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

2.2.3.2 Limits with the claims

2.2.3.2.1 The unit of Attac : the fight counters the financial markets

The principal vector of unit of the association to which referent the many ones surveyed, it is before all the charter of association. That Ci is perceived as a common framework which prevents the possible drifts. It allows each member and each committee to have the same starting point and to defend of the common claims. Some estimate besides, such Luc, who all the current claims are already present in the charter not in the direction where they would be registered there just as they are but in the direction where what they «represent » («dictatorship of the markets ») appears there. Indeed, the charter founder enumerates a whole of precise claims, but it also evokes broader intentions. Thus, at the time of the constitution of Attac, the signatories of the charter committed themselves acting «in order to block the speculation, to tax the incomes of the capital, to sanction the tax havens, to prevent the generalization of the funds of pension [...] and in a more general way, to reconquer lost spaces of the democracy [...] It is quite simply about réapproprier together the future of our world »^239(*). In the same way, the leading article of Ramonet constitutes a proposal as much to set up the Tobin tax that a call «to disarm the markets ».

The Tobin tax was only one specific proposal which was used as base with the launching of association. One of inquired (Julie) notices that the starting point of which was born association is double. It acts, on the one hand, of a very precise claim which incarnates the will to put at evil the financial markets and, on the other hand, of a «democratic project » which also passes by the questioning of the markets but from a point of view much broader. The majority besides were more justified in their adhesion by this second claim that by the tax Tobin itself. Fabien expresses in a very clear way that if it adhered (during launching) it is not as well for the tax as as it represented. Attac was born from a double claim : of a «democratic project » and of a specific proposal. The development of the movement resulted in moving away more and more from the tax to be able to widen its speech. The common point which exists between the two claims and which melts the unit of the movement it is the fight against the financial markets. The Tobin tax, just like the project of «D-appropriation », are proposed against the financial markets

Thomas: Me I think that it is well, because already on the level of information and the level of the charter and the base of adhesion one has all the same base. It is a base which is given by the national and on which, in extreme cases one could act by saying that that is not appropriate [...] Everyone has same information and if people adhere, they adhere to that. Because after that can bring drifts within small local committees which [could derive]... For heaps of reason...

Julie : Attac is an association national and international there is thus a certain coherence has to have, it is necessary that there are common authorities of decision. Already it there with the charter which ensures a common base, knowing that in certain cities there are three local committees.

Luc : Attac it is a little the same thing [that a trade union] except that one defends something which called forever into question by anybody and that seems important to me, it is the initial charter of Attac. For me the initial charter of Attac called forever into question to my knowledge by anybody. That seems to me paramount.

F.E : There was a widening of the claims of Attac...

Luc: Not so much in fact. If the charter is looked at, all the fields in which one fights are inside. Then Erika, for example, as such is not inside, but what that represents there is contained. It is nevertheless a multinational which pollutes and it is the people which in undergone the consequences. It is for that which I say myself that the watchword for me of Attac it is «Against the dictatorship of the markets», the markets it is the capital [...] All that belonged to the same fight.

Julie : I do not know which is the opening of Attac. This association passed by a particular skew. It tackled the problem of universalization under the aspect of the financial world and the other aspect which me appears paramount it is that it called upon the reappropriation of the world by the citizen and I think that it is something of important.

F.E : But you, in your adhesion, it was especially the Tobin tax which motivated you?

Fabien: Not... Finally at the time it was above all the Tobin tax but it was more what it represented. The tax Tobin, that meant a certain mistrust with respect to the international movements of capital, funds of speculation, the idea not not to too much give capacity to the financial spheres. Thereafter, which appears crucial to me, it is to develop very critical ideas with respect to the funds of pension that I regard as extremely dangerous. All that constituted a whole of ideas which are in same mobility.

* ²³⁹ Cf, Charter, appendix n°7, p.19.