Above: Jack de Montreuil in the 1990s
Some of what follows is also referenced / even repeated elsewhere on these four webs (PART 1,2,3,4) related to the life and times of Jack de Montreuil who died on May 25 2025
The following texts - in their essence - were some of the last to be put up on the Revolt Against Plenty web before its brutal and utterly unnecessary redaction in 2023. They were mainly put together, telling photos and all, by Jack de Montreuil ...........
Then sadly in May 2025 Jack died of lung cancer. I was shattered adding to growing loneliness in these dreadful times having lost a number of irreplaceable friends over the last few years. But there again, who hasn't? Mustn't crumble..... Moreover, I really was a very good friend of Jack's from the early 1980s onwards as he and his mates from the Gravediggers of the Old World which then kinda morphed over the coming years into Os Cangacerios (and a name culled from the Robin Hood like social bandit group in Brazil in the late 19th century) came for a long stay in the UK. Undoubtedly the spur to friendship here in the UK were the insurrectionary riots especially those of 1981 followed by the year long miners strike of 1984 with an overlap of friends from the West and South Yorks coalfield. There's little point in repeating what happened suffice to read those webs in and around Jenny and John Dennis plus previously our pamphlet Like a Summer with a Thousand Julys - on the nationwide riots of 1981 - which had been translated into French.(All this information is available on Libcom.org). And then post the strike and the previous riots many from the same milieu were by then living in London often in squats. Alas, cutting edge rebellion in the UK then took a nose dive in comparison to the previous heady days, weeks, months, even years. Inevitably, this was eventually followed by our companeros drifting back into France - and elsewhere - .Nonetheless, contact remained strong especially after the advent of email providing the framework for webs on the Revolt Against Plenty site on what was happening in France especially in and around Nuit Debout in 2016 to begin with.
And then the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement erupted in France in 2018 and again Jack sent really informed material on the Gilets Jaunes in Commercy plus a longer commentary, admittedly part of it from Lundi Matin (Monday Morning) plus some terrific photos and commentary underneath (See below). Then came a beautiful text from Raoul Vaneigem, the latter regarding the Yellow Vests as one of the great subversive moments of the last eighty years along with the events in Chiapas in Mexico in the 1990s and Mai '68 in France...Excellent stuff, so read....On the spot reports about 2016 Nuit Debout strikes - Jack De Montreuil
What proved to be the amazing eruption of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France in 2018 was set in motion by something mundane: rising oil and fuel prices which fell particularly heavy on ordinary yes, 'ordinary') people living in rural cum semi-urban areas and suburbs involving participants of the left, right or, it could be said, of all or any persuasion including those who never ever vote in parliamentary elections. Moreover, it had nothing to do with the New Popular Front of traditional parliamentary bodies like La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) of Melenchon and Co who were quite prepared to rubbish them as something like a fascistic entourage. The yellow vest became the unifying thread and call to arms precisely because it was the article of clothing imposed by the government on a marginal precariat engaged in usually low paid manual work outside the protection of official trades unions. And, never forget, No matter what you were forced by the French state to carry this article of clothing which then amazingly throughout 2018 morphed into the symbol of authentic communal subversion!
In a way the Gilets Jaunes could be said to be just another manifestation of the Nuit Debout protests of a few years earlier. Partially this is true but Nuit Debuit was an expression also of the clued-in of Paris, Lille and so forth. This was an expression of the No People, of the pushed aside who really never existed they were so mundane, boring and clueless...... So how wrong can one be??
The movement and magnificent rebellion was also structureless from the get-go: leaderless, horizontal and implicitly and explicitly down on hierarchies including the MSM media, journalists and star-obsessed celebrities in general. Many individuals belonging to the latter would regularly get duffed-up by this rebel milieu of the small car, side roads and who frequently occupied roundabouts. Inevitably too, cameras and spyware came in for the same vandalistic treatment as the surveillance society was given the boot. In no time the cops descended in fury as riots both small and big erupted everywhere day-in, day-out. In response the cops deployed their latest weaponry especially the really nasty 'flash-ball' semi-ammunition which took out the eyes of insurgents everywhere. Equally though, the notorious French cops received a hammering not seen since the glorious days of May '68 though remarkably over a longer period of time. It's perhaps also true to say that many a mild-ish supporter of Marine Le Pen's far right RN ( National Party) also initially joined in the Gilets Jaunes movement only to be utterly transformed - in the best sense of the word - by their experience.
It was the internal momentum - in a way unseen / unknown - that was the amazing dynamic as bit by bit the movement was forever opening its arms to ever-widening critiques though not communicated via academic discourses presented from lecterns to passive audiences. No, it came through spontaneous friendship and was touchy-feely in essence. Lets occupy roundabouts - not a subject for discussion - but just let's do it NOW and then continue doing so. Then others would join in on the roundabout with their own particular angles to be elaborated upon though not via some kind of lecturer's address. At the time - as was said - by various anonymous but enthusiastic individuals it was like the eruption of the Freudian id - fecund, unknown but powerful. And then suddenly to - for example - there was the Black Block going off on a vandalistic rampage on some nondescript demo in Lille, Bordeaux or Paris. And then - lo and behold - suddenly there were autonomous ecos disillusioned with a Green party hierarchy like as if the original Gilets Jaunes protest stemming from mundane rises in traditional fossil fuel was neither here nor there. Let's just do it increasingly became the dominant drumbeat as a perspective of total social revolution began to unfold - though not stuck within the head - as if it was almost behind the backs of the original participants.
And then alas came Covid 19 and all that new touchy / feely subversive communality was vanquished if not quite overnight. And what replaced it: well a sense of separation and anti-life loneliness took over like never perhaps known or experienced in history. Something in fact truly ghastly adding to the dark trajectory of Suicide Capitalism. For sure after Covid 19 had run its course there was a latter day attempt to bring the Gilets Jaunes movement back to life but it was too late and the demonstrations were lack-lustre. The dream had gone.............
The movement of 2023 in France then appeared on the streets but on the surface it seemed a lot more traditional and more the arena where an official parliamentary La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) of Melancheon and Co could play its leftish baneful part. As for the symbol of the yellow vest well perhaps it was adopted by the Just Stop Oil protesters in the UK but without that inspirational full-on subversion as had happened with the French Yellow Vests.
Yet again, during 2023 and another rebellion in France and again I received a lot of valuable information from Jack de Montreuil plus, as per usual, with the addition of telling photographs. Stupidly, I never put them up on a web either printing things out or sending photos plus pertinent comment through personal emails to mainly local friends living mostly in the W.11 Housing Co-op.(I will now have to rectify this as part of the requiem to Jack de Montreuil.) However, during this tooing and froing I got to know a lot about Alessi della Umbria. I had heard about the guy though never realised he had played such a part in the development of Os Cangaceiros helping them on their way. Then I started to read things he'd written especially on urban riots throughout France over the last 25 years focussing somewhat on the port city of Marseille. I was impressed and wondered why anarchists, etc in the UK hadn't published something substantial in dead tree format. Behind all these lucid commentaries was also something of a theoretical base around Antimatrix. Jack then suggested I should do some publishing and I enthusiastically said yes. However, I was nervous about my capabilities with the French language and unfortunately the project fizzled out not least because of the lengthy trauma I'm suffering because of my twin brother's death . Whatever, certainly Antimatrix SHOULD BY NOW HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
David Wise. 2025
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Selection of last emails from Jack de Montreuil
Above: Luigi Mangione getting arrested followed by T-shirt merch portraying him as a kind of Catholic saint!
Hi Dave, (December 2024) In response to thoughts about Michael Moore and Luigi Mangione among other things
I'll read this later, but I don't like very much Michael Moore (I particularly remember that he broke a bookshop's employees strike where he was not ashamed to have signed and sell his last book ! The worst was you could see that he did this in one of his movies !).
Everybody can say he approves or disapproves of Luigi Mangione, but is it the real point? If one approves, why doesn't he say so as well!? Does he even think about what will now happen to himself (Mangione): maybe the death penalty if he is judged in a USA State which applies it, or dozens of years; if not a life sentence, in jail.
That's a question, I'd like to have some answers from Luigi Mangione himself. His was not a kamikaze act, he escaped, but has he a plan for the future? It seems not really when you read his manifesto.
I hope that within a few years more than t-shirts in his image or name will survive....
Above; Some examples of the large amount of merch accrued around the somewhat mythic reputation instantly achieved by Luigi Mangione (born 1998) in the USA today. Moreover, theatrical performances around the guy have become box office hits with all tickets sold out overnight. Luigi's killing of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare on 4 December, 2024 in Midtown Manhattan really hit a chord especially among the young Gen Z as he exposed the American health insurance industry as a greedy rip-off. He rapidly became a fashion folk hero, a modern day Robin Hood cum sex symbol. Previously, Mangione had worked for his living as a hi-tech engineer for TrueCar even producing for himself 3D printed guns one of which was used to kill the corrupt United Healthcare CEO. Somewhat obsessed with AI (as part of his graduate curriculum) Mangione was/is perfectly in tune with many other American youngsters even though having come from a very well-off background involving an elite private school education followed by Ivy League university. Then he kinda 'dropped-out'. However, this mainly had to do with developing physical illnesses including excruciating back pain. Mangione quickly then became aware of the corruption at the heart of the American health insurance industry and as time went by no doubt the depletion of Medicare, used especially by the American poor etc..
Not that the guy had written much up to this explosive event. Then we were to quickly find out about Mangione's few writings cum incomplete type manifestoes. One such smallish tract contains references to Ted Kaczynski. the American 'Unabomber' via his "Industrial Society and its Future" though basically Luigi orientated himself around Democratic parliamentary lefties like 'The Squad's' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though the American radical, Michael Moore also figures. Of course, the Unabomber was much applauded in France especially around the ZADS all of which had influence too on Individuals in and around Os Cangaceiros. Latterly, Jack de Montreuil had asked me if I could find some really interesting, personal information from American friends....but nothing turned up. Interestingly, graffiti related to Luigi such as "Luigi Mangione hero of the people" appeared on walls in Marseille, France. Was this the effect of Jack / other ex-Os Cangaceiros or indeed, was this the work of Jack de Montreuil himself? However, truth be told, the Os Cangaceiros crew right from the get-go were much more theoretically clued-in about past revolutionary history and thought than Luigi Mangione was at his present age of 26. Nonetheless, there is a very real possibility that the death penalty will be handed-down to Mangione as President Trump demands it be deployed "wherever possible".... And he hates Luigi. If so, expect an instant explosion from Gen Z and others throughout America and probably elsewhere. Already, denotations to his defence fund are well over a million dollars.....so there's no way Luigi Mangiona lies forgotten in some forlorn American prison cell.
Hi Dave, August 13th 2024
Yesterday, I've seen my oncologist and she said the chemo and immuno-therapy was slowly working, but it will take long, at least a few months....
I would like (plus other people here) to know and understand more about the last riots in England in 2024. So when you find something interesting about them, you can send it to me. But I will have a look on Libcom.org.
The French Olympics have been mainly a big and disgusting self-celebration of the State, France and Macron above all: The construction of a fake national narrative from the beginning to the end.
All the best !
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On Monday, July 22, 2024 at 04:26:24 PM GMT+1, jackot jackot
My mailbox was blocked and it has only been working for a few days now.
I would like to take this opportunity to transmit this press release- below -, which Serge's parents would like to see widely distributed.
Below: Battle Of Sante Soline 2023
PRESS RELEASE FROM SERGE'S PARENTS (15 July 2024)
"During the demonstration on March 25, 2023 against the construction of a megabasin in Sainte-Soline, our son Serge was seriously injured by a shot from the police.
In the following days, with the assistance of Mr. Chalot, we filed a complaint against X for attempting to murder and for wilful obstruction of the arrival of help; We have also filed a complaint about the leakage, the March 27, 2023, of information contained in the file compiled by the police on Serge.
At the same time, the public prosecutor Philippe Astruc launched expert reports on the circumstances of the most serious injuries caused by the police during this demonstration in Sainte-Soline.
Yet – sixteen months later – we are still waiting for the results of the investigations. They must, according to Mr. Astruc, be delivered to him first in December 2023, then in March 2024, then in June 2024 – and we learn today from the press that Mr. Astruc will be replaced at the court of Rennes, in September.".....
Next one, by M. Teillet...
"The length of the ongoing proceedings is surprising because, concerning Serge:- on the one hand, journalistic investigations quickly established – with supporting images – that a grenade had caused him to fall whereby he hit in the skull, and that this grenade had been fired in an "unusual" manner (see in particular the video of the World Exhibition Conducted on April 6, 2023);
- on the other hand, various testimonies recorded during the demonstration showed very quickly that the forces of oppression had been instructed to prevent help from reaching Serge when he had fallen into the coma (the LDH made public a first summary of its report on March 26, 2023). Wounded around 1:30 p.m., Serge was not taken care of by the Poitiers University Hospital until around 5:30 p.m.
When we met Mr. Astruc at the Rennes court on July 6, 2023, he was delighted to have already a great deal of information about the four most seriously injured people in Sainte-Soline; and he had assured us that he would have no difficulty for Serge in establishing the "materiality of the facts."
Let us therefore consider that the conclusions of the investigations into the police violence committed on March 25 2023 should be known as soon as possible."
From Serge's parents, July 15, 2024
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Above: The Illegal Mega-basins at Sante Soline
On Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 04:47:55 PM GMT+1, jackot jackot
Hi Dave,
Sometimes I feel like I'm falling apart with this world : since my last email, doctors told me I have a lung cancer and asked me to have a biopsy to see if I have not another hidden somewhere ! So that's been 3 months ago. I have seen a dozen of doctors since and made I don't know how many analysis, but real care hasn't started, it's crazy. So I'm still drinking and smoking but not at all like before (maybe 4/5 glasses and 5 thin cigarettes (rolling tobacco) a day.
And sure, soon I'll stop completely or nearly completely – but maybe the world itself will stop before !
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On Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 05:13:14 PM GMT+1, jackot jackot
Hi Dave,
I have seen a dozen of doctors and I've made analysis, x-ray, scanner, electromyogram, and so on. They say I have a polyneuropathy. It's fucking hard to live because I allways feel it and for the moment, they don't really succeed to find a way to stop this – except repeating to me to stop drinking ! But probably I should (I reduce, but maybe not enough).
I hope next email will see both of us in a good shape.
All the best. Jack
**************
On Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 11:58:32 AM GMT+1, jackot jackot
Hi Dave,
I have had a small technical problem with some of my recent E-mails, some have not been sent, so I have a little doubt about the last one I sent to you (about this project of translation of Antimatrix).
But maybe you are just travelling somewhere and don't spend time on Internet !
All the best, Jack
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Jackot jackot
From:[email protected]
Tue, Oct 10, 2023 at 2:32 PM
On me dit que la traduction en français de l'article d'Haaretz envoyé ce matin n'est pas limpide, voici donc sa version originale en anglais pour les anglophones............ [Libcom machine translation - I'm told that the French translation of the Haaretz article sent this morning is not clear, so here is the original English version for English speakers............]
Israel Utters Its Breath
Under this headline, the Hebrew newspaper, Haaretz, wrote an article by the famous Zionist writer (Ari Shabit), in which he says: It seems that we have witnessed the most difficult people that history has known, with nothing but recognition and an end to the occupation.
"Shabit" began with the United Arab Emirates: It seems that we are in the process of completing the "Israel" process, stopping settlements, achieving peace, and establishing it by establishing the reform of Zionism and saving democracy and dividing the people in the state.
So, then, the situation is, it is a tasteless gift to live in this country, and there is no taste for writing in Haaretz, and no taste for reading Haaretz. Do what was given of Rogel Alpher's paper before that, leaving the country. He answered on American citizenship, or the general atmosphere, or the family atmosphere. Say goodbye to friends and move to San Francisco, Berlin or Paris.
There, from the countries of the extremist Muslims, and Shush, or the countries of the new extremist groups, and witness to the "State of Israel" is another area. You should be taking three steps back, the Jewish state sinking. May be combined not yet developed.
We can't get past the point of no return yet. It can rest from the reception hall, stop settlements, take a break from Zionism, save democracy and divide the country.
I put my finger in the eyes of Netanyahu, Lieberman and the neo-Nazis, to wake them from their Zionist delusions, that Trump, Kushner, Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not the ones who will end the occupation.
It is not the European Union and the European Union that will dominate. The Israelites, the Unitarians, the Israelites, themselves, the Israelites, themselves, themselves, by inventing a new political language, recognizing reality, on a site rooted in the land. Survive and not die.
The writer asserts in the Haaretz newspaper: that the "Israelis", since they came to Palestine, realize that they are the product of a lie invented by the Zionist movement, Zionism, Zionism, which gained character in Judaism throughout history.
By exploiting and exaggerating what Hitler called the Holocaust, the movement was able to convince the world that Palestine is the "Promised Land" and that the temple is located under the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Thus, the wolf turned into a lamb that sucks on the money of American and European taxpayers, a nuclear monster. .
The writer sought the help of the writer's scholars, Western and Jewish archaeologists, and the most famous of them is Israel Flinstein from Tel Aviv University, who confirmed that "the temple and a fairy tale do not exist, and all the excavations, its exhibitions, proved the largest, thousands of years ago, and this was explicitly stated in a large reference Judaism, and many Western archaeologists have confirmed that ...
Show the effects of Al Aqsa Palace. ..
I decided that there were no eternal traces of Solomon's temple, and discovered that what the Israelites call "Solomon's Stables Building" has nothing to do with Solomon or stables at all. Rather, it is an architectural model of a palace that is commonly built in several areas, although "Kathleen Kenyon" was endowed by the Palestine Fund, and a statement of what was stated in the biblical narratives, pause episode 19
He stressed that the Israelis, day after day, slap them in the face in the form of a pedestal knife, Khalili and Nabulsi, a driver with a collective stone.
It is not the land of the people, as they lied. Another writer who acknowledges the existence of the Palestinian people is (Gideon Levy), the left-wing Zionist, as he says:
They are no different from the rest of mankind, we occupied their land, we called their youth, prostitutes and drugs, and we said that a few years will pass, and they will forget their homeland and land, and if their young generation explodes the uprising of the 87.. We put them in prisons and said we will raise them in prisons.
And after years, and after they participated, after them, they learned the lesson, after them to us with an armed uprising in 2000, the green ate its leaves, so we said we would demolish their homes and besiege them for many years, and extract them from their impossible land, despite the siege and destruction, so we began to plan with walls and names. .
To thicken, they seize the "Israeli" satellite (Amos)? And they terrorize every home in Israel, by broadcasting threats and threats, as happened when young people managed to seize the second "Israeli" channel. In sum, it seems that we are facing the most difficult people that history has known, and there is no solution with them but an example, and an end to the occupation.
Article title: "Israel" takes its last breath
Author: Ari Shepet
Source: Haaretz Hebrew newspaper.
https://www.theinsightnewsonline.com/israel-utters-its-breath/
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jackot jackot
From:[email protected]
To: David Wise
Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 6:00 PM
Hi Dave, thanks very much for this, I like this guy, Martin White !
All the best
***************
Envoyé : mardi 12 septembre 2023 15:55
À : Jackot Jackot
Objet : street cameras
Hi Jack,
Further on the destruction of surveillance cameras in London. This (below) is from Martin White otherwise known as the Whitechapel Anarchist. I trust the guy but he can be somewhat wooden. I don't think that the young kids doing this now known as The Blade Runners (their title) are the populist right. They are all over the shop theoretically. They simply like dare-devil activity and most seem to be from poor backgrounds. And they hate surveillance and the UK has the most surveillance cameras of anywhere in the world - 3 cameras for every citizen statistically speaking. No one has been identified as 'leader' as there isn't any formal group. In a way they are more like Martin was when young - not much schooling, no university aspirations. A complete working class teenager soccer-hooligan connected with Millwall club in south-east London renowned for its rightist chants whilst wrecking everything in sight including burning all cars. No one at the time dared go near Millwall's matches and then somewhat slowly Martin started putting 2 and 2 together in his head. The way of the dialectic...............
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On Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 03:01:23 PM GMT+1, jackot jackot
PS DAVE : here, riots are on "pause" (but last night, 150 cars and a dozen of official buildings have burned: one month ago it would have been a big News headline, but in comparison with the first days, it's an "accalmy", as they say). It's mainly because there are more than 45 000 cops in the streets of suburbs and town centres, and also there's not a lot to loot or burn as nearly every shop has been looted already!
But it could be back tonight or tomorrow : we have just learned that police killed a guy in Marseille last Saturday (they said so after 4 days of silence) and one other is in coma after he was shot by the RAID (special police unite against terrorism) in Mont-Saint-Martin, near Longwy, North-East of France, where in 1979-1984 there were huge revolts against Steel industry closures.