Freedom reproduces a communiqué from water defenders in Sainte Soline, France:

Regarding the media slander of Serge and the other injured of Sainte Soline by the police:

While our comrade Serge is fighting like a lion to hold onto his life that the state is trying to take away from him, we are witnessing a new outbreak of violence, this time coming from the media, which is trying to portray him as an individual who should be legitimately shot. Today, he is still in a coma with a life-threatening prognosis. Our solidarity also goes out to Mickaël and to all those who have been subjected to police violence.

The words of the state are tirelessly repeated on mainstream bourgeois news platforms in order to give a media-oriented profile to the enemy they want to fight. The smokescreen does not stand up to the dozens of first-hand accounts that reconstruct the facts. The gendarmerie used grenades to explicitly injure the demonstrators and voluntarily neglected to provide timely first aid, even if it meant letting comrades die.

The secret services are distributing Serge’s criminal records to the editorial offices of all the main news agencies in order to impose the police’s point of view and to slander what we are. We will not amuse ourselves here by dismantling each of the voluntarily distorted police versions. That would be to believe that there could be any truth on this matter coming from the vaults of the state and media propaganda. Serge, as a revolutionary fighter, has participated for years with all his determination in different class struggles against our exploitation, always concerned with the broadening, strengthening and victories for the proletarians.

Because yes, we cannot resign ourselves to the current collapse.

We call on all those who know him to talk to their friends and comrades about who he is. But, we should always remember one thing: Serge, in the struggle, refuses the strategy of power to separate “good” fighters from “bad” ones. We stand with him on this line.

On Tuesday, March 28, in the heart of the movement against the pension reform in France, people from all over the world took the initiative to show their solidarity. We have also received many messages from comrades in other countries. We thank them warmly and invite them to continue and strengthen the struggle. Other initiatives are already planned and we call on those in solidarity to join them and to multiply them, without moderation, in France and in the world.

We call for a massive distribution of this communiqué.

PS: There are many rumours are circulating about Serge’s health. Do not spread them. We will keep you informed as the situation develops.

To contact us : s.informations@proton.me

Comrades of S.

Image: Skimel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons