Peoples’ Forum and Demonstrations against the last G-20 in Nice

Despite some real difficulties with the

Nice local authorities over organising

these events, the demonstrations covered

some 10,000 people.

There was a very colourful demonstration

supported by over fifty organisations

in France. The Forum of Peoples

had about thirty seminars covering a

range of issues: social, ecological, trade

union, feminist, migration rights and

democracy. Two general assemblies – a

European and a worldwide one – enabled

a sharing of analyses and working

on convergences.

The presence of trade unionists, important

NGOs, the alter-globalist

movement as well as new movements –

the Indignant Ones, participants in the

Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions –

contributed to a great number of encounters.

A Canadian activist expressed the

following new aspiration, “Every

movement creates its own field and asks

the others to come into its field – we

won’t get anywhere this way. It is more

than time to create a great common

field.”

The Forum showed that, despite their

great diversity, the various organisations

and movements have been brought together

in challenging the capitalist system

and demanding democracy at the

height of the crisis. In this context, it is

noticeable that the “lobbyist attitude” of

some NGOs towards the G-20 has

tended to be replaced by a franker attitude

of protest, in the spirit of “They are

twenty, we are millions” and “The Peoples

first, not finance” (the Coalition’s

slogan).

The question of democracy, of power,

was raised to a greater extent, and by

forces that would be credible as bearers

of a democratic alternative. It was

around the issues of European space that

transform! europe organised its workshop.

The necessity for proposing an

alternative to the present logic, to a capitalism

that is destroying our lives, for a

future for our planet by building a society

based on solidarity seems broadly

shared. There is a feeling that we are on

a watershed between great dangers (the

danger of toppling over into disaster)

and of something better (a democratic

revolution).

Another important point is that while

several political parties were not members

but still supported the Coalition

against the G20, they were able to organise

two debates. This was as an extension

of the Cochabamba Peoples’

Summit, at which the alter-globalist

movement, but also the progressive

parties, fully participated. Despite the

crisis of the political situation, the search

for new relations with politics is also on

the agenda.

In short, this was a Peoples’ Forum

that bore witness to the movements’

availability, in all their diversity, to create

new and hopeful forms of cooperation.