France – Page 5 – Dark Nights

Communiqué #2: Sabotage of an EHV pylon in France/Grand-Est

Posted on 2023/02/21 by darknights

In December 2022, in solidarity with the prisoner hunger striker Alfredo Cospito, we sabotaged an EHV pylon and partially removed its bolting (https://lille.indymedia.org/spip.php?article35371&lang=fr). The sabotage of a high voltage line is not without danger and, even if it is done without error, there is always a certain risk. However, we found this risk acceptable and the action entertaining. Since direct action is always an attempt to motivate and inspire other contexts, we had already announced our intention to give some technical advice:

Choice of target: When choosing the mast, make sure that the insulators (the ceramic coils to which the cables are attached) are vertical! A diagonal or horizontal position indicates a tensile load in the corresponding direction. Choose the most insulated location possible. Make sure that there are no people between the object and the nearest towers (e.g. busy roads crossing the line). Choose your escape route so that it cannot be blocked by the falling line.

Risk assessment/mitigation: It happens regularly (although rarely) that electricity pylons bend or fall, even without sabotage. This can occur, for example, due to storms, the weight of snow, or simply material fatigue or inadequate maintenance. The result is a risk of premature tilting of the mast. This risk increases with each screw loosened and exponentially with each foot completely unscrewed. It is up to you, as a group, to decide how far you want to go. In all cases, plan the action with the possibility of the mast falling while you are still there. Both at the base of the mast and where the cables touch the ground, there is a potentially lethal tension on the ground within a certain radius! Move away from the object as quickly as possible in the opposite direction of the fall. Ensure that your body remains in contact with the ground at all times (grounding), walking with small “shuffling” steps. Make sure that the weather conditions are favorable. Under no circumstances should you perform this action in strong wind, heavy rain or snowfall!

How to proceed: During the reconnaissance of the object, we noticed with some annoyance that the thread projections of each screw were destroyed by drilling (photo). An anti-sabotage measure of RTE which we do not know if it applies to all EHV lines or only to this one. In retrospect, we can see that it is certainly more tiring, but that it is still possible. For the screws, we concentrated on the ones that connect the mast to its foundations (50 mm key). On the inside, a short handle of about 20-30 cm is enough, as it gets stuck in the structure of the foot. On the outside, you will need a strong tube extension to increase leverage. For ease of transport, it is recommended to use several tubes that fit into each other. For some screws, we needed up to 2 meters of leverage. Before the actual action, we sprayed the screws with penetrating oil (WD 40) and let it work for several hours. We repeated this operation at the beginning of the unscrewing. The last few screws were significantly more difficult to remove, which we interpreted as a sign that the mast was already starting to lower. For this action, you will need at least 2 to 3 people on the object. You can count on about 3 hours per foot (16 screws at a time). If you find a pole with undamaged bolts, it will probably go faster.

Tracks: It is almost impossible to work for several hours in the same place without leaving many tracks! Check regularly during the work if your body is still completely covered (e.g. between sleeve and glove). In any case, get rid of your clothes and shoes after the action. Keep your workplace clean and store your tools in such a way that nothing is inadvertently left behind, even if you have to stop the action before it is completed. Continue reading “Communiqué #2: Sabotage of an EHV pylon in France/Grand-Est” →

France: Welcome to the Minister of Labour – sabotage of the railway north of Toulouse

Posted on 2023/02/13 by darknights

The Minister of Labor was invited to the headquarters of the newspaper La Dépêche on Thursday to promote the pension reform and defend his vision of the world.
As a welcoming committee worthy of the name, the railway line north of Toulouse was sabotaged. The train embodies the supply tool of the economic system in manpower and goods. A system that works just in time can be disrupted by attacking these veins.

In solidarity with all those who refuse this world, who have found themselves in the streets in recent weeks, who fight for a better life

Against the disaster and the exploitation of the living nothing is still lost

Collective inter struggle choo-choo

Source: IAATA

Salindres (Gard), France: An electric pylon sabotaged

Posted on 2023/02/08 by darknights

received by mail / Wednesday, December 21, 2022

We sabotaged the 225.000Volts pylon on the main line that supplies electricity to the chemical-industrial pole of Salindres (Arkema company and others).

Method:

1) Sawing the crossbars.
Note: These are the bars that connect the legs together.
2) Sawing with oblique cuts on both legs in the direction of the fall.
Note: The tower must fall perpendicular to the cables.
3) Saw with straight cuts always on the same legs about 30 cm above the previous cuts.
Note: Saw all the way to the end to have a fully detachable piece.
4) Hit the sawn pieces still held in place by the gravity of the tower with a ram.
Note: a small tree trunk can be used
5) While the tower is falling, walk away with small steps in the opposite direction.
Note: hacksaws and oil are sufficient to perform this action.

Let’s take on the companies that poison the earth!
Whether in large groups during occupation/demonstrations or in small groups during sabotage/fires.

Strength to the individuals in struggle in France, Germany and elsewhere.

If the targets are too well protected, attacking the flows allows us to cut upstream while putting ourselves in less danger. Let’s go on the offensive!

Occupations, sabotage, fires,…

We do not defend nature, we are nature defending itself.

Resistance fighters.

Source: Attaque

$hile: Text by Juan Flores from “La Gonzalina” prison, in Rancagua

Posted on 2023/01/27 - 2023/01/27 by darknights

Each step, decision and even mistake have been lessons learned, never regretted or part of something that is posed as absolute that can disregard or belittle the courage of so many comrades through the centuries of struggle against the power of which I consider myself a continuity, without exalting always questioning even the steps themselves.

I continue to firmly consolidate the certainties of our infinite negating capacities, their potential to break with isolation, norms, logics, power in all its amplitude, in the daily and clandestine in anti-authoritarian complicity. For this there are no absolute truths or manuals that can more than our yearnings for freedom, dignity and rebellion, for many the anti-authoritarian struggle seems to be extinguished to many would accommodate them, for our pleasure and their concern will continue to exist, breaking with the indifference of their society of death and misery, solidarity becomes a weapon of struggle, every cry, gesture and action feed our convictions and yearnings becoming an impulse to continue responding to every blow, persecutions, aggressions, isolations. We will put forward our attitude without turning back … indifference in the face of reality is not our option.

In this place, ideas are not abandoned, nothing ends. Today, while the states seek to bury our lives in prison with legal tricks such as the modification of January 2019 to DL 321 that regulates access to parole, regimes such as 41 bis in Italy, Fies in Spain, the renewed high security prison in Chile that promises to be a tomb for refractory soon to be reopened and all attempts to exterminate us democratically, in silence and with the complicity of all those who need and legitimize the prison. From that almost invisible character, owners and masters of the world or the judge and prosecutor who for their slice of power will bury us with laws and years to the miserable henchman who lives at will imprisoned to bury lives, passivity or legitimization of the majorities. In this scenario already known by all I want to give my complicity, respect and affection to Alfredo cospito brother of deep convictions who has made his life a war willing to keep it until its end.

Solidarity/Act so that our enemies cannot bury our lives with the normality they desire and impose. When your body becomes your last weapon of struggle… indifference and lightness cannot be an option, not for anarchists, anti-authoritarians and those who determine themselves as real deniers of power. All my complicity with all those indomitable captives who without looking back defend themselves with tooth and claw… solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike in Italy, Greece, France, Israel and Turkey.

Juan Alexis Flores Riquelme
Anti-authoritarian prisoner

Source: Publicacion Refractario

France: Ivan ended his hunger strike

Posted on 2023/01/27 by darknights

On January 23, I ended the hunger strike I started on December 22, in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito’s struggle against the regime of isolation and psychological torture 41 bis.
I wish him a lot of strength in this difficult moment and I thank all those who have supported me during these 32 days (and, more in general, who have supported me for seven and a half months).

Today, January 25th, I went before the JLD, who decided to renew my preventive detention, for another four months.

Besides, here are some small episodes of prison-judicial repression.
On Monday, January 9th, for the second time (the first one was on December 6th, as if by chance, shortly after I had been heard by the investigating judge and also shortly after the end of my previous hunger strike), the henchmen searched the cell I share with a fellow prisoner (definitively condemned).
In both cases, they found two cell phones, with their chargers.
We’re going to the disciplinary commission tomorrow, January 26. It went surprisingly fast: usually there is a delay of two or three months, between a search which makes them discover forbidden objects and the corresponding disciplinary commission. Is this another aspect of my “special treatment” (like the mail blocked for months, the impossibility of access to certain activities, to work or to trainings…) or simple, petty reprisals for the two hunger strikes?

Moreover, there is something that makes me think that the search of January 9 could have been made on request of the Investigating Judge (who was necessarily informed of the phones found on December 6). Indeed, the next day, the head of ELAC (the “big guys” of the AP) who led the search, asked me (alone) to sign a document “for the exploitation of my phone”, something we had never seen, here (and that they did not ask me in December). Obviously, I refused to sign.

Otherwise, I’m fine and remain determined.
Courage Alfredo!
Long live Anarchy!

Ivan
Villepinte prison
January 25, 2023

To write to him :
Ivan Alocco
n. 46355
M.A. of Villepinte
40, avenue Vauban
93420 – Villepinte

Source: Anarchist Bure Cross

France: Some initial notes on the investigation file against Ivan

Posted on 2023/01/25 - 2023/01/25 by darknights

The following information comes from an initial quick reading of the investigation file. Therefore, it is necessarily incomplete.

First of all, how did this investigation start?

The Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) of the judicial police began an investigation on its own initiative, at the beginning of January 2022, following “confidential information collected by [the] service” (in another document, a judge speaks of “anonymous intelligence”). The police “gathered” the names of two comrades who, according to this information, were likely to be responsible for the incendiary attacks, claimed by anarchists, which had been targeting vehicles in Paris and the surrounding area for years. In the past, different local police stations and the anti-terrorism group of the DPJ 1 (a section of the Parisian Judicial Police) had already carried out investigations, notably for “criminal association”, without success.

The National Division of Research and Surveillance (DNRS, which can be understood as the “operational unit” of the SDAT) set up an operation for tailing the two comrades. They planned to follow Ivan from January 10 to February 3, 2022, and the other person from January 17 to February 3. Concretely, this part of the file includes the statements of the DNRS agents who, in the morning, placed themselves in front of the homes of the two comrades and followed them (on foot or by car) in their movements, at work, photographed them at the supermarket, etc. It should be noted that they often lost sight of their “target” when the latter was moving on foot or by bicycle.

The second comrade was quickly cleared. The DNRS agents say that they saw and photographed Ivan putting up posters in Paris and Montreuil late in the evening of January 18. On the evening of January 21, they followed him again when he went to Paris. The comrade used his bike and the cops lost sight of him almost immediately. They then deployed four “surveillance devices” (cars come to mind). Suspecting that the comrade was still headed towards Montreuil, they placed them at four transportation corridors between Paris and this suburb. One of these “devices” recorded him on the commune of Montreuil (they lost sight of him immediately afterwards). The police used this as an indication that the comrade was responsible for the arson that occurred that night of a SFR van, in Montreuil, and of an Enedis vehicle in the twelfth Parisian district.

On February 23, the SDAT contacted the Bobigny court, which officially tasked it with investigating the comrade. Continue reading “France: Some initial notes on the investigation file against Ivan” →

Croix-Daurade, France: Fire of an electric car charging station in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito

Posted on 2023/01/13 by darknights

Croix Daurade, charging station on fire, if we don’t burn them, we’ll have the EPZ!

At the end of December 2022, while some people are driving a Tesla and are warm at home, we don’t have the money to pay our bills. To keep warm we made a good fire with a charging station for electric cars in Croix-Daurade.

The ZFE will prevent the poorest from accessing Toulouse under an ecological pretext. Driving a Zoe will only stop pollution in your dreams. The EPZ excludes the poor, the poor want to exclude the EPZ.
The State ecology goes through the all-electricity, in particular by the nuclear power, which is an industry of death. The death of the proles colonized in the uranium mines, the death of the production and management of waste, in short the death of the living which would be only a collateral damage.

Ten years ago, after the minor accident at Fukushima, fellow revolutionaries shot the CEO of an Italian company that exported nuclear technology in the knee. Today, one of them, Alfredo Cospito, is in jail and undergoing total isolation. For two months, he has been on hunger strike to alleviate his conditions of detention.

Strength to him, to Anna Beniamino who also assumed the jambization [Note to those who translated into Italian: Anna Beniamino has never assumed any jamming], and to all the comrades who fight against the nuclear.

Against the Empire of green capital, let us be Spartacus!

Source: IAATA

Via: La Nemesi

France: Update on imprisoned anarchist Ivan Alocco, on day 16 of new hunger strike alongside Alfredo Cospito

Posted on 2023/01/08 by darknights

Ivan on day 16 of hunger strike!

We hear from France about the new hunger strike that anarchist Ivan Alocco has been on in solidarity with Alfredo since last December 22 [the comrade went on a first hunger strike, which lasted 35 days, between October 27 and December 1].

Ivan is fine, he takes sugar in his water instead of meals and also a little salt in the morning, which prevents his tension from dropping too much causing him great dizziness (however, the lowest blood pressure he has reached so far is 50 min. and 80 mas.). Glucose is okay, toxins some days are a bit high, but nothing to worry about.

To conserve strength he has stopped sports activities and going outdoors, which causes him to be quite bored–so he reads a lot.

A few days ago he had a minor disagreement with a guard who did not want the worker who distributes meals to give him sugar packets, but after Ivan questioned the captain of the guards the situation was resolved. The prison guards and inmates continue to “lecture” him (“no use, think of your health”), but Ivan is determined in his initiative despite the logical concern for Alfredo’s health and life.

We express our affection, gratitude and solidarity for Ivan!

To write to him:

Ivan Alocco
N. d’ecrou 46355
Maison d’Arrêt de Villepinte
40, Avenue Vauban
93420 Villepinte
France

Source: La Nemesi

Grand Est, France: Attack on nuclear infrastructure in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito

Posted on 2022/12/20 - 2022/12/20 by darknights

In May of this year, the anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito was transferred to the 41bis isolation regime. The torture method of sensory deprivation aims to break his rebellious spirit and silence him. In order to obtain the removal of his isolation conditions, our comrade started an unlimited hunger strike on October 20. On December 1st – on the 42nd day of the hunger strike – a review of the conditions of detention decided to continue the torture procedure. If the Italian fascist state persists in its practice of isolation, Alfredo may not see the end of this year. But his death will not be a suicide: it will be the murder under torture of a vengeful political justice.

Let’s prevent this murder
The most passionate form of revolutionary solidarity is to continue the struggles for which our compasses are behind bars. It was in this spirit that on December 11, during a night-time sabotage action, we went to a pylon of the Fessenheim-Paris EHV line and unscrewed the bolts. The pylon is still standing, but its statics are clearly compromised. Let our revolutionary anger act in alliance with nature, and let a winter storm do the rest!

Alfredo has always been able to link the question of social revolution with that of ecology and, through his words and deeds, connect the ecocidal plundering of our planet with the struggle against the dominant powers, exploitation and oppression. In his statement on the shooting in the knee of the Italian nuclear industry leader Roberto Adinolfi (ansaldo nucleare) and later in various statements of the procè in the Scripta Manent case, he described the need to anchor a revolutionary perspective in the anti-nuclear movement. In a valuable contribution to the debate, he also spoke in 2018 about the struggle against the CIGÉO project for the burial of nuclear waste in the French village of Bure in the Meuse. Referring to the idea of diversity of tactics practiced there, he suggests an intensification of the forms of struggle chosen. This is one of the contributions that were later used to justify the hardening of his detention conditions. Continue reading “Grand Est, France: Attack on nuclear infrastructure in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito” →

International Red Help call for a day of mobilization in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment

Posted on 2022/12/12 by darknights

Call for an action day for Alfredo Cospito

On October 20, anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito began a hunger strike against the 41a prison regime, a struggle he intends to carry on until the end. Anarchist prisoners Ivan Alocco [the comrade ended the strike on Dec. 1, ed] and Anna Beniamino joined the strike, as did Juan Sorroche, who ended it after a month

The 41bis is the harshest prison regime in Europe. Created in principle to prevent members of the mafia from continuing their activities from prison, it was soon extended to revolutionary prisoners to prevent them from interacting with the outside world. Three prisoners of the Brigate Rosse-PCC, Nadia Lioce, Roberto Morandi and Marco Mezzasalma, have been subjected to this system for 17 years. The value of their resistance must be measured by the understanding that it would be enough for them to make an act of political surrender to get out of this regime.

Only by understanding these regimes of isolation as a means of pressure, as torture, to extort repentance, can we give its true meaning to the suicide of Brigate Rosse-PCC activist Diana Blefari in 2009, after four years in 41bis. Diana could no longer bear 41bis but refused to be betrayed. This choice was also a form of resistance, and it has a precedent, that of Luis Rodríguez Martínez, of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups of the First October (GRAPO), who committed suicide in 1983 after three years of total prison isolation. Continue reading “International Red Help call for a day of mobilization in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment” →