October 31 march: the prefecture bans, the judge restores, the state appeals

According to franceinfo, the route of the 31 October march in Paris, between Bastille and Nation, was first banned by the prefecture. The Paris administrative court then suspended the banning order, siding with the organisers. The government has announced it will appeal. "La préfecture nous balade" ("the prefecture is taking us for a ride"), say the organisers, quoted by franceinfo in its headline.

At this stage, the wire report does not tell the whole story. We do not know on what grounds the prefecture based its order, what the court relied on to suspend it, or when the appeal court will rule. What follows is our reading, not an established fact.

A route between Bastille and Nation is no logistical detail. It is one of the most memory-laden itineraries of the Parisian procession, the one where the city's people are in the habit of counting themselves. Banning the route tells the marchers: you may exist, but elsewhere, smaller, and above all less visible. You do not abolish the right to demonstrate; you wear it down through procedure, with late orders and cascading appeals. The organisers find themselves preparing a procession and a legal case at the same time, on a timetable the administration controls better than they do.

We can welcome the fact that the judge sided with the organisers. But let us not misplace our gratitude. This right was never handed down by a court: it was won in the street, then written into the law. And a government appeal is proof that what a judge grants in the morning, the executive tries to take back by evening.

Rosa Luxemburg put it in her own way: if democracy has become troublesome for the bourgeoisie, it is indispensable to the working class. It is through exercising its democratic rights, in the struggle for them, that the proletariat becomes aware of its interests (our translation, summary from Reform or Revolution). A right to march that must be defended before a judge ahead of every procession is a right that no longer serves only to protest, but first of all to defend oneself.

There is also a lesson in organisation here. The unions and collectives that challenged the order did what a living mobilisation does: learn while walking, get around the obstacle, and force the administration to explain itself in public. The question is whether this energy will turn into lasting strength or burn out in litigation.

Power has its prefects, its lawyers, its calendars. The procession has its feet. For now, it is still the procession that knows where it is going.