(fr) Anarchist Federation – Jean-Marc, the struggle continues

Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2026 20:35:45 +0100

Jean-Marc Raynaud wasn’t always a troublemaker. He started out as a troublemaker in his youth. From high school onward, he and his friends from the Café de la Paix formed a discussion group focused on secularism; a theme that would stay with him throughout his life. His rationalist commitment as a freethinker was undeniable. With this group of friends, he also became involved in the anti-nuclear movement, opposing the Braud-et-Saint-Louis power plant and a harmful highway construction project. Few people know this, but when he enrolled in law school in Bordeaux, his intention was to become… a police commissioner! Fortunately, a wind of emancipation was blowing through the spring of 1968, and Jean-Marc became friends with Sanchez and Jean Barrué. The 1970s would be the decade in which his libertarian commitments were solidified. It was during this period that he joined the Anarchist Federation, held regular meetings in Rochefort, and campaigned for male contraception in general and vasectomy in particular. At the same time, he joined the cremationists’ union and their newspaper, “La Flamme” (The Flame), promoting the practice of cremation. He wasn’t ahead of his time; his time was behind him.

Once the ball was rolling, he would theorize and put into practice a life of continuous struggle, dedicated to creating concrete alternatives to the world he refused to accept. Uncle Bakunin’s summer camps, the self-managed daycare center, the Bonaventure libertarian school, and other such activities filled the time of this committed educator who, not content with simply taking action, also wrote numerous texts—more than 600 cataloged to date—for various activist newspapers and magazines.

“I always wanted to be a publisher,” Jean-Marc confided to his longtime friend, Jean-Claude Richard. On the advice of the latter, and after managing the publishing house Le Monde Libertaire, he founded Éditions Libertaires, which published over 250 books and awarded the prestigious Ni Dieu Ni Maître prize for many years. This publishing house still exists and is a benchmark in French-language anarchist publishing. Many authors join us in expressing their sadness.

Despite the great failure of his life—namely, achieving unity within the libertarian movement—Jean-Marc did not give up and tirelessly continued to defend a non-negotiable humanism. Thus, when the despicable Manuel Valls put the stripping of citizenship on the agenda during Hollande’s presidency, he publicly asked to have it revoked himself. The local press still remembers it.

Jean-Marc had his card. His citizen of the world card, which he never failed to show to the police. always quick to suppress the freedom of peoples.

Today, a great man leaves us, but his struggles and convictions will neither be forgotten nor abandoned.

We are all fierce Raynauds! Chaucre

Anarchist Federation

, Saint-George-d’Oléron

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

https://federation-anarchiste.org/?g=Lien_Permanent&b=1_27