[5]

(French equivalent of the American FCC) was pushed by a group of media activists, and were forced to bend the law
to allow Ondes Sans Frontiéres (http://bregantin.org/connexe/ost/) to broadcast for 6 weeks and then for 6 months
as a temporary experiment. The permission to broadcast will come to a close by the end of March. Yet for the legis-
lature the logic isn’t quite in place since the legislators still confuse legal responsibility of the “content” producer
with the information provider (see the post on nettime, Fri, 19 Feb 1999, From: Christine Treguier "Attack on free
content-provider alten").

As for the establishment (government and medical institutions), they were busy contaminating part of the population
with blood transfusions. AIDS wasn't a concern really since, from the viewpoint of the Universal Republic, it touched
only Haitians and gays. In 1994, a newspaper like “Le Monde” could still title a short article reporting on the gay
pride "le carnaval du sida” (the aids carnival). In fact Act Up started to wake up the natives at the beginning of the
90's. Their famous media strategies revealed the distance between political representation, medical moguls and the
patients, and forced the government to take action. At this point, the former prime minister and officials down the
power line are being judged by a special court for this major AIDS contamination through blood transfusions. The
department of short programs at Canal+ decided to schedule an evening of gay and lesbian programs, the evening
before the 95 gay pride. Far from dealing with the painful problem of homosexuality, it was an affirmation with mul-
tiple entries. Since the media works as we know, the press and TV, feeling more secure because of the air time
given to queers, started to produce a different image of queerdom. This was certainly one of the multiple actions
that permitted the debate to take place in the chamber, allowing gays and lesbians to have the same rights as oth-
ers.

In spring 95 things seemed to change. Chirac was elected and decided to test nuclear bombs in the Pacific. That
stirred up a few people. The mobilisation was strong and well connected to international activism, this was most ev-
ident in the demos which had high graphic visibility. Since the fall of 95, after the big public transport strikes, and
with the involvement of intellectuals like Bourdieu in those strikes, we see a new consciousness emerging. The
publication of Bourdieu's and Serge Halimi's pamphlets on the media gave younger generations the forgotten tools,
while the steady rise of the neo-fascist Front National finally convinced a few people that politics can't be entirely
left to the established parties.

Anti-racist movements were highly supported and largely controlled by the government during the 80's. The 2nd
generation of immigrants finally had a new and fairly good visibility in the dominant media for a time. However, it
was only a couple years ago, that the documentary "Mémoires d’emigrés" by Yamina Benguigui managed to find
funding and its way onto the airwaves and into movie theaters. This documentary is so unique that many appropri-
ated the document and positioned it as the only trace of an erased memory. Today, the movement is taking quite a
different turn. For a detailed analysis see : "Ein Arbeitsplatz ist ein Recht! Ein Einkommen ist eine Pflicht! / Avec ou
sans-papiers, “Un emploi c'est un droit, un revenu c'est un di!" de Mogniss H. Abdallah
(http://www.bok.net/pajol/sanspap/immedia/mogniss2.html). After a highly repressive legislation set by the right-
wing government, and reinforced when the socialists came back to power, the movement of the "Sans Papiers" man-
aged to gain visibility through multiple strategies of resistance, combining occupation of churches, which they were
thrown out of by police force, a 2-minute film shown before all features in most movie theaters in Paris and during
the Cannes film festival, a hunger strike with lots of coverage in the mainstream media, actions involving French na-
tionals to adopt a person without papers and a growing international force. This movement is a strong mobilising
force in the public debate and manages to work with another strong mobilising force, the movement of the unem-
ployed.

Unemployed like AC! or the Apeis, or groups of squatters like Droits Devant, developed spectacular protest strate-
gies which allowed them to name themselves instead of being named, hence to have stronger input to the public de-
bate. At the same time graphic artists working in the field for a long time started to take a higher profile: Design
Department, Nous travaillons ensemble, Graphistes Associés, Ne Pas Plier, or Casa Factory. Together with grass-
roots organisations, they managed to further this consciousness and render it visible. Ne Pas Plier, in particular, has