Action directe (armed group)

Action directe
Dates of operation 1979–1987
Active region(s) France

Action directe (AD) was a French revolutionary group which committed a series of assassinations and violent attacks in France between 1979 and 1987. Members of Action directe considered themselves libertarian communist who had formed an "urban guerrilla organization". The French government banned the group.[1]

Founding

The leader of Action Directe was named Jean-Marc Rouillan, who was arrested in 1974 then again in 1979 before founding the organisation for conspiracy of being involved in attacks against the Spanish because he was against all efforts by any countries to help France at that time. According to sources, Rouillan was captured again in 1980 but was believed to have successors.

Action Directe was set up in 1977 by two other groups, GARI (Groupes d'Action Révolutionnaire Internationalistes, revolutionary internationalist action groups), and NAPAP (Noyaux Armés pour l'Autonomie Populaire, Armed Core Groups for Popular Autonomy), as the "military-political co-ordination of the autonomous movement". In 1979, it was transformed into an "urban guerrilla organisation" and carried out violent attacks under the banner of "anti-imperialism" and "proletarian defence". The group was banned by the French government in 1984. In August 1985, Action directe allied itself with the German Red Army Faction. Action Directe was founded upon a philosophy, which strived to answer a question that regarded to the effect of violence rather than focusing on what violence was. From what it seems, the group did not want to start out as violent, but only to send a message out on behalf of the public who might have had better ideas that wanted to be shared, but since the ideas and requests were ignored, people banned together and formed this revolutionary group that went from activist to terrorist in a matter of weeks. Even though ”action directe” did not remain in power for long, it still inflicted large amounts of damage and put a pretty good size dent in France. Fear, manipulation and communism were what the group ultimately stood for in the end. Fortunately, the group was taken down by military forces from France and other countries, along with secret Intel. Perhaps a portion of their downfall was a result of a flaw in their own system and a product of a few mistakes made during their duration as a terrorist group.

Attacks

Action directe carried out some 50 attacks, including a machine gun assault on the employers' union headquarters on 1 May 1979 as well as attacks on French government buildings, property management agencies, French army buildings, companies in the military-industrial complex, and the state of Israel. They carried out robberies or "proletarian expropriation" actions, and assassinations, killing Engineer General René Audran, the manager of French arms sales, in 1985. They were also accused of Georges Besse's 1986 killing, a murder allegedly justified because he was the then head of the French automaker Renault. However, they denied it during their trial. Besse was also former president of Eurodif nuclear company, in which Iran had a 10% share. They also claimed joint responsibility for the 1985 bomb attack carried out by the Red Army Faction at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, which killed two people.

Arrests

In December 1981 an AD member Lahouari Benchellal, called Farid, was caught for forging traveler's cheques, which were an important income source for the organization, in Helsinki, Finland. He hanged himself while being in the custody of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service in January 1982. Action directe did not believe this cause of death and named a direct action group after him.[2]

On 21 February 1987, the main Action directe members, Jean-Marc Rouillan, Nathalie Ménigon, Joëlle Aubron, and Georges Cipriani, were arrested. They were later sentenced to life imprisonment. Régis Schleicher had already been arrested in 1984. Joëlle Aubron was released in June 2004 for health reasons and died from a cancer that had metastasized towards her brain on 1 March 2006. There is an ongoing campaign by some sections of the French far-left that the Action directe members still imprisoned, who consider themselves political prisoners, should be paroled. In December 2007, Rouillan was allowed a state of "semi-liberty", able to leave prison for extended periods. In September 2008, a Parisian court called for the revoking of this status after he declared in an interview with L'Express that "I remain convinced that armed struggle is necessary at certain moments of the revolutionary process".[3]

The British TV mini-series Red Fox, made in 1991 and starring John Hurt, Jane Birkin and Brian Cox, was set in France and tells of a British businessman kidnapped by a member of Action directe. (The original novel by Gerald Seymour was set in Italy and involved the Red Brigades.)

Ralph Fiennes' character in the 2006 film Land of the Blind mentions Action directe as an example for a terrorist group whose names sound like rock bands', along with The Weathermen, Black September, and the Red Army Faction. In Tom Clancy's book Patriot Games protagonist Jack Ryan identifies a training camp used by the group which is later raided by French special forces. It is also briefly mentioned by Harrison Ford's character in the 1992 film of the same name.

The group did end up publishing a book; a political manifesto rather, entitled the “Pour un Projet communiste” in 1982, which resembled the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx in 1848. According to sources, it has no literary merit, but the similarities to the Communist Manifesto appear to be uncanny.

Another book by Tom Clancy entitled Rainbow Six was published, in which members of Action Directe assault a fictionalized Euro Disney called Worldpark.

Wolfgang Güllich named a climbing route Action Directe in Frankenjura, Germany, which was recognized as the first route in the XI grade (or 9a) in the world, and is still one of the hardest climbing routes in the world. Apparently the inspiration for the name came during training for the route, as it appeared to him that the training is a terror act on his fingers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Europe wary of banning parties". BBC News. 28 August 2002. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  2. ↑ Simola, Matti (2009). Ratakatu 12 – Suojelupoliisi 1949–2009. Helsinki: WSOY. pp. 123–127. ISBN 9789510352434./
  3. ↑ "Le parquet demande la révocation de la semi-liberté de Rouillan", Liberation, 1 October 2008.
    The full quote is: "Il faut clarifier les choses: le processus de lutte armée tel qu’il est né dans l’après-68, dans ce formidable élan d’émancipation, n’existe plus (...) Mais, en tant que communiste, je reste convaincu que la lutte armée est nécessaire à un moment du processus révolutionnaire."

[1]

Bibliography

Terrorist Incidents attributed to the [Action Directe] in the Global Terrorism Database

  1. ↑ Dartnell, Michael (1995). Action Directe: Ultra-Left Terrorism in France. Newberry House, London: Frank Cass and Co LTD. pp. 1–4. ISBN 0-7146-4566-4. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
  2. ↑ https://situationnisteblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/protestation-devant-les-libertaires-du-present-et-du-futur-sur-les-capitulations-de-1980/
  3. ↑ Segaller, Stephen. [Action Directe, ideologues of violence. The Times (London), Retrieved from www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic "Action Directe, Idelogues of Violence"] Check |url= value (help). LexisNexis. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
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