Militant French Student Group

This is a translation of a statement by one of the French student groups on Campus

AGEN, l'Association Générale des Étudiants de Nanterre (general association of Nanterre Students) was set up at the beginning of the 1990s following a series of intense battles within the UNEF Union nationale des étudiants de France (National union of French Students). AGEN was created to defend the rights of students and to obtain an increase in democracy. We are notably involved in defending working class students and those from the oppressed world (third world) because these students suffer the most from selection, organised failure and a range of discriminations.
Our union is based upon militant syndicalism, always involved in struggle, not compromise. We oppose the involvement of false unions like the UNEF who betray every student movement, waste the money of students and endorse the worst university reforms demanded by the European leadership. Our struggle is for equal rights and against the more and more open privatisation of education that is being brought in by governments whether of the right or left.

"University is a little mirror in which all the contradictions of society are reflected." (Lenin)
University is not isolated from the rest of society. As this great revolutionary said, the student movement must adapt to the society in which it finds itself and defend a view of the world contrary to that of the ruling classes. Our opinions rests upon the fact that the struggles of students are part of the wider class struggle. We live in a society divided into classes, there is no artificial paradise into which we can escape. Only militant Marxism and the struggle for socialism show a way forward to liberate ourselves from chaos and the current barbarism.

Fight institutional racism resolutely, along with the struggles of immigration
In recent years a general policy of closing access to university to non-european foreigners has been put into place by successive governments. Moreover the Apartheid practised towards the children of immigrant workers has got steadily worse. In a period marked by a mania for security and by a racism mainly aimed at those from former colonies and neo-colonies, university life has not been spared. Faced with this "new student body" from these regions the masks of the pseudo-humanists slip. The hostility towards immigrants and their children keeps its murderous aspect in the shadow of fortress europe. The banalised and backward racism of the war in Algeria reinforces a state racism which divides "in the name of the Republic". This hideen face organises an exploitation which is the modern form of slavery. This is why each struggle over immigration is one we must join.

The student movement in anti-imperialist struggle

Since its creation AGEN has led campaigns denouncing imperialist wars and crimes and supported the resistance of oppressed peoples. We include French Imperialism as one of our targets. We are in an age where capitalism is at its final stage, this age is that of imperialism, that is to say struggles for national liberation and for socialism.
However the French bourgeoisie wants to convince us that we are in an era where capitalism reigns supreme, using the examples of the defeats inflicted on socialists in the 60s, 70s and 80s. In fact people must smash this system, because we can never reform it.
This is why AGEN strives to organise an authentic anti-imperialist movement.
In fact AGEN is an important anti-imperialist voice; it demystifies the discourses of the bourgeoisie, it places itself steadfastly on the side of the opressed, it fights imperialism in its own country and it combats zionism as a racist colonial ideology. Popular resistances is going and will go further. This is the case in Peru, Colombia, Nepal, the Phillipines and Turkey.

Let us not forget that 28 years ago the Vietnamese resistance won a decisive victory over the imperialism of France and the USA, two of the most bloodthirsty powers.
In this time of civil wars, pillage and state terrorism we must remember the words of Marx: "A people which oppresses another will never be free"

http://www.agen-nanterre.net/