A-Infos (en) France, George Fontenis on a life of militancy and the future of the libertarian alternative - An interview with Georges Fontenis

The international anarchist-communist movement recently suffered a loss with the death of 
Georges Fontenis, one of its historical leaders, a man with a clear vision who continued 
to be active up to the very end. The following interview was conducted on 19 February 
2005, with the help of comrade Lorenzo MejÃas, at the home of Georges Fontenis in a small 
town near Tours called Reignac-sur-Indre. We spent the day with him there, enjoying the 
wonderful hospitality he and his companion Marie-Louise provided; Fontenis regaled us with 
his fascinating reflections that filled us with questions about the Latin American 
situation and made us laugh with his fine sense of humour. I will always remember the 
generosity and good nature of this legend of anarchist communism.

Not every day can you meet a person whose range of topics of conversation go from national 
liberation and the question of support to the combatants in Algeria, to the passivity of 
many French people during the Nazi occupation, from the intestine clashes within post-War 
French anarchism, to his love for horses, magnificent animals "brutalized by two-legged 
beasts". He really was a lovely comrade and a very special person. [Castellano]

Georges Fontenis and Marie-Louise, in Reignac-sur-Indre, with a copy of the Chilean 
anarchist-communist magazine, "Hombre y Sociedad", 19-02-05 (Image by Josà A. GutiÃrrez)

George Fontenis on a life of militancy and the future of the libertarian alternative


The international anarchist-communist movement recently suffered a loss with the death of 
Georges Fontenis, one of its historical leaders, a man with a clear vision who continued 
to be active up to the very end. Without a doubt, Fontenis was a point of reference for 
the new generation of anarchist-communists in Latin America, a region that caught his 
attention but that he was never to see in person. His "Manifesto of Libertarian 
Communism", the result of debates and a process of maturation within the post-War French 
anarchist movement, has enjoyed wide circulation and has become a starting point for 
various libertarian organizational processes, dare I say a turning point that has given a 
new revolutionary slant on provide a revolutionarto the libertarian tendencies that have 
sprung up like mushrooms after the rain in the neoliberal debauchery of Latin America 
since the '90s. Unfortunately, most of his work has still not been translated into 
Castilian, and only a little in English.
The following interview was conducted on 19 February 2005, with the help of comrade 
Lorenzo MejÃas (who helped out with questions and interpretation), at the home of Georges 
Fontenis in a small town near Tours called Reignac-sur-Indre. We spent the day with him 
there, enjoying the wonderful hospitality he and his companion Marie-Louise provided; 
Fontenis regaled us with his fascinating reflections that filled us with questions about 
the Latin American situation and made us laugh with his fine sense of humour. I will 
always remember the generosity and good nature of this legend of anarchist communism. Not 
every day can you meet a person whose range of topics of conversation go from national 
liberation and the question of support to the combatants in Algeria, to the passivity of 
many French people during the Nazi occupation (at one point during our talk, he said, 
"Many of those who were to call us 'traitors' for supporting the cause of Algeria, were 
people who had remained silent and had collaborated with the Nazis in France, and were 
never bothered by it... but of course after the Liberation, everyone was a hero of the 
Resistance"), from the intestine clashes within post-War French anarchism, to his love for 
horses, magnificent animals "brutalized by two-legged beasts". He really was a lovely 
comrade and a very special person.

This interview was part of a much longer conversation lasting a whole day, which it was 
not possible to record completely. We just recorded some specific questions during this 
lively meeting, which concern the militant career of Fontenis, the post-War libertarian 
movement and the debate on the "Platform"*, and the relevance of the libertarian movement 
today. Despite physical effect of the interview on the comrade's physique (his Parkinson's 
was in a fairly advanced stage and he had to rest for while half-way through the meeting), 
the lucidity of his thought is clear from reading this interview and reading of some of 
his later writings, such as Non-conforme**, which are characterized by a refusal to accept 
easy truths and a search for new answers to current problems. Our conversation has 
remained unpublished up to now ***, but was originally intended to be incorporated in a 
new Spanish edition of the "Manifesto". However, with the sad news of Fontenis' death, we 
have decided to publish it as a posthumous tribute from this site.

I'd like to conclude simply by quoting a dear comrade from Peru, Franz Garcia, who 
described the life's militancy of Fontenis thus: "We believe, therefore, that it is 
necessary to re-read this libertarian communist and give him his rightful place in today's 
context, so that we can use his contributions to our movement to keep moving forward and 
give anarchism back its real and true dimension among the people's movements, far from the 
prejudices and subjective biases that are so frequent and harmful to our ranks".

Goodbye, dear comrade. May the stars caress your hair...
Josà Antonio GutiÃrrez D.

16 August 2010

* The "Platform" we refer to is the anarchist tradition that derives from the 
"Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists", a project drawn up by a 
group of Russian and Ukrainian exiles in Paris in 1926, amongst whom were Petr Arshinov 
and the insurgent leader, Nestor Makhno. The ideas contained in it, based on the need to 
mark out a revolutionary, class-struggle tendency within the libertarian movement and 
create an organization based on clear principles (theoretical and tactical unity, 
collective action and discipline, federalism), inspired the French Union Anarchiste from 
1928 until the '30s and, later, the FÃdÃration Communiste Libertaire, founded in 1953 with 
Fontenis as general secretary.

** Georges Fontenis, Non-conforme, Nice 2002.

** A comrade of ours recently circulated an uncorrected version of this interview in 
internet, saying that it had been published in "En La Calle", the magazine of the ex-OSL 
in Argentina. This is incorrect. While it was at one time the intention to publish the 
interview there, this did not happen for reasons of space.

An interview with Georges Fontenis

19 February 2005


How did you get involved, both as a militant and within anarchist circles?
My father was a revolutionary socialist, in Marceau Pivert's tendency within the Socialist 
Party (Parti Socialiste - PS)[1] in the 1930s. My grandfather had also been a socialist 
militant, taking part in the founding of the unified socialist party in 1905 [2] in the 
days of JaurÃs and Sembat, and I was completely surrounded by an atmosphere that 
encouraged consideration of social questions. I was shocked, of my own accord, by social 
injustice. Apparently, when I was a little boy I used to occasionally try to wake my 
classmates up to these problems.

When I was 14 or 15, we were in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, in Noisy-le-Sec, where 
there are railways and factories, and I used to look at what was being sold on newsstands. 
First there were the newspapers that my father took, like "La Bataille Socialiste", the 
newspaper of his tendency, and I also saw some extraordinary papers in the kiosks such as 
"Le Libertaire" or "La VÃritÃ", and began to read them. I immediately leaned towards "Le 
Libertaire", as its line seemed to deal with the questions I was asking myself. But in 
1936 I did not agree with its position on the war in Spain. I found that the militants of 
"Le Libertaire" were not responding to the questions that anyone could ask: What were 
libertarians doing in a government that actually belonged to the parliamentary right? This 
led me to meet a couple of libertarian workers from Noisy, I don't remember exactly in 
what circumstances, and together we organized a public meeting on the war in Spain. There 
was a reasonable attendance, but the delegates from the Union Anarchiste, from "Le 
Libertaire", were unable to answer people's questions. This struck me very much, for there 
was plenty to say.

I kept seeing schoolmates, one of whom was an Italian-born anarchist militant, whose 
parents had fled the Mussolini regime and with whom I once again met up recently, two 
years before his death. In this way I became interested in libertarian ideas, but always 
with a critical eye from the beginning.

Things went on like that until the Second World War. Those years flew by. When Paris was 
liberated, when I was already working as a teacher in 1944, there was a series of posters 
on walls around the city inviting people to contact the anarchist branch at the Quai de 
Valmy, 145. As I got there, I was told that I could render great service, as the 
Libertarian Youth had to be reorganized. And so it all started.

What did your activism consist of under fascism and the occupation?

During the Nazi occupation I was a clandestine union activist. Together with other 
colleagues, we had organized a union branch in the 19th arrondissement in Paris, we paid 
dues to the clandestine CGT, even though none of us could ever be sure of where the money 
was going.

This meant that after the Liberation, the union appointed me to represent it, or rather, 
to represent the youth of the teachers' union at the ministry. Actually, there was no 
benefit in this personally, but it did enable me to meet former officials who had 
important positions in the Socialist Party or the Communist Party, and it also allowed me 
to realize the extent to which education leaders had collaborated with the fascists.

What impact did the fascist Vichy regime's Labour Charter have within union circles? How 
was acceptance of it by militants such as Pierre Besnard received? [3]

The older militants were silent. Those who were disgusted by it or who intended to resist 
did not hesitate to express their opposition and to denounce the traitors. But many 
militants did not want to talk about it. Don't forget that France at that time was not 
"resisting" much. Many union bureaucrats were satisfied with a sort of reformed Vichyism 
[4]. But among teachers in general, attitudes were more varied. There were actually 
sectors that resisted, such as the one where I was. Our resistance was not very 
spectacular, we weren't the ones who killed German officers in the metro, but it was hard 
during the final days of the occupation. But ultimately, they knew we were against them 
and that a majority of professors and teachers were on our side.

For example, I had a colleague whose wife was from Alsace and had been suspected of 
helping the Resistance. She was arrested, interrogated and shot. And this did not shock 
people. The people of Paris let the Germans be. All this talk of the heroism of the 
Parisians under the occupation is not true. It must not be confused with the enthusiasm 
about the Liberation, when everyone wanted to claim their share of glory.

How did the move towards the FCL come about? To what extent was it determined by external 
factors, by the social context, and to what extent was it determined by internal elements 
within the movement, by militant criticism for example?

When the libertarian movement got together again at the congress of Paris in October 1945, 
we chose the name FÃdÃration Anarchiste [FA - Anarchist Federation], but it was really a 
federation that tried to unite people who were too different, it was the "Synthesis". 
There were those that we called the "charlatans," there were the anti-religious who 
engaged only in anti-religion activities, there were some syndicalists, there were the 
literati, semi-philosophers such as Charles-Auguste Bontemps... basically there were two 
currents. On the one hand, what we might call the "intellectuals" and, on the other, the 
young people and the workers.

It was among the latter two groups that you could see the sort of mentality that 
corresponded roughly to the "Platform", with the memory, among the older ones, of the 
struggles around the "Platform" in the 1920s. Don't forget that the Union Anarchiste (UA) 
before the War was heavily influenced by the "Platform", above all between 1927 and 1930, 
and Secretary of the UA at the time, Louis EstÃve, would be among the leaders of the FCL 
in the 1950s. I am still friends with his son, a union activist in the same current as myself.

So, there were these two tendencies whose coexistence turned out to be impossible. The 
people from Bordeaux, for example, had no interest in anything except anti-clericalism, 
and when there was anything else to be talked about, they just disappeared. They made 
speaking tours which had no specifically anarchist content, only anti-religious and free 
thought. I'm not saying this was wrong or useless, it just wasn't enough. I remember some 
socialist militants in my neighborhood who told me "you're stuck in murky waters with your 
preachers!" - and I couldn't answer that. They were largely right.

From the beginning it was a false union between two very different currents. On the one 
hand were people like Aristide Lapeyre and his friends who were content with an apology 
for wild anarchism, and, on the other hand, all the youth brimming with outrage and 
demands. There were meetings where we faced up to each other. I always remember one 
meeting that took place at 10 Rue de Lancry in Paris, in which Aristide Lapeyre spoke long 
and loud about the freedom of Man, with three capital Ms, and in which NÃdÃlec, a worker 
from the Renault factory in the revolutionary tradition, began to attack him with no 
qualms. "Things are not like that in Renault. There we have to fight, to struggle", he 
said. To which Lapeyre said, "But comrade, we can all see that you are young and mad with 
impatience, but we are the ones who are right, you're just out for adventure", and so on. 
Poor NÃdÃlec had no answer to that and left. And I wanted to leave, too.

It was like an open sore. We were in the same organization but in reality there were two 
organizations - the Platformists and the humanists, simplifying a bit.

After a while, the opposition between the two sides just got worse. When it came to 
difficult moments, such as the colonial war in Indochina [5] or the struggle against the 
creation of a European Defence Community, you realized that it couldn't go on like that 
for long. Finally, we reached a situation where the humanists admitted the possibility of 
creating internal tendencies. And they created their own, though they never spoke about 
it. They always talked about the Platformist tendency, the Organisation - PensÃe - 
Bataille [OPB - Organization, Thought, Battle, though a better translation, one closer to 
the thinking of Berneri, originator of the phrase, might be Organization, Theory, Action], 
but never talked about their group, organized in the Commission d'Ãtudes anarchistes [CEA 
- Anarchist Studies Commission]. In fact there were two tendencies, two kinds of writings, 
two modes of activity, two types of activism. This went on from one congress to the next 
with increasingly violent confrontations. We ended up telling each other a few home 
truths, in no uncertain terms, and the FA entered a phase of survival.

That was until the Bordeaux congress in May 1952, when some people left. The first to 
leave were those we called the "charlatans." Later, at the Paris congress in May 1953, 
came the rupture, because our Platformist friends from the Paris-Nord group, from 
Aulnay-sous-Bois, and so on, presented revolutionary texts that the Synthesists could not 
accept. Then we asked them: "Do you accept or not? Are we the majority or not?", and they 
left. Because it was not actually a split. It was called a split for the sake of 
convenience, but what happened was that the purists and the Synthesists went off and left 
us alone. For our part, we had the most active groups - in the Renault and Thomson 
factories for example - or those in the working-class neighborhoods and suburbs of Paris, 
in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Bondy, Paris-Nord, Paris-Est. Some of the members of these latter two 
groups were certainly Platformists, even if the term was not used much at that time. And 
we had also active comrades in the provinces, where some had heard of the Platform and 
made contact with us.

Then, despite the departure of the humanists, the FCL remained strong with respect to the 
FA, and even saw the arrival of new groups [6]. The problems came from our 
anti-colonialist struggle during the Algerian War, which cost us dearly. But what could we 
do? We couldn't just stay quiet! As comrade Paul Philippe said, if we hadn't said 
anything, we would have signed away our souls, our reason for living. So we lost ourselves 
in this war for Algeria, and we never found our way out. We had some very interesting 
groups, though, like those in Perpignan, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier...

As for the purists, have formed their own Anarchist Federation in 1953 but had nothing in 
common between them. Someone like Maurice Joyeux has nothing to do with someone like 
Aristide Lapeyre, for example. When I talked personally to Lapeyre, he would say that 
Joyeux was a moron, and Joyeux in turn called Lapeyre a "charlatan", to use the expression 
used then. But getting back to your original question, the FA had two main tendencies from 
its beginnings in 1945, despite the appearance of unity.

What was the social make-up of the FCL? Was it different to the original FA in 1945? How 
did this evolve later in the MCL or the first OCL?

Among the purists of the FA there were mostly small traders, market vendors, small 
business people. For example, the treasurer of the FA, Georges Vincey, owned a clothes 
shop in the Rue Vieille du Temple in Paris. Lapeyre was a barber. Arru had a small 
printing press. For them, the proletariat meant nothing, all that was important was "man", 
"Man" with a capital M, Man who must be free, and so on.

On the other hand, the people who made up the FCL a little later were workers, young 
people and students. In fact many of our members met in the Youth Hostels [7], where there 
were many libertarians and many Trotskyists. When the Hostels were nationalized, 
libertarians were divided, some of them accepted it while others formed an independent 
hostel movement.

When we formed the MCL, and later the OCL, there was the same sort of social make-up - 
students and workers.

What is your analysis of the fact that both the FCL and the MCL were the result of 
historical traumas, i.e. the Libertarion of 1944 and the strikes in May '68? Can we make a 
historical parallel between the two experiences? To what extent were they the result of 
the political and social turmoil of those times?

To some extent, yes, they were the products of their time. Certainly, when there is a 
major political issue, people will think more, and more easily, about the issue. The 
problem is that people who got together to stick up posters couldn't then come together to 
create a committee, be active, meet the workers. But if there had been no May '68, there 
would have been no MCL in 1969, and the OCL developed because of all the workers' 
struggles in the first half of the 1970s. Both these groups were linked to their contexts. 
If nothing had happened at the social level, perhaps there would have been no split in the 
FA in 1953, or at least not such a quick one. But there's no point in this sort of 
speculation.

Superficial anarchism is often content with rejecting demands relating to identity and the 
right for peoples to be autonomous. In Latin America this causes problems between 
anarchists and indigenous organizations, for example. On the other hand, the FederaciÃn 
Anarquista Uruguaya was strongly influenced by Franz Fanon's theories about the struggles 
of oppressed peoples. How can you reconcile internationalism, anarchism's historical 
position, with the right of peoples, especially today with all the demands relating to 
identity and national identity? How did the FCL articulate the two positions during the 
Algerian war?

Here too there are two types of position. The traditionalists reject colonial militarism 
and the struggle for independence alike. It is a position which seems to be pure, very 
beautiful. But revolutionaries also need to think about how to weaken their enemies, and 
consequently they must choose sides. In the FCL, we chose as our side the support for the 
struggles for independence, with no illusions. It was what we called a position of 
"critical support", meaning that we supported the MNA and the FLN [8] while saying 
"Careful, don't forget that there is a problem, that they will create a bourgeoisie and 
militarism".

The purist position is to allow events to happen, a position of non-intervention that 
leads nowhere. While with our position of "critical support", without applauding 
everything the Algerians did, we helped them and told them "Take care, there is a 
revolutionary problem, a problem of class struggle that cannot be avoided". And we were 
right in this regard!

When I talked to nationalist leaders like Messali Hadj [9], they did not say otherwise, 
but neither did they dare openly proclaim it to their troops. I also met Mohamed Boudiaf 
[10] towards the end of the war, and realized that Algeria was headed down the reformist 
path because it had not raised the issue of social classes, a position he set out in a 
book entitled "OÃ va l'AlgÃrie ?" (Where is Algeria going?). You might think that we 
influenced such reflections. At first Boudiaf was a pure nationalist. However, we later 
find someone like Mohamed Harbi [11], who had critical positions on the Algerian 
independence struggle.

After a lifetime as a militant, what do you think has been achieved or can be learnt from 
the experiences of the FCL, the MCL and the first OCL?

It's not easy to answer this. I believe that there's nothing to regret. Progress has been 
made and experience has been acquired. To do the same thing today would be ridiculous. But 
I think one of the lessons we have learned is simply learning to learn from our 
experiences, for example, between the FCL and the MCL and between the MCL and the OCL. At 
each stage, there was some small progress, new ways of seeing things. But in my opinion 
this way forward is hard to beat.

I don't think we should necesarily trust blindly in the things we've done, but we must pay 
attention to positive developments, to our way of analyzing and dealing with problems. For 
example, in the OCL's newspaper, "Guerre de classes", we never spoke about a foreign 
country without analyzing the social situation in terms of class.

In any event, I think it's important to adopt a position of "critical support", for 
example to support national liberation struggles while making a critique of what they are 
and tracing the possibilities to correct them. That was Bakunin's position on the Paris 
Commune: it was not a question of the French army but the French people, who should rebel 
against the French Empire while at the same time fighting against the German Empire. I 
don't think Bakunin is given the attention he deserves. This is what we tried to do, more 
or less successfully, and the same questions will be asked again in the future.

As a militant, what are your views of the anarchist communist movement today?

I may be over-optimistic, but I see that in many places there are groups that are forming, 
even if they are small. Argentina, Chile, Uruguay... But you cannot create an 
international union of sections that do not actually exist. First you have to create the 
sections, militant organizations that can then go on to unite. You have to start at the 
base. I don't think you can build an international movement artificially.

What they are doing in Chile and Argentina is very good. You can't do otherwise. We need 
to create small anarchist-communist groups and then see if we can go further and create 
international unions, regional ones, continental unions, and so on.

In your opinion, what are the main tasks of an anarchist-communist militant, both in 
general and in France?

I think we should invite the militants to reflect, to see what it is we are trying to do 
and see what we can do next, in the area where each of us is. It's the same problem 
everywhere, perhaps with differences. In France or Italy, for example, the libertarian 
movement already has a long tradition, while in countries like Germany or England, there 
has always been great dispersion.

As far as France is concerned, we must continue to be present in the unions, in the mass 
struggles for housing, for rights. Continue doing what we already do, but doing it well, 
and doing more if we can. I think that despite everything, we are going in the right 
direction, which doesn't mean we can stand back and admire the groups that exist. The time 
will come when other people will have to join, militants from different backgrounds.

In the context of the global dictatorship that is being imposed, with the development of 
the European Union, cuts in public services, increasing job insecurity... might these 
fundamental changes significantly affect the conclusions reached in the FCL or the first OCL?

I don't think so. The conclusions are the same and, indeed, even more intense. Today, when 
people go on strike or take to the streets in protest, it is to defend vital things. The 
governments of the day destroy all our social rights, increasingly so. Today's struggles 
concern more basic things, more important things than a few years ago.

Do you think there have been fundamental theoretical contributions that have allowed us to 
advance in a revolutionary way in recent years? Or has theoretical production not been up 
to the current historical moment?

I think we are still in a phase of preparation. But there are good signs. I get a large 
number of local and regional publications, small pamphlets and newspapers where I see the 
same questions arise and about which there is some reflection, an attempt to understand 
things. This was not happening ten years ago. There is for example a small magazine 
produced in a suburb of Paris, "CinquiÃme Zone", which encourages young people to reflect 
and take a stand. There is another in the Basses-Alpes region which is interested in 
international issues, conducting research, for example in-depth research on Jordan. It is 
much more interesting than reading a newspaper like "Le Monde" or reading certain 
"professional" magazines. Obviously all this cannot mature in an instant, but there is 
something that is opening.

Do you have any final words for the comrades reading this interview?

I hope I've been clear. And above all, wherever you are, you need to think and encourage 
others to think, to look for ways to struggle and denounce the State and exploitation in 
ways that are sensitive to the local situation.


Translation by FdCA - International Relations Office

Notes:

1. This tendency left the PS in 1938 to form the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party 
(Parti Socialiste Ouvrier et Paysan - PSOP), which provided active assistance to the 
Spanish anti-fascists, unlike the Socialist Party's generally.

2. The French Section of the Workers' International (Section FranÃaise de l'Internationale 
OuvriÃre - SFIO) was born from the merger of Guesde's Socialist Party of France and 
JaurÃs' French Socialist Party. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, it split, with the 
majority going on to become the French Communist Party.

3. The "Labour Charter" was a piece of corporatist legislation which was in effect in 
France under the fascist regime between 1941 and 1944.

4. After the defeat in 1940, Northern France was directly administrated by the German army 
while the rest of the country was under the control of a semi-independent, fascist, French 
State led by Marshal PÃtain. "Vichyism" was the name given to his fascist regime which was 
based in the town of Vichy.

5. Between 1946 and 1954, France tried to cling on to its Indochinese colonies against Há 
Chà Minh's Viát Minh guerrillas.

6. The FA only took the name FÃdÃration Communiste Libertaire (FCL - Libertarian Communist 
Federation) in November 1953, following a referendum among the members.

7. The Youth Hostel movement allowed young people of modest backgrounds to holiday 
cheaply. It was made up of a network of hostels run by militant workers and was almost 
wholly nationalized after 1945.

8. The Mouvement National AlgÃrien (Algerian National Movement) and the Front de 
LibÃration Nationale (National Liberation Front) were the two rival movements who both 
struggles for Algerian independence between 1954 and 1962.

9. Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj was the historical leader of Algrian nationalism, but lost out 
to the young supporters of armed struggle who created the FLN. Hadj thus formed the 
Mouvement National AlgÃrien (MNA), whose fratricidal struggle with the FLN ended up in 
victory for the latter.

10. Boudiaf was one of the founders of the FLN. Forced into exile in the early '60s, he 
returned in 1992 as president of the military-backed High Council of State, but was 
assassinated several months later.

11. Boudiaf was removed from the leadership of the struggle before the end of the war. 
Harbi was a leading member of the FLN but was jailed after independence, between 1966 and 
1971, for "Marxist deviations". He is now a historian, living in France.
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://ainfos.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en