Published on April 24, 2024
Since 2013, the Territoire de Belfort federation has relaunched a book festival aimed at promoting reading and promoting its abundant documentary collection through a book exchange. First organized within the federation’s premises, with the highlight of a thematic conference, it has since been transferred to the socio-cultural centers of the districts of the city of Belfort and enriched with a sale of new books, in a longer format of a day and a half. Now established in the cultural and activist landscape of the city, our book exchange benefits from numerous donations of books from comrades, bringing our collection to around 1,000 works of all kinds.
The 2024 edition was dedicated to the still living legacy of the National Council of the Resistance, with three highlights each bringing together around fifty people. In total, around 150 different people were attracted to the book festival, with sales of new and second-hand books reaching a new record.
The financial balance of the initiative, which represented an expense of around €600 in rental, posters, and costs related to welcoming speakers, was ensured by the sale of second-hand books, a refreshment bar and the sale of activist cakes, a subscription basket and, this year, a friendly closing meal, which although offered at a modest price (€10), also made it possible to contribute to the profits.
But it is above all the theme of our book festival which has made it an important political event.
Through the excellent documentary “A History of the National Council of the Resistance” by Jeanne Menjoulet, produced by the Center for Social History, the conference by Serge Wolikow devoted to the news of the CNR, then that of Jean-Michel Leterrier on the way in which cultural questions and popular education were treated by the CNR with a very wide angle covering almost the entire twentieth century, we were able to both immerse ourselves in the political debates which prefigured the development of the happy days program, but also to reflect on the conditions of its implementation at the Liberation and then on the developments to which it could give rise today.
The legacy of the CNR is still alive and fruitful.
If social security, nationalizations, the status of the civil service and that of energy and railway workers, works councils, remain essential references, the CNR also took care of the school , the press, sports, popular education, cinema, agriculture…
Resisting and building the alternative at the same time, constantly working to create popular movement, confronting and bringing together all available forces, building the balance of power to obtain concrete progress, these two days have shown us for today a particularly inspiring and topical path of intervention and action.
Muriel Ternant
member of the CEN
Article published in Communistsn°993, April 24, 2024.
