Briser les frontières: hundreds of people from Claviere to Monginevro for freedom of movement

"Briser les frontières": break the borders - these were the rallying cries with which the initiative that took place last Sunday at the Italian-French border was called. A march that was born out of the solidarity network created around the migrants (whose number keeps increasing), that in these weeks try the crossing from Italy to France through the Alps - especially from the Colle della Scala, the Val Susa passage that, starting from Bardonecchia, crosses the Alps. A perilous trail (especially during this period of harsh cold and abundant snowing) where everyday dozens of people are risking their lives because of an Europe that multiplies its barriers and that made other crossing places impassable, the Ventimiglia one above all. And in Ventimiglia itself the system of the borders did kill again on Sunday: a migrant died by electrocution in an attempt to cross the border, as he was clinging to the top of the train that arrives in France. It would be the fifth case already since the beginning of 2017, but the list of the migrants that lose their life under circumstances which are not incidental anymore, but are a direct consequence of this system, is sadly longer.

The solidarity march last Sunday departed in the late morning from Claviere and was articulated through the snowy trails, circumventing the blockades of Italian police and French gendarmerie in order to cross the border between the two countries, reclaiming freedom of movement for everyone. A stream of hundreds and hundreds of people that, upon their arrival at Monteginevro, was met by French comrades and activists - which mobilized on the other side of the border - awaiting them. Many No Tav flags waved in the cortege: being it a movement which not only demonstrated its solidarity and attention in regard to what happens on their territory at all times; but that - by opposing an useless and harmful work being carried on in the name of the circulation of goods and capital - recognizes the battle for the peoples’ freedom of movement and for the possibility of crossing Europe without risking one’s life through perilous trails.

A participated and visible initiative that brought in the center of winter tourism the reality of what happens every day on those same trails; a march that crossed the Italian-French border in order to break a daily routine made of controls and push-backs, in one of the many corners of Europe where borders and controls represent a dispositif that has to be torn down.