As you may remember, there was a demo in Perpignan against a pilot workfare scheme, resulting in several arrests. This is a translation of a communique issued by the Happy Unemployed, regarding the trial, to be held on November 16. Enforced social peace ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In the beginning, there was the RMI (income support): after all, since there weren't enough places for all of us in the factories, they had to find some way of keeping us quiet! For a little over 2,000 francs a month, the state bought itself several years' social peace. People weren't hungry enough to riot; we just slept quietly in our squalid little council flats, working our way through the paltry goods doled out to us by the shops for the poor. According to the logic of capitalism, however, exploitable hands cannot be left idle. There must be work, even if it has to be invented -- no matter how dangerous. All that matters is that it should be mind-numbing and time-consuming enough to prevent thought. So, under the pretext of job-creation, our rulers invented training schemes for car-park attendants and doorkeepers in the Metro, and set the young unemployed to work looking after other young people in the same nightmare situation... The trouble is, these little jobs won't find takers while it is still possible to get RMI in return for a few hours' head-banging at the dole office. Henceforth, it will no longer be a question of watching yourself grow old kowtowing to social workers, queuing interminably for benefit surrounded by security guards and spending all your energy trying to get your head round forms. In return for our measly 2,500 francs (�250) a month, we're going to have to do... ...community service. Anyone who has had the bad luck to experience the pleasures of this process over the last few years will know the sort of slavery that lurks behind this innocent little phrase: gardening in the rain, dragging around boxes of useless files under the eagle eye of some little civil service Hitler... Faced with a council scheme to impose forced labour in Perpignan, several hundred of us from the unemployed movement assembled there to oppose this process of compulsory recruitment into the ranks of the workforce. Working to make some fat cat even fatter; working yourself to a standstill every day; working in the name of eternal obedience. The state's response to our anger has been the same as throughout the movement: phoney negotiations to keep the politicos and the naive quiet, brutal repression against the more determined. Following thirty arrests, three people have been charged and will appear in court in Perpignan. We call upon everyone to lend them active support and to reaffirm their opposition to any kind of compulsory work. Donald Hounam
