication to the Québécois students):

The lyrics in French:

Ami entends tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines
Ami entends tu les cris sourds du pays qu'on enchaîne
Ohé, partisans ouvriers et paysans c'est l'alarme
Ce soir l'ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes

Refrain

Motivés, motivés
Il faut rester motivés !
Motivés, motivés
Il faut se motiver !
Motivés, motivés
Soyons motivés !
Motivés, motivés
Motivés, motivés !

C'est nous qui brisons les barreaux des prisons pour nos frères
La haine à nos trousses et la faim qui nous pousse, la misère
Il est des pays où les gens au creux des lits font des rêves
Chantez compagnons, dans la nuit la liberté vous écoute

Refrain

Ici chacun sait ce qu'il veut, ce qu'il fait quand il passe
Ami si tu tombes un ami sort de l'ombre à ta place
Ohé, partisans ouvriers et paysans c'est l'alarme
Ce soir l'ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes

Refrain

On va rester motivé pour le face à face
On va rester motivé quand on les aura en face
On va rester motivé, on veut que ça se sache
On va rester motivé...

Refrain

On va rester motivé pour la lutte des classes
On va rester motivé contre les dégueulasses

Motivés, motivés...

And a translation (with help of Google Translate):

Friend can you hear the black flight of ravens over our plains
Friend can you hear the muffled cries of the country that connects
Hey, supporters workers and peasants is the alert
Tonight the enemy will know the cost of blood and tears

chorus

Motivated, motivated
You have to stay motivated!
Motivated, motivated
You have to motivate!
Motivated, motivated
Be motivated!
Motivated, motivated
Motivated, motivated!

It is we who break through the prison bars for our brothers
The hatred on our heels and the hunger that drives us, the misery
There are countries where people are deep in the bed of dreams
Sing comrades, in the night freedom listens to you

chorus

Here everyone knows what he wants, what he does when he goes
Friend, if you fall, a friend emerges from the shadows in your place
Hey, partisans, workers and peasants: is the alarm
Tonight the enemy shall know the cost of blood and tears

chorus

We will keep you motivated for the face-to-face
We will keep you motivated when you'll have them in front
We will keep you motivated, we want it to be known
We will keep you motivated ...

chorus

We will keep you motivated for the class struggle
We will stay motivated against the disgusting

Motivated, motivated ...

Lone gunman of Toulouse probably a fascist: all victims belong to minorities [Update: an Islamist fascist in the end]

It has finally surfaced, after the attack against the Jewish school in Toulouse, that all three previous victims of the motorcycle gunman of Toulouse belonged to ethnic minorities. 

Previously it was only known, at least to me, that they were military personnel, what made the xenophobic motivation of a Le Pen or Sarkozy supporter less apparent. So today, as I read on the massacre in the Ozar Hatorah religious school, I even speculated with a lone Islamist criminal (who may hold generic resentment against Jews for the Zionist colonial imposition), but after reading the small print today at Euronews, which clearly said: 

All the troops were from ethnic minority backgrounds.

... I immediately realized that the murderer must be a racist.

The killer had already murdered in the past days three soldiers and injured a fourth one, and now also a Jewish religion teacher and three children (aged 3, 6 and 10), two of them sons of the educator, while seriously injuring yet another person.

The attacker used always the same modus operandi, attacking in cold blood with a pistol (the same one in all three attacks until it got jammed, when he began using a second weapon) and running away in a motorcycle. 

While I can't be sure, I would imagine that he is a member or former member of the armed forces, not only because accessing weapons is difficult in the French state but also because his first victims were all troopers. 

References: Euronews, Gara[es].


Update:

It seems that my logic was right and three Nazi officers are being investigated already. The officers were briefly (in)famous in 2008 when they published a photo of themselves with the Nazi ensign and performing the Roman (Fascist) salutation with the extended arm.

All three correspond with the profile of the murderer: a tattooed and very strong man dressed all in black.

Refs.: Le Point[fr], Público[es].


Update (March 20):

The attacker may be a follower of the butcher of Utoya, A. Breivik, because he apparently carries a camera to document his crimes, as allegedly Breivik advised to do (or so claims Al Jazeera - first time I heard that).

However while Breivik was openly Christian-Zionist and resented European fascist antisemitism as useless and counter-producing, this terrorist is obviously antisemitic. So the comparison stops there.


Update (Mar 21): 

A young man aged 24 is in the end apparently the murderer. Against expectations, he is an Islamic Fundamentalist (another type of fascist), identified as Mohamed Merah and who claims to be member of Al Qaeda. The gunman claims that he killed the soldiers in protest for French intervention in Afghanistan and the Jewish children to avenge the Palestinian victims of Israel.

As of now Merah has been surrounded by police in his apartment of Côte Pavée (a neighborhood of Toulouse), from where he has shot against the agents. An attempt to involve his mother in preventing further bloodshed failed as she declared to hold no influence on her son.

Merah is a French citizen of Algerian origins who had been indoctrinated, apparently, in Pakistani and Afghani infamous madrasas.