Skinhead hunter, Red Warrior, ex-Confederal Secretary of the CNT and drummer for the Brigada Flores Magon, Julien Terzics (1968-2024) was put to rest on July 11 at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris
Starting out on the punk scene in Paris around twelve years old, Terzics’s struggle against fascism was truly lifelong. Already a mythical figure before his death, the phases of his life and action reflect many of the different arenas of antifascist action in France – from violent street confrontations to the building of antifascist networks such as SOS Racisme, to physical spaces like the famous Saint Sauveur bar.
As he recounted in an interview in 2015, Terzics’ antifascism was not consciously political to begin with. Confronted by a punk scene dominated by neo-nazi skinheads, his initial organising was more out of self-defence than ideology. “If you were some basic white French guy, not trendy, not aware of anything, during the 80s, you could cross the Parc de Luxembourg without even realizing what was going on, even though it was a nest of fascist skinheads for a minute there”, he said. “On the other hand, if you were in one of these tribes in the subculture, believe me, crossing through there, it was nuts… At the beginning we just realized that when there were more of us, we were less vulnerable”.
The “Red Warriors”, as they called themselves, took their name not from an ideological line but the fact that “what the fafs (fascists) seemed to hate the most was communists”, Julien said. Yet whether or not they were conscious of an underlying ideology, their hard-fought goals were achieved. United in their willingness to engage with fascists on their home turf, by the early 90s the Red Warriors and similar groups had made sure that there was no stronghold in Paris where fascist skinheads could gather in force. Fascism had by no means disappeared, but the focus of the Red Warriors, fascist skinheads, “knew that it was becoming too physically dangerous for them to walk around town”.
After joining the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union in France in ’94, he did “activist work like crazy for fifteen years” including, of course, the inspiration of the next generation of antifascists. This period also reflects a conscious politicisation of his actions and a growing understanding of the reasons for which the fascism he had fought had emerged.
Beyond anti-fascism and the CNT Terzics was involved in a staggering number of projects throughout his life. In 1997, he became the drummer of Brigada Flores Magone who would tour Europe, particularly Italy where they were most popular. Additionally, Terzics opened two bars, the Saint-Saveur and later TDTF, both being as “self-run” as they could be under the French legal system. Active till his death at 55 years old, Terzics continued to manage a motorcycle club and repair shop in Avignon called Black Block MC.
The struggle against fascism may look different today than the actions of Julien Terzics and the “Skinhead hunters” of the 80s and 90s. But we are not as far from this period. In an interview in 2015 Terzics himself points to differences in the “terrain” of antifascist struggle today, from street brawls to social media and the “battle of ideas”. But while the face of fascism has changed, the root of its ideas has not. Terzics’s life is testament both to the impact a single person can have, and to how shallow that impact would be without the movement-building behind it. In his words, “We’ll all get out of this together, or we won’t get out of it at all”.
~ Gabriel Fonten
