From Le Monde Libertaire
By Jacques Lesage of The Hague
December 5, 2022
Serge Livrozet has just left us, this November 29, 2022. He was 83 years old. When we met, in 1971, he had just left the Centrale de Melun. I had spent my years in prison at the Centrale de Caen. We immediately shared a common history. It was the time of the Groupe Information Prisons, (GIP) which had been created by Michel Foucault, assisted by many intellectuals such as Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Jacques Donzelot. Very quickly, Serge distinguished himself from the rest of the activists, shouting: “Only the jailers have the right to talk about jail. Foucault, helped by Daniel Defert, created the Association for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights (ADDD), which lasted a year. Serge Livrozet stood out from the intellectuals, by creating, in 1972, the Action Committee of Prisoners (CAP) which dissolved in 1980. Without delay,
He also participated in the creation, in 1974, of the Marge Movement and, in 1978, of the Collective and Individual Emancipation Movement (MECI). In 1990 he joined the Berneri Group of the Anarchist Federation. He also hosted for several years a program on Radio libertarian, “Humours Noires”.
Since 1972, we have shared many battles against prison. The prisoners' newspaper, which we called the CAP , after the group that published it, featured articles by prisoners, past and present. We sold it most of the time in front of the prisons. This earned us arrests and, for many, the fact of being released far away, in the open countryside. I remember Fresnes and Fleury-Mérogis…
What gave scope to our Committee was the creation of groups everywhere in the provinces, in Belgium and even in Switzerland. Shortly after, revolts broke out in many prisons, which led outside to the creation of collectives in Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nancy, Nantes, Rouen, Le Havre, Rennes and even in several countries of Europe.
We have had to support the fight of many prisoners and groups of detainees who have formed in Mende, Lille, Clairvaux, Moulins-Izeure and elsewhere. Let's not forget the rants of Serge, during a demonstration, shouting with his megaphone: "Mende, capital of Lozère and of torture" and, during a trial, where he had come to defend a convict, on reading the judgment, “ Rot of French justice! Having passed his baccalaureate in prison, Livrozet had learned to write as well as he spoke. This is what allowed him to write some resounding books. I retain, in particular From prison to revolt, his best work. He was the first of all those who were written in France, after him, on prison confinement. His second book, The Rage of the Walls, is a novel that takes up the same themes in a more personal way.
As for his third book, Diégo , he deepens the analogy, because the hero is a revolutionary dog…
Serge, years later, created a publishing house, Les Lettres libres, where he published works of which he was the author, as well as many other writers. Some of his main collaborators were, like him, former prisoners.
This is what leaves a confused veil hanging over the end of the adventure. In fact, there was the case of counterfeit money, seven million francs at the time… We couldn't help thinking that Serge Livrozet had been tricked. For several weeks, the police were hiding near the publishing house. Three people were arrested, including Serge.
A support committee has been set up. And, the day of the IPO of Paribas, about fifty people had padlocked all the entries of the Stock Exchange. At 1 p.m., during the opening, which did not happen, we threw in fake theater tickets, picked up hastily by the stockbrokers. ! Of course, Serge was cleared and released.
It is important to remember that, passing near a CRS bus, I heard one of them say: “ Do you realize, guys, they have closed the stock market! And another replied: “ They did well ”!
One of the axes of struggle and reflection of the Berneri group, of which Serge was a part, was to fight against all prisons, starting with those of our certainties, our prejudices, our daily cowardice. To be for the abolition of prison is the victory of life over death.
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