Organising Les Résistantes: secret sauce and looming storms

Les Résistantes was a beacon of joyful social movement ambition. Something like 10,000 people came together representing struggles from across not only France but Europe and beyond. An activist event of this scale and substance must be seen to be believed.* Where on earth did it come from?

I caught up with Joël, one of the festival’s core organisers. He explains how Résistantes is really just a by-product of a five-year effort uniting local struggles into national coalitions. He shares some ‘secret sauce’ techniques which might explain how Terre des Luttes - the group driving these efforts - has had so much success where others struggle, going from seven people in a room to 200 organising a festival for 10,000. And, in a striking exception to every other conversation I have in these four days, we take a glance at the world-historic hurricanes on the horizon: the quickening breakdowns in our climate and political systems, and what they might mean for our movements.

*As a close substitute I’ll be offering my own reflections from during and after the festival – where I get into the delightful, difficult and sometimes dramatic details – on a Patreon feed as soon as I can get around to setting it up. In the meantime you’ll just have to take my word that it was a good time.

The foundational Terre des Luttes map :

https://terresdeluttes.fr/qui-sommes-nous/

End music from a spontaneous performance at Les Résistantes by what I think was La Criée, a feminist choir Montreuil in Paris. This song is a feminist re-appropriation of the Chant des Corsaires, a Flemish sea-song.

https://www.lesglottesrebelles.com/le-chant-des-corsaires/ 
 

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