Our fifth gathering
Our fifth gathering was held in Marseille in October 2024. The first five days of the gathering are known as the ‘OFF festival’. This brought together over 150 people from across the world, many of whom we’ve built up relations with over the years, and some of whom we were meeting for the first time. As always, time was short and there was much work to do! We discussed the proposals and next steps for the network. Workshops were held on the network’s structure and requirements for membership, establishing a mutual aid fund, building international solidarity and setting up multilingual media channels.
In this edition, there was a lot of focus on Palestine, Lebanon and Sudan, due to the urgent situation in those countries. We spoke more generally about the global war regime that is affecting us everywhere from Ukraine to Kanaky. We also learnt about the state of feminist struggles today in different places in South America as well as in Iran and Senegal and had a workshop discussing protest tactics in South-East Asia led by comrades from Taiwan.
At the OFF festival, regional working groups were established. One for Palestine, Lebanon and Sudan to increase our capacity for solidarity across these countries and one for the South Asia region to discuss how we can broaden our reach and impact there. Discussions are ongoing to establish a Syria working group given the fall of the regime and the network’s historically strong links to the Syrian revolution.
We then held a two-day public festival following the OFF gathering. Over 1,500 people attended from all over France and beyond. We hosted discussions on a wide range of topics including; the construction of political organizations in exile from Kampala to Berlin; imperialisms and liberation struggles from Kurdistan to Georgia; repositioning of queer struggles in the face of threats to instrumentalization from Abya Yala to Africa and resisting resurgent fascisms.
The gathering offered us the opportunity to socialize and discover local struggles in Marseille. A number of canteens provided delicious food over the weekend and there was a chance to dance with live music and DJ sets in the evening. The last night, at the end of an exhausting but exhilarating week, the members of the Peoples Want community met together in an emotional ceremony of celebration and remembrance. We sang protest songs from our countries and shared poems in different languages. We remembered those who had fallen in struggle and could no longer be with us in person but remain with us in spirit.