Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan
Imprisoned 'Action Directe' militant speaks with Valerie C.
V.C.: I am going to ask a few details, direct responses. How old are you?
- 53 years old on the next 30th of August.
V. C.: Since when have you been detained?
- February 1987
V. C.: How long have you been in Lannemezan?
- I did a first period from 1994 to 2000, and I am back since the evacuation from Arles, 7 month ago.
V. C.: In which quarter are you staying?
- I stay in Building A, standard quarter.
V. C.: Have you been put in isolation in Lannemezan?
- No, never.
V. C.: Currently, how do you fill your days?
- In the morning, I work, I write. I wake up very early. At 10 O'clock, I come down to the phone. The rest of the day I practice sport and I read.
V. C.: Today what do you think about the coming examination of your request by the court?
- I don't have any illusion about the system. I think that the political decision to free us hasn't been taken, so no judge will go against the will of the power, so I go there with no illusions.
V. C.: How is your health?
- Normally, perfect.
V. C.: What does this mean, "Normally, perfect"? You have recently had a check up.
- For one year, the doctors thought I had lung cancer, and eventually, check up after check up, the situation stabilised itself. Then, they expressed a totally opposite view.
V. C.: So, now you are considered...
- treated for nothing at all, so normally, my health is perfect.
V. C.: Since when are you able to request for a release on parole?
- Since the 26th of February, I have been parole-able, as we say in jail.
V. C.: Is it the first time you request it?
- It is the first time. It has been delayed to the extreme limit: the request for a release on parole must be considered within 6 months. I have requested on the 28th of February. The other ones have already been considered, and answered.
V.C.: When you say "the other ones" you mean other inmates?
- The other inmates Nathalie Menigon and Georges Cipriani who were arrested in the same time as me. Their requests have already been considered, and answered.
V. C.: negatively.
- They are today in the Courts of appeal.
V. C.: what are the conditions for your liberation?
- A home and a job.
V.C.: And do you have both?
- Yes. Normally, without accident or an explicit will to refuse without examining my situation, normally, the next commission will defer the examination of my file, since no investigation has been performed about the workplace.
V. C.: So, it is not done according to the rules.
-In fact, at the moment, if they follow the normal procedure, they will defer.
V. C.: Mr M was telling me that they first gave a date that then was deferred to September and then changed back to July...
- At first it was scheduled for the 18th of July, but the 18th was a normal commission for small sentences. So with the agreement of the lawyers, it was deferred to September. Eventually, faced with the 6 month deadline, they didn't want to make an exception, they had to consider the request, or at least bring the file to the court.
V. C.: Today, what makes you think that the request is not considered properly?
- The only fact is that Nathalie Menigon who was very sick like George Cipriani have been answered negatively on the grounds of political considerations.
V. C.: What are these political considerations?
- Disavowal of our political involvement. See the text that I sent to Marseille for the support meeting of the 18th of July. Since the courts have stressed political reasons for the denial, then it is a collective answer for everyone. We can't imagine how the answer would be positive for some of us and negative for others. The three of us are still considered on the same basis.
V. C.: So you think it is definitely a conscious attitude from the courts. How do you explain that this taboo still exists?
- I think that nowadays the taboo is regaining strength. What we could say two years ago about our cases, e. g. that we were waiting for the end of our 'security period', etc etc. is now much more difficult to express. Today, we can clearly state that they have revived the political dialogue we had at the beginning of our detention, i.e. freedom in exchange of an official disavowal with publicity, which means us expressing to the revolutionary movement that all forms of struggle, like the ones we used, are useless and even dangerous.
V. C.: And for you, this is out of question.
- This is out of the question..
V. C.: Why?
- Because we think that the communist position is still valid. Armed struggle has to be done in objective conditions. Maybe these conditions are not here anymore. I have been disconnected, in prison for almost two decades, so I won't say that the conditions are met now; that we have to take arms, no. However, what we did seems to be valid.
V. C.: So, There is no disavowal, this famous repentance that they demand?
- No.
V. C.: So what is your stance towards what happened? You do not disavow it, but with some distance, how do you see it?
- One has to speak with some distance. History changed a lot. We were fighting at a time when there existed the Soviet Union, the Berlin wall, at a time when the confrontation was totally different from today. It is obvious. Indeed, in order to strengthen their blackmail, the 'courts of implementation of the sentence' tell that Action Directe still exists, but it is total craziness. They mix it up with the support movement. The organisation 'Action Directe' hasn't existed for at least 16 years.
V.C.: What are your views on the current terrorist attacks? Do you consider yourself as having committed terrorist attacks and what difference do you see between what you did and what is currently happening?
-There is a fundamental difference: we never committed any massacre-attack. Our targets were always chosen beforehand. We always attacked people in charge, powerful people in their field. We never touched any civilian. Despite all our bomb attacks, and there were many, there never was any dead or wounded civilians. The only civil complainants we had in court were wounded policeman or the families of the General Audran and Mr Besse (Industrialist of FIAT).
V. C.: The actual targets.
-So this is a fundamental difference.
V. C.: About your motivations as well, because your approach was very, very politicised. Currently we are in a purely religious terrorism, which has nothing to do with what you were doing..
- We indeed don't have anything to do with religious organisations. The only problem is that today the American and English imperialist forces are aggressing the Arab world, and thus they reap the fruits of their policy.
V. C.: Is this how you read it?
- Yes, yes, and so does the mayor of London!
V. C: So you don't believe that you will get out..
- It will be deferred or denied. I will appeal. I will go to the court of appeal in Pau and then there will be 18 months and our request will be considered again by a commission. The examination of our next request of release on parole will happen exactly during the 2007 elections.
V. C.: A time of changes..
- So, obviously we will defer our requests because they are political and we don't want them to be used politically.
V. C.: What do you imagine after you get out? Do you sometimes think about it?
- When you have spent 20 years in jail, in a time that has completely stopped.. I think I will be faced with a situation in which I don't know the rhythm at all.
V. C.: Do you think you will get back to activism.. or maybe have you never stopped?
- I never stopped..
V. C.: So you absolutely keep on your struggle..
-I am still a communist activist. I think I will remain so.
V. C.: Is violence still something you can put forward?
- Personally, my health is good, but for my two sick comrades, it was already a definitely obsolete perspective. The problem is that they use against us the fact that in 1981 when they discharged us we started again. We didn't start again, we have always done it. At that time, when we got out, there was our organisation with dozens of clandestine people. When we found ourselves outside, we very naturally took back our place in the struggle. What is happening today is that the situation has completely changed, our organisation doesn't exist anymore, and there is no armed communist organisation anymore. It would be pure voluntarism to do anything in that direction.
V.C.: What arguments do you plan to tell the judge?
- Absolutely none.
V. C.: You let your lawyer speak!
-No, not even that. We will listen to what they have to say. I make Sir Etelin out of respect for the court that has never, until now been aggressive towards me. However I won't give any explanation, because I gave the home and the job details, which is what is required from prisoners who request release on parole.
V.C.: Does you behaviour inside the jail plays against you?
- No, no, nothing inside can interfere with a release.
V. C.: Do you plan to live in Auch if you get out?
- Of course.
V.C.: At your mum's place?
- This the town I was born in, I grew up there. I still have roots in this town.
V. C.: You expect to stay for a while. Do you have a hope to get out within the next few months?
- Definitely not. After they deny the release, we can't request a release before 18 months, so it adds up to at least two more years of prison.
V. C.: That makes it very long, do you thing about a life sentence?
- I think that French authorities are strongly attracted by the American justice.
V. C.: What do you mean? I didn't understand.
- By reforming laws like the pleading-guilty one, etc.. And one can see it also in jail. There is a temptation to make it happen for some prisoners, without telling it.
V. C.: This famous life-sentence?
-The real life sentence
V. C.: As a matter of fact, the timing of your request is not very good, because Sarkozy just re-launched the debate about release on parole. We are in the middle of a period of bomb attacks...
- We are not recidivists. None of us has ever been convicted before by a criminal court.
V. C.: Do you think this debate will play against you?
- Yes, yes, everything plays against us, there very few positive things. Although the prisoners who struggled with in Belgium are free, In Germany almost all of them are free, the three last ones should be freed this year. In Italy, the big majority of the comrades arrested there are now free. We sometimes get into ubuesque situations: For example, the perpetrator of the deeds for which Regis Schleicher is jailed for complicity was liberated 6 years ago whilst he, the accomplice, is still in jail.
V.C.: Why do you say that over the past few months we came to a situation that plays against your liberation? How do you explain it?
- Because we personalise a struggle through which came an agreement between a far left who gave up its goals and a power that became extremely tougher. We are symbols. It is as clear as that, and in the same time we are these sorts of beasts... A bit like the Roman Empire showed up its defeated opponents. They put a ring through our nose at the end of a chain, and they make us turn a little in front of cameras, saying: "Look how tough they are, look how ferocious they are."
V. C.: Indeed, the image is very powerful. I have finished. Do you want to add anything?
- No, no, but you will find in our text some answers to this last question.
25/07/2005