The Tarnac Affair

from tarnac9, updated 7 December 2009: "We are deserting. We will no longer check in with our supervisors and we think it will be good to see each other again, as we have already done to write this very text. We do not seek to hide ourselves. Quite simply, we are deserting Judge Fragnoli and the hundred small rumors, the thousand miserable harsh remarks, that he makes about us to this or that journalist. We are deserting the kind of private war in which the Anti-Terrorist Squad would like to engage us by following us, "sonorizing" our apartments,[1] spying on our conversations, going through our garbage and recording everything that we might say to our families during our visits in prison with them..." more

from email, 22 July 2009: "On 16 and 17 July [2009], three German comrades were summoned by judges in Berlin and Hamburg, in the framework of the "Tarnac Affair." In Berlin, following a gathering in front of the French Embassy, they were brought before a judge to whom, in conformity with what they said, they made no statements. The German authorities were responding to the rogatory commission launched by Judge Fragnoli, who based his suspicions about the two Berliners on the fact that, ten years ago, they had been arrested and released following a campaign that sabotaged train lines to protest against the shipments of nuclear wastes over them..." more

from various sources, 30 May 2009: "French authorities on Thursday (28 May 2009) authorised the release of Julien Coupat, who has been detained for more than six months on suspicion of sabotaging high-speed train lines, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Under the terms of his release, he will have to stay in the Paris region and surrender his passport and identity papers..." more

via notbored, 14 May 2009: "It is a failure. Perhaps it was too crude. No one has wanted to believe that those who one accuses of having disconnected the TGV were bloody brutes who fomented terrible attacks. The Tarnac affair has been a trigger. Because we had forgotten that this is how one treats political enemies, forgotten that some radical intentions can officially lead to your jails..." more

from T9, 11 May 2009: "Le Monde has reported that the 4th appeal for the release on remand of Julian Coupat failed on 29 April 2009. Earlier the 8 other defendants announced that they would no longer respond to any of the judge’s questions in order to “collectively protest a process of individualization that has been continually increasing in this case”. Meanwhile a member of the Parisian support committee was recently detained by anti-terrorist police..." more

via ab, 24 pril 2009: "On 11 November 2008, twenty youths were arrested in Paris, Rouen and the village of Tarnac, in the Massif Central district of Corrèze. The youths were accused of having participated in a number of sabotage attacks against high-speed TGV train routes, involving the obstruction of the trains’ power cables with horseshoe-shaped iron bars, causing a series of delays affecting some 160 trains.

The suspects who remain in custody were soon termed the ‘Tarnac Nine’, after the village where some of them had purchased a small farmhouse, reorganized the local grocery store as a cooperative, and taken up a number of civic activities from the running of a film club to the delivery of food to the elderly..." more

from infoshop, 5 April 2009: "For four month now, the legal & media spectacle titled "The Tarnac affair" won't come to an end. Was Julien Coupat to come out of prison for Christmas? For New Year's Eve then? Or would Friday the 13th be his lucky day? No. In the end 'we' will keep him a bit longer in jail, locked into his new role as 'leader of an invisible cell'... more

from CIA, 27 January 2009: "What is terrorism? Interesting question. Actually, there is still no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. According to wikipedia : "Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants..." more

from various sources, 21 January 2009: "On Friday the 16th of January 2009, the Paris court of appeals ordered the release on bail of Yldune Lévy, one of the suspects in the investigation of vandalism of high-speed railways lines. Julien Coupat's partner left Fleury-Mérogis (Essone) Prison shortly after 6:30pm. “Right now I want to be home with my parents and I hope Julien gets out very soon,” the young woman stated..." more

from email, updated 17 December 2008: "On Saturday 13.12.2008 in Freiburg 2.500 people managed to make a successfull non-registered demonstration agaist this new law and for freedom of assembly. The French police were present as observers... more

from email, 2 December 2008: Two of the five arrested remain in custody suspected of being responsible for the damage caused on the railroad lines of the high speed train (TGV) at the end of October and early November. The Paris Court of Appeals ordered today the release of three people suspected of having been involved in recent actions which caused damage to the railroad lines of the high speed train (TGV). The Court remanded into custody two others, one of them the alleged leader of the group. more

Updated daily: Articles from external newswires filtered for the following keywords: Tarnac, TGV, Coupat... more

from email, 28 November 2008: On the morning of November 11, 150 police officers, most of which belonged to the anti-terrorist brigades, surrounded a village of 350 inhabitants on the Millevaches plateau, before raiding a farm in order to arrest nine young people (who ran the local grocery store and tried to revive the cultural life of the village). Four days later, these nine people were sent before an anti-terrorist judge and “accused of criminal conspiracy with terrorist intentions.” ... The Ministry of the Interior “had congratulated local and state police for their diligence.” But let’s try to examine the facts a little more closely and grasp the reasons and the results of this “diligence.” more