Last modified: 2018-08-04 by ivan sache
Keywords: action antifascsite | breizh antifa | coup pour coup 31 |
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Antifas' flags - Images by Tomislav Todorović, 4 August 2018
Action antifasciste, founded in 2008, is a network of French autonomous (extreme-leftist) antifascist groups. These groups and their members are known as antifas. The French antifas are "affiliated" to an informal group of similar movements that emerged all over Europe in the 1990s, starting from Germany. Their main goal is to get rid of extreme-rightist and neo-nazi movements, stopping at nothing, including street violence and illegal acts. Often criticized for their immoderate use of violence in street clashes with extreme- rightist groups (and with the police), the antifas have often been accused to lead astray the Communist principles.
The common inspiration of the antifascist movements is the German
movement Antifaschistiche Aktion, which held its first congress on
10 July 1932, succeeding different less-organized groups. The movement
was an outfit of the German Communist Party but joining it did not
require party's membership. Antifaschistiche Aktion was crushed by the Nazis after they got the power in 1933; the general strike organized
in the small town of Mössingen was their last public action. Most of
its members joined the clandestine resistance or the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.
Antifascist groups reemerged in Germany in the 1990s. Two main groups,
Autonome Antifa [M] and Antifaschistische Aktion Berlin, reorganized the movement at the federal level as Antifaschistische Aktion. Similar movements were established in different European countries (Denmark, 1992; Netherlands, 1992; Sweden, 1993; Czech Republic, 1996; Slovakia, 2001; Spain). These groups were more or less organized and
centralized. The German federal groups was disbanded in 2001 while its
two main components disappeared in 2004, being succeeded by local
branches.
The flag of Action antifasciste (photo, photo,
photo, photo) is red with the movement's logo, a red and a black flag placed on a white disk surrounded by a black ring charged with the name of the organization, written in white letters.
Most European antifas' movements use a same emblem / flag, with
appropriate writing.
The emblem is a modernisation of the emblem used by the German
Antifaschstische Aktion in the 1930s, originally displaying two red flags and a red ring. The black color was added by the modern antifas'
movements, symbolizing the union of communists and anarchists against fascists.
The flag is also used with a black field (photo), sometimes with the lgo with the colors of the two flags reversed (photos).
Ivan Sache & Tomislav Todorović, 4 August 2018
Breizh Antifa
Breizh Antifa flag, two versions - Images by Ivan Sache, 14 July 2013, and Tomislav Todorović, 17 June 2018, respectively
The Breton branch of Action antifasciste has its own flag, red with an emblem derived from the mother group's emblem. The upper, red flag is replaced by a Breton flag while the lower, black flag is replaced by a red flag. The ring around the emblem is inscribed with the name of the group, "Breizh Antifa".
Ivan Sache, 14 July 2013
A newer variant of the flag has different inscription in the black ring,
in Breton and French languages - BREIZH ENEPFASKOUR in the top and
BRETAGNE ANTIFASCISTE in the bottom. The dates of its photos found
online, as well as other images which use that design (phots, reveal that the flag has appeared in 2016; they also reveal that the logo is very large (about 7/8 of the flag width) and shade of red is R+ of very close (compare with other flags in the same photos, most notably
that of Sardinia).
The Breton Anarchist organization Disuj ! also uses this flag (photo) and sells it online as well (online shop).
Tomislav Todorović, 17 June 2018
Flag of Coup Pour Cop 31 - Image by Ivan Sache, 4 May 2017
Coup Pour Coup 31 (Blow for Blow 31; website) is an anti-imperialist collective
established in 2009 in Toulouse (Department of Haute-Garonne, No. 31).
The collective fights imperialism as a system of domination and
exploitation, any kind of imperialist intervention, mostly French, in
the world, would it be political, economical, military or cultural,
any form of racism and chauvinism.
The collective supports the people's struggle for national and social
liberation, especially progressivist and revolutionary organizations
pushing a project of emancipation for all, the Palestinian resistance
fighting for a single, democratic, secular and multicultural state on
the historical territory, the right of independence and self-
determination for the peoples of the French colonies: Caribbean
islands, Guyane, Kanaky, etc., the progressivist and/or revolutionary
victims of repression, whatever their tactical and/or strategical
options.
The flag of Coup Pour Coup 31 (photos, photo) is white with the group's logo.
The logo features a red star superimposed with a black fist and the
collective's name, in black letters, except "POUR", in red. On the flag, the fist is lined white and the star is shaded in black
Ivan Sache, Jaume Ollé & Esteban Rivera, 3 June 2017