Action Directe Marxist terrorists were responsible for the deaths of a dozen people over a decade of activity
You have heard me talk or seen me write a lot about David Rapoport in my podcasts and in these blogs over the years. If there is anyone I admire more when it comes to terrorist scholars I’d be hard-pressed to name one. Wait, I’d have to add my friend from the University of Waterloo Lorne Dawson, whose work on radicalisation is very, very good, to that list. I have learned a lot from Lorne, who is a specialist in new religious movements (i.e. sects).
Mr. Rapoport, whom I had the honour of meeting a decade or so at a conference we both spoke at in Colorado, is best known for his work on the ‘wave theory’ of terrorism. I won’t go into too much detail as I believe you should read his short paper on it.
The third of his waves was dubbed the “new left” and reigned in the 1960s and 1970s. It was characterised by an “enormous ambivalence about the value of the existing system” and among its constituents were the American Weather Underground, Germany’s Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Italian Red Brigades, and the Japanese Red Army.
Action Directe
Another member of this ‘club’ featured in the attack that occurred on this day in 1986. France’s Action Directe (AD) defined itself as a ”libertarian communist urban guerrilla’ organisation which carried out violent attacks under the banner of “anti-imperialism” and “proletarian defence”.
Created in 1974, it was banned by the French government in 1984 and allied itself with another third wave terrorist group, the German Rote Armee Faktion, aka the aforementioned Baader Meinhof Gang, in 1985.
Renault director Georges Besse assassination
On November 17, 1986 AD assassinated Georges Besse, CEO of the French car manufacturer Renault outside his home in Paris. In a later statement AD justified the killing, writing that Mr. Besse was responsible for layoffs at Renault, although they later denied their involvement during trial. Four AD members were convicted and given life sentences. In 2008 the founder of AD, Jean-Marc Roiuillan, said he ‘had no regrets’ about the murder.
In 2008 the founder of AD, Jean-Marc Roiuillan, said he ‘had no regrets’ about the murder.
All in all AD carried out some 50 attacks over a decade, killing 12 and wounding 26 people. Despite its lack of activity for more than 30 years, Rouillan said as late as 2008 that he “remains convinced that armed struggle is necessary at certain moments of the revolutionary process”.
What I find most interesting in this phenomenon, this wave of terrorism, is that even if, as Professor Rapoport noted, it did not last that long, certainly not as long as the other waves, there are reasons to believe it may experience a resurgence. There is a lot of concern over income inequality and corruption and we could throw environmental activism into this mix.
The fourth wave may have dissipated but it may come back, just as ocean waves have a tendency to be recurrent.
