UN RENOUVEAU DE LA PARTICIPATION ASSOCIATIVE ? L'engagement et le militantisme au sein du comité Attac Isère

1.2.2. The local development of Attac

1.2.2.1 The constitution of the local committees

The installation of the local committees started to be carried out little time after the launching of association. October 17, 1998 took place the first national meeting in Ciotat^127(*) (Rhone delta). The premises of a local organization were posed on this occasion. October 20, 1998, the members of Island of France find themselves thousand with a first meeting. In December 1998, statutes standard are worked out for the local committees and a charter of the relationship between these committees and national association is adopted. The local committees can have two different statutes. A committee can decide to constitute itself in Attac sub-group. It then does not have its own statutes. Its operation is abstract since no mechanism of representation or decision-making are defined. Moreover, in order to repair it « lapse of memory » of the local committees, of the standard statutes were worked out for those which would wish to obtain a legal personality^128(*). The local committees can thus constitute themselves in association law 1901 and obtain with a Board of directors, a president, a secretary-general and a treasurer. This possibility aimed at guaranteeing a greater liberty of action to the procedure of the committee^129(*). The statutes standard written by the national direction are similar to the operation of Attac association. The turnover takes « all decisions and measurements relating to association, others that those expressly reserved by the law and the statutes with the competence of the General meeting »^130(*). The agenda of AG is established only by the turnover (Article 11-3), the main part of the decisions thus concerns the turnover and the office. The relationship between the committee, which takes the name of « group Attac », are regulated according to article 4 of the statutes. The committee engages with « to subject these statutes at the office of national association Attac for approval », with « to make sure that all its members are also members of national association Attac » and with « to address each year, three months before the general assembly of national association Attac, an assessment of its actions which is incorporated in the management report of national association Attac ». Lastly, it is specified that « in the event of nonrespect of these clauses by association, the office of national association Attac can withdraw the use of the initials and the Attac denomination to him ». In the two configurations, the committee remains independent of the national network. No direct control is exerted on the actions carried out by the committee, nor on this standpoint. On the other hand, no local group can go against the text of the charter. The local committees developed gradually on the French territory starting from the charter and of these statutes.

In November 1998, nearly 40 local committees are made up, in February 1999, the threshold of the 100 local committees is crossed, in February 2000, more than 150 function and in October 2000, 170 local committees are formed^131(*). Some committees were launched at the time of the foundation of association, however the majority appeared as from September 1998. A national document published during the summer 1998 precise that the meetings of launching of the committees must be carried out by the means of the organizations which are founder members of Attac^132(*). The meeting is proposed by the local relay of one of the organizations founders or by the whole of the local structures attached indirectly to association. This meeting gathers the individual members of Attac as well as militants of other associations having adhered to Attac. The presence of the founder members within the committee is essential in the operation of association. That appears among the statutory obligations of the committee « law 1901 », which must make sure that « all the local structures of the organizations founders (when they exist locally) national association Attac are invited at its constitutive assembly and the later meetings »^133(*).

This statutory presentation is necessary, although tiresome, in order to include/understand the operation of association. However, it is only starting from the concrete development of the local committees that it is possible to update logics suitable for association. It is, as we said before, only starting from the study of the singularity which it is possible to operate a intellectual seizure of the object in its general information. This is why the analysis of the development of a precise local committee is from now on necessary.

* ¹²⁷ The diplomatic World speaks about a «symbolic system choice by the preoccupation of decentralization of association and a its will to be particularly present in an area [...] where financial logics caused the most devastations». «  Attac  », The diplomatic World, 09/1998, p. 2.

* ¹²⁸ «One will note an absence in the statutes: that of the local committees, which however affirmed themselves like privileged places of the militant action. To tell the truth, none the founders had provided that they would experience such a development. This lapse of memory was largely repaired by a charter governing their relationship with the national direction of Attac, and by the adoption of standard statutes for those of them wishing to obtain a legal personality while being constituted in association  ». Attac, All on Attac, op.cit, p. 107.

* ¹²⁹ «  The local groups which wish it will be able to be constituted in association (Law 1901), the legal personality enabling them to open a bank account, to require subsidies, to hold municipal rooms, Of the same etc they could collect themselves adhesions. They would preserve the quarter of it (either 50 F out of 200 F for the tariff «  credits  ») and the 3/4 in Attac national would transfer  ». Cf, Attac France, «  Report of the turnover of the 18/11/1998  ».

* ¹³⁰ Cf, «  Standard statutes of the local committees «  law 1901  »  », article 8-4.

* ¹³¹ Cf, Attac France, All on Attac, op.cit. and cf «  Attac and Bercy  », The diplomatic World, 11/1998, p. 6.

* ¹³² Cf, Attac France, «  Attac, instructions  », Paris, be 1998.

* ¹³³ Cf, Standard Statutes of the local committees «  law 1901  », op.cit, article 4.