“He was a great activist in the anti-colonialist struggle”, reacts on Saturday March 12 on franceinfo Frédéric Charpier, investigative journalist and former militant of the Revolutionary Communist League, after the death at 80 of Alain Krivine, co-founder of the far-left party and former presidential candidate. The journalist salutes the memory of a “very advanced militant”.
franceinfo: Alain Krivine will have had an activist life to the end?
Frederic Charpier: Yes, I had the opportunity to meet him several times, he was someone very open to others, who made everyone who came to him benefit from his knowledge, his network because as a good Trotskyist he was, he had a real cult of the network because Trotskyism is above all about networking.
Can we recall precisely what Trotskyism was at that time in the 60s and 70s?
Trotskyism was first and foremost an opposition to Stalinism, which manifested itself in the 1960s at the time of decolonization in particular. And Krivine was a great activist in the anti-colonialist struggle, he was one of the leaders of the FUA, the Antifascist University Front, which earned him a total hatred of far-right organizations and in particular the OAS [Organisation Armée Secrète, opposée à l’indépendance de l’Algérie]. He was a very advanced activist who knew a lot of artists, directors, actors… He was an extremely nice person.
Before the LCR he had founded the revolutionary communist youth, dissolved for his activities, he had been arrested at that time and imprisoned. Is it also the life of a novel character?
Krivine has had a few stints in prison. He was arrested in 68, prosecuted for reconstitution of the dissolved league, but fairly quickly released, at the time many people wanted to draw a line under the events. And then another time in 1973 after a night of riots against a far-right meeting. I had the opportunity to see quite a few archives concerning him in police and intelligence circles, what is amusing is that he behaved as we taught militants to do, he was careful, reserved and he did not speak. He was a character.