It's not often that you come across 200 soldiers in uniform milling down a street shouting anti-govemment sogans. But that's what happened in the French town of Draguignan a fortnight ago, and the ruling class is still trying to recover from the shock.
It all really begun six months ago. For some time there had been growing discontent among the ranks of the conscripts, encouraged by the massive school students demonstrations against the new laws governing military service. But it was only with the opportunity of the presidential clections in May that an organised group of conscripts came out into the open with a list of demands known as the "Appeal of 100 (the original number of signatories).
Since then the movement has spread rapidly to embrace almost every regiment in the service. Here and there the authonities have made WEEps to cruse punishas so-called ringleaders, but these have been largely in vain. Over 3,000 consetipts have now publicly added their names to the "Appeal.
Among these, 199 were from the Draguignan barracks of the 19th ArtWery Regiment. The French Trotskyist paper Rouge takes up the story:
LEAFLET Monday 9 September: a leaflet is passed around in the barracks. It contains a reminder of the main demands included in the Appeal of 100', the 199 signatures collected in this regiment, and an article by some of the many black Antillenns [trom French colonies in the Caribocan) in the barTACKS HE TELE CHECHE H boys' by the officers.
with punishment for handing out the racks. Their aim is to make their way throuph the town as a contingent and present their demands at the Town Hall. The same demands are shoulel by the demonstrators:
- End the repression!
- Raise pay to 1,000 francs [about E21 a week]!
Smash racism!
- We want reforms!
wares as own man, anu stays inere while NCOs run puffing and panting along the contingent trying to persuade the demonstrators to return to erriment has heen the public revelation of secter intornation out CIA and l Gor clear what most socialists were already the harracks.
'Tuesday 10 September: threatened through to the centre via the immigrant guarter under the approving leaflets, 200 soldiers gather after lunch stares of the population. On reaching and move towands the piles of the bat the centre, the soldiers sit down. The colonel arrives: Who are your leaders" Everyone gets up.
onstrators agree to return to the barracks, accompanied on their way by a crowd of young people and ura car-load of police, who don't dare interfere. Once inside, they do a lap to hold a meeting and draw up a balThe demonstration moves off to- ance-sheet of the action.
DETERMINATION authorities under any circumstances.
can election results as southing of a personal nsult. Certainly he was guite c car as to what came first if the will of the people in Chile clashed with IS interests.
As he put it, according to one account. "We don't have to let a coantry go communist just bocause of the irresponsibility of its people.
The lalest scandal to rock the Ford Gov- wrecking operations in Chile, beinging them under the control of the tap-level White House body known as the '40 Committee Working Dions this committee Kissinger secured a further eight million dollars for scenet ClA operations. Fle ap told up hy sumine economic chaos LS foreign aid to Chile was whittled down to nothing virtually overnight. US Government pressure was brought to boar to prevent Chile receiving financial assis CHLOR TOE SUCH IOLCEDELIORHI BEENCIES AS daced growing political problems for the *For more than un hour the demonstration made its way round the town After an hour and a hail, the dem- now possible to win.
of honour' and then lead for the mess political developments All this would have alarmed the As it was, the Draguignan march took place just days after the Government had introduced some small reforms designed precisely to fob off such protests. As Rouge commented, these gestures far from confusing the conscripts, have strengthened their determination to go for the lot, have sharpened their belief that it is In Britain we are still far from seeing such a situation develop. In particular, the fact that ours is a professional army with no compulsory military service means that it is far less vulnerable to outside But on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the pressures of the colonial war in Ireland are beginning to have an effect on British army morale, and that the present trickle of desertions could soon ass ume a greater importance. The jailing of Pat Arrowsmith for distributing leatlets outside a barracks shows just how great are the fears of the rul ing class on this score.
This, together with the likely use of troops as strike-breakers in the coming struggles, and the attempts at Heathrow and oisowhere to famil iarise people with the idea of troops acting in a civil situation, make the Jessons of the French experience very important for the British labour move In particular, they show the impor tance of combining demands aimed at winning sections of the army to the side of the working class with the slogan of workers self-defence.
be sace that it will not touch off anything