Pics by Frédérique

Custom Station of Vallard - 3H30 PM

The anti-G8 demonstration is almost finished. Tens of thousands of people turn over now to the meeting point where are located the alternative villages (intergalactic village, anticapitalist alternative antiwar village). All in all, the demonstration held its promises joining together an impressing number of militants and ordinary citizens coming from the whole world. Finally, the incidents will have been tiny. For proof, the customs station of Vallard with its thousands of square meters of plate glass windows remained intact. Our eyes remain fixed on official G8 which will end on June 3.

To be noted: some slogans seen throughout the procession:
"G8 liters of water per day in Africa". (In french G can be reed like "j'ai" which means "I have")
"Evian: while others get a mouthful of water". (Evian is a well-known mineral water) "Genocide at 8 clos". (I'ts a joke with the french word "huis clos" which means "in camera")

The last word read on the Tee-shirt of a demonstrator: "We do not want racism, we do not want egoïsm, we want an equitable sharing on all the tables". We return. First pics this evening.


Customs of Vallard - 2H30 PM

The demonstration starts to be dislocated partially. People return in Annemasse on foot or by bus. A local union gives us the last news of the actions in Lausanne. The Switzerland-French RadioTelevision announced this morning the death of a demonstrator. But anti-G8 Vaudois militants bring some details. There were this morning two sorts of blocking actions in Lausanne: - breakages of buildings which tightened the situation, - peaceful blockings. At the time of one of them, the police force charged and a young person fell from a bridge. He has the two legs broken but he is not deceased. Thereafter, the police force invested an alternativee village in Lausanne and challenged militants. Here, in Vallard, the atmosphere remains calm and festive.


Geneva, Sous-Moulin road - 1H40 PM

We are at the back of the demonstration. The atmosphere is relaxed. It is 28°C. One splashes themselves with nozzles. Some get over a wall and throw themselves in a swimming pool: "Release red fishes! ", one hears. Then the two processions meet on a highway entrance. Suddenly, there is some tension. That breaks in a gas station whose logo was probably dissimulated by the managers. The cameras turn up at once. Masked teenagers try to put fire, then seem to give up "That, it's exactly what should not be done" said an ATTAC militant ill-humouredly. Crowd goes her way. We arrive at the customs of Vallard. According to organizers, we are more than 100 000.


Annemasse, Geneva road 12H30 AM

"Then, they are nice the Savoyard ones (it's a lady of about sixty which approaches us)? The demonstrators have broken everything at the airport. They are unemployed, breakers". Suddenly, she distinguishes some smoke and loses her head: "It's a teargas grenade!" she says. "No, it's a merguez sausages stall", we answer to her. "Oh! she says, I have to change my glasses". She adds however: "In fact, all these people there, what they want is to drive a Mercedes". This particular case (rather amusing) put aside, the Savoyard ones are obviously very friendly and they very often mix with the demonstration. Demonstrators even send their empty bottles of water to the inhabitants (which look at them from their balcony) to make them fill. It is 12H30 AM and we are crossing the French-Switzerland border.


Annemasse, Saint-Andrew Church - 11H45 AM

Right in front of the church, there is a stand of Doctors Without Borders. They set up a scaffolding from 4 to 5 meters in height. The members of the NGO throw themselves from the top of this sort of tower and land on mattresses, trying vainly to catch a big capsule symbolizing the drugs which are missing in the poor countries. They wear black and white T-shirts on which one can read: "Tryano (sleep disease), AIDS, malaria, kalaazar" 14 000 000 people die every year of infectious and parasitic diseases. For example, paludism kills 1 child every 30 seconds. We are now in Salève street.


Annemasse, Jules Ferry avenue - 11H05 AM

Previously, the responsible for crowd control warned the demonstrators: "If there are confrontations with the police, we will not intervene, we are here only to protect the peaceful demonstrators". Crowd is more compact. A stand is emptied hurriedly. It obstructs the way. Stickers "Ya bon Le Pen" (Evian 2003 remixed Banania slogan) are grabbed "It was not free, but it doesn't matter", says somebody. The mood is relaxed, even frankly festive. The inhabitants of Annemasse are at their windows. The fear disappeared. The observers of Amnesty International are supervising the protest. Frederique takes a picture of a journalist of the Chinese television. She's posing, not very natural but so cute in her gray suit.


Annemasse - 10H15 AM

The procession started. Sirens, accordions, small groups improvising music: The demonstration is setting up. ATTAC is here with its red and white flags. There are also tibetan flags. A strapping fellow who carries one flag explains us: "We are not an NGO, we are a team of mountain dwellers of the Chamonix valley. Like all the people who love the mountain, we stand together with the tibetan people". Suddenly, there is some move. José Bové is coming.


Annemasse - 9H50 AM

"Me, I am an altermondialist, I don't feel I'm a terrorist". The young woman who speaks unrolls a gigantic chain made of cardboard: "Drop the debt". "They succeeded in frightening the inhabitants with their infos: I have seen shopkeepers who didn't barricaded themselves behind palisades. I went to discuss with them, I said to them: You are great!". The chain is now unrolled: "You din't paid the interests of the debt, you are the weak link..."


Annemasse, Meeting point 9H10 AM

We arrived without troubles. No road blocks by the riot police. In the alternative villages, one is set up gently: The flags appear, one distributes the first leaflets. "Zero Tolerance, fascists! ": Some demonstrators exercise their voices. "Neither state nor boss, self-management! ": The anarchist federation starts to march. I read a leaflet against the Minimum Income of Activity. "It's not like for the pensions, thats for now. They try to make it pass discreetly", says the woman who gives it to me. Sat at the edge of a ditch, I take notes on what I see. A demonstrator of the Movement of the World Popular Resistance gives me another leaflet: "The future is us if we dare to fight for him". We are here just for that.


Before the departure - Saturday

The demonstration of tomorrow should proceed without hitch. At least, one can say that the organizers did everything to avoid scuffles which would appear extremely prejudicial for the image of the altermondialist movement. Until now, the traditional medias enjoy to retain only the rare outbursts of some isolated groups and echo not much the debates and conferences which have nourished the everyday life of the militants for several days. In Annemasse, where the local press tried hard to depict the future demonstrators like "unchained barbarians", the tension is gone down again a little but the shops remain barricaded behind wood palisades... The frontal shock is feared.

It will certainly not take place at the time of this international gathering which wants to be primarily peaceful and whose organizers retained the lessons of Genoa in July 2001. We wish it ardently. Violence itself should not have the least place in the new society - more fair and more human - which we want to build. Violence belongs to the old world, whose disappearance we precisely hope: Violence of the "king money", violence of the law of the strongest, violence of the debt of the poor countries, lack of solidarity, male domination, AIDS and the destruction of the environment...

Only one shock is salutary, a "frontal" shock so to speak: That which takes place in our brain - and which can go until our heart - when we carry out that the privileges which we enjoy separate us from our fellow men and women and frustrate us of a fundamental need of our being: The need for fraternity.

Geoffroi