The Town Hall on fire during the Paris Commune, May 24, 1871. -
YLI / SIPA
From next March 18 and for 72 days, the Paris City Hall will organize nearly 50 events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.
A cultural event will notably take place on the first day of the revolt, March 18, in the square Louise-Michel (18th), in the presence of Anne Hidalgo.
If the Parisian right multiplies the tackles against this "celebration", other political groups are displayed as "heirs" of the Commune.
What remains
of Cherry Time
?
150 years ago, a brief political and social experience was born out of the ashes of the defeat against Prussia: the Paris Commune.
On March 18, 1871, a popular uprising broke out to protect the cannons of the Butte Montmartre threatened by the conservative government of Adolphe Thiers.
The insurgents take Paris.
They set up barricades and organize themselves politically.
On March 28, the Paris Commune was officially proclaimed two days after the election of the Commune Council, autonomous government and ancestor of the Paris Council.
Two months later, the movement will be subdued in blood to the smallest recesses of the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
It is “bloody week”.
In the meantime, during these 72 days, a real political, social and democratic program against a background of freedom is put in place: the separation of Church and State is voted, municipal butchers are created, vacant housing is requisitioned, education is valued, as is equality between men and women and the opening of citizenship to foreigners.
So many values and ideas that remain engraved 150 years later in the various Parisian political groups at the Council of Paris and outside the Town Hall, ravaged at the time by the flames of the Communards.
"The Municipality is not dead"
Unlike the Municipality of 1871, we do not find at the Council of Paris 2021, any trace of elected anarchists of Proudhonian obedience in the assembly.
The anarchist federation stands outside the political institution but continues to disseminate libertarian and autonomous ideas.
In reaction to the recent remarks of the Parisian right which contests "the celebrations" of 150 years, the Commune de Paris 1871 group reacted in a press release: "The spirit of Versailles still exists, lurking in the ranks of this reactionary right which is never lacking. never to emphasize class oppositions.
The proof !
This shows us that we must remain vigilant and that they do not change.
It is up to us to underline the modernity of the ideas of the Municipality and to integrate them into the struggles of today.
"On May 29, the anarchists announced their presence during the" rise to the wall "of the Federates, to show that" the Commune is not dead ".
If the latter had in its ranks anarchists, a minority, there were also other tendencies.
"Among its members, we can distinguish several groups: the Jacobin republicans, the Blanquists and the Socialists, claiming to be decentralizing Proudhonism or anti-authoritarian collectivism and finally the independents", notes in
La Commune de Paris 1871: the actors, the event, places
, Claude Latta, history professor, associate researcher at the University of Saint-Étienne.
Finally, feminist women have also played an essential role in the Commune.
At the forefront, the activist Louise Michel.
"Many of the values we carry were those of the Municipality"
Laurence Patrice (PCF), Anne Hidalgo's deputy in charge of memory and the fighting world, who is preparing the celebrations with great pomp for the 150th anniversary, maintains that Anne Hidalgo's pink-green-red alliance is the heiress of ideas and values of the Municipality.
“The Municipality is an experience of participatory democracy which is a subject about which we talk a lot and which is one of our concerns.
There was a great modernity of the subjects with an avant-garde aspect.
In particular the place of women, the freedom to love, the improvement of working and living conditions for the most modest, the reception of foreigners… It is topical.
Many of the values that we carry today were at the heart of those of the Municipality.
"
For its part, the Parisian right does not consider the Commune as a key political reference, "without being in denial" of this time which "is part of the history of Paris", recalls Rudolph Granier, councilor of Paris and elected member of the 18th arrondissement (LR).
But other political groups claim to be part of the Parisian revolutionary movement and still defend it.
At the end of January, environmentalists in the capital asked the government to postpone the classification of the Sacré-Coeur as a “historic monument” because “built with the blood of the Communards”.
This wish was voted by the forces of the left and this "in order not to offend and thus respect the commemorations linked to the Commune".
A few months earlier, the prefect of Ile-de-France had decided to register the basilica as a historical monument in the summer of 2021. The government, through the voice of the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, had left even congratulated.
Finally, its classification should not be done until 2022.
"We still see Versailles excesses at the Council of Paris"
Because Paris is inseparable from the Commune which will also mark the beginning of "the time when we are wary of the independence of Parisians", notes Laurence Patrice.
The capital will in fact be deprived of a mayor from 1871 to 1977. To the left of the left, the Municipality still resonates.
“We pride ourselves on all of his innovative ideas.
Unfortunately, 150 years later, some things are struggling to evolve such as equal pay, ”says Raphaëlle Primet, Paris councilor (PCF).
“150 years is an opportunity to mark the occasion, to bring the ideas of the Municipality up to date, to highlight the values and advances with the aim of popular education.
[…] In any case, I am surprised to see that the Parisian right is stepping up to the plate on the subject.
Before they accepted the trick a little, there they are radicalized ”, she concludes.
The group hopes to take advantage of this anniversary to bring out a project from the boxes: renaming the Belleville metro station, "Belleville - Commune de Paris 1871".
Still on the left in the hemicycle, Danielle Simonnet, counselor for Paris (LFI) also poses as an “heiress”.
“I find myself fully in the ideas of the Commune, in its insurrectionary approach, its republican patriotism and a democracy in the service of equality and freedom.
The Municipality was confronted with a social emergency and responded with democratic demands, ”she explains.
And to conclude: “In any case, 150 years later, we still see Versailles excesses in the Council of Paris, and class contempt in the ranks of the right but also among the Socialists.
During the "yellow vests", they were especially in solidarity with the families of the windows ”.
Windows on which still bloom during events some tags in honor of the Municipality.
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