A biography of French anarchist and magazine director of Alternative Libertaire, Alain Crosnier.
Alain Crosnier founded the French Groupe Anarchiste de Propagande et d’Action Revolutionnaire (GAPAR) at the age of 20, along with other comrades. This group became part of the organisation Confrontation Anarchiste, from which emerged the Organisation Combat Anarchiste (OCA). Confrontation Anarchiste was made up of groups which had, in the main, left the Federation Anarchiste in 1971 and which then absorbed the Union Federal Anarchiste which had 3-4 groups.
During this period Alain was involved in struggles against the extreme right and with support for resistance within the Army.
Alain was deeply interested in history, and understood the old maxim “A people which ignores its history is condemned to relive it indefinitely”. He devoured works on the history of the workers’ movement. It was not for nothing that he was a member of the Amis de la Commune, an association devoted to the memory of the Paris Commune. But he was also deeply interested in the history of the anarchist movement, and sought ways to construct an effective movement in the present.
The OCA fused with the Union des Travailleurs Communistes Libertaires (UTCL) in 1979. Alain became involved in support for the Kanak independentists of New Caledonia within the Association Information et Soutien aux Droits du People Kanak (AISDPK) during several years. He also helped organise the Rencontres Internationales sur la Pedadodagie Libertaire (International Meetings on Libertarian Education), he was involved in activity against the first Gulf war, was a workplace militant and occupied empty buildings with homeless families of the Droit au Logement (Right to Lodging).
When the UTCL grew in size and became Alternative Libertaire he became the director of its magazine of the same name. He remained in this post up until his death as a result of an aggravated lung infection ion 16th June. 2005. As his comrade Clotilde remarked at his funeral: “He received blows from the fists of the fash [fascists] on the streets, blows from boots to the head in the police stations and blows from truncheons on demos... but he was always there, calm, solid, faithful to his ideal”.
Nick Heath
Based on an article which originally appeared in "Alternative Libertaire", July 2005
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