[AktiviX] Activists Target Paris Subway Ads

[Paul Mobbs]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3837388,00.html?=ticker

Activists Target Paris Subway Ads

Monday March 8, 2004 9:16 PM
By JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press Writer


PARIS (AP) - Suzanne, prim with neat snowy hair, gray anorak and white shirt 
fastened at the collar with a blue brooch, glanced furtively up and down the 
subway platform bustling with out-on-the-towners.

Slowly, the station emptied; the coast was clear. Spinning on her heels, a 
mischievous glint in her soft blue eyes, she whipped a red wax crayon from 
her handbag and, wielding it sword-like, scrawled her fury across a billboard 
advertising home appliances.

``TOO MANY THINGS, NOT ENOUGH POETRY!'' she wrote.

Pow! Thus another blow was struck in a fight raging in France against 
advertising. The attackers are a small but determined band of campaigners for 
whom ads are a plague. Their battlegrounds are the tunnels and platforms of 
Paris' subway, and bus stops in other towns. Their targets: companies that 
make capitalism tick.

Organizing over the Internet, hunted by the forces of order, these urban 
guerrillas are focusing debate on advertising's power. Is there too much of 
it? Should we fight back?

For Suzanne, a 63-year-old political militant since she first threw stones at 
police during student riots that shook France in 1968, the answer to those 
questions is ``Yes.''

``Capitalism needs consumerism to survive,'' she said. ``If we get rid of 
advertising, we get rid of consumerism and that will get rid of capitalism.''

Mmmmmm. It's hard to envisage the foundations of the global economy toppling 
anytime soon. But the anti-advertising movement has provoked a counterattack 
from French advertising giant Publicis and Paris' public transportation 
operator, the RATP.

Joining forces, the two firms are taking 62 anti-ad militants to court on 
Wednesday, seeking $1.2 million in damages for destruction wreaked and 
scrawled on billboards.

Suzanne is not among those 62, but the threat of fines scares her enough she 
won't give her surname. Nevertheless, she campaigns on, riding the Metro with 
a band of like-minded teenagers one recent Saturday, trailing destruction in 
their wake.

Pssssshhhhhh. Louis, 16, worked quickly but efficiently with a can of black 
spray paint. ``ADVERTISING NUMBS YOU'' read his still-dripping slogan on a 
billboard for the movie ``Shrek 2.''

``Walt Disney. Hollywood. Big budget. No good,'' he muttered by way of 
explanation before sprinting down the platform to attack another billboard 
before a train pulled in.

``It's joy,'' he said, describing how it felt to spray. ``It's a real pleasure 
to finally be able to resist.''

France's anti-advertising campaign to some extent dovetails with a larger 
movement against globalization that regularly protests meetings of the World 
Trade Organization, the Group of Eight industrial nations and other 
``capitalist'' bodies.

One of Suzanne's band, Christophe, 17, said he traveled to the Alps last June 
to protest a G-8 summit.

Suzanne's group changed subway lines every three or four stations to avoid 
being spotted by security agents. At each station, they first followed other 
passengers heading toward the exits. Then, having determined no guards were 
lurking in the tunnels, they doubled back to set to work spraying and tearing 
down ads.

In all, militants damaged 3,500 posters that Saturday, says Metrobus, a 
Publicis subsidiary that sells the subway's advertising space. It says it has 
to compensate firms whose ads are targeted.

Suzanne's group alone attacked more than 50 billboards in at least eight 
stations. At one stop, they happened across other campaigners slapping up 
stickers saying, ``Every day I wash my brain with advertising,'' mocking 
laundry detergent ads.

``Advertising is a one-way message that amounts to harassment,'' said Nicolas, 
a teacher in his 30s. ``We should have the right to refuse it.''

The RATP, which transports millions of Parisians each day, is not happy to 
find itself on the front line. It believes Paris' public is on its side, 
citing a survey it commissioned last month in which 73 percent of 800 people 
questioned said advertisements make their public transport journeys ``more 
agreeable and less monotonous'' and 75 percent said they disapproved of the 
anti-ad militants.

``These people are on the wrong side of the law. We can't let this type of 
action go unchallenged,'' said RATP spokesman Fabien Contino.

The RATP says the $74 million to $86 million it earns each year from selling 
advertising space could buy 300 new buses. Contino said ticket prices would 
rise by 5 percent if there were no ad, an increase equal to just seven cents.

But in a small victory for the campaigners, the RATP on Monday and for the 
next 10 days freed up space on 47 billboards in 24 stations for people to 
write what they like.

``The RATP offers this space of free expression,'' said a company notice on 
one white board at the Strasbourg-Saint Denis station. ``Thank you for 
respecting this initiative by reacting only on this poster and by avoiding 
all injurious and discriminatory comments.'' 



==========

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html



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