October 31 march: who decides Paris's streets? The courts are now involved

According to Libération, several student and trade union organisations have filed a route running from Bastille to Nation for the 31 October march in Paris, "acte III" of the movement against "la vie chère" (the high cost of living). The prefecture, still according to the paper, would like a procession along the boulevards des Maréchaux, as on 24 October, but has not yet formally notified it. The intersyndicale (the joint union front) has therefore taken the matter to court to counter what it calls "manœuvres dangereuses" (dangerous manoeuvres). That is what we know. The judges' decision is still unknown, as is the prefecture's written position.

The rest is our reading. And it comes down to a simple question: who does the street belong to? On paper, to everyone. In practice, the right to march is negotiated, framed, notified, sometimes the day before for the next day. Choosing the route is choosing the audience. Bastille-Nation runs through lively working-class neighbourhoods, where you meet the people whose shopping basket fuels the anger. The boulevards des Maréchaux, by contrast, skirt the outer edge of the city: you march far from prying eyes, much as you shove a bulky piece of furniture into the hallway.

We must guard against any romanticism. The state is not a neutral referee: the police, the courts and the prefectures are institutions shaped by property relations and tasked, in the last instance, with making sure the smooth running of accumulation is not too disturbed. It does have a relative autonomy, and the courtroom can become a field of struggle, which is what the intersyndicale is attempting here. Winning a route would be a small victory, and not a negligible one.

But let us not make it the horizon. Luxemburg put it in her own way: defending a right already won is "the first duty of every opposition", nothing heroic about it, and simple defensiveness cannot exhaust the politics of the proletariat (our translation, Grève de masse, parti et syndicats). Arguing for a route is necessary. To stop at arguing would be to confuse the procession with the movement.

The true measure of a day like 31 October is not the distance covered but what it leaves behind: assemblies, workplace collectives, students and workers learning to decide together rather than waiting for the next communiqué. An intersyndicale that wins before the judge but mobilises no one beyond that would have secured a fine route, and nothing more. One that turns the pavement into a school, even on an imposed route, will have won something else.

The prefecture can draw the lines on the map. It does not yet draw what is said while walking. And it is there, in the conversations along the boulevards, that the price of bread always ends up becoming a political question.