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TRIBUTE

JULIEN « RANX » TERZICS

This text was written by Mateo, singer of Brigada Flores Magon, and read at Julien’s funeral, on July 11, 2024, at the Père Lachaise cemetery, in Paris.

Old brother, you have finally managed to get me onstage sober….
If it wasn’t for talking about you a few days after your death, we could have a laugh about it.

This evening of July 1st, darkness fell on our hearts. From Buenos Aires to Naples, Marseille, of course Paris, and even more so Nantes, thousands of people, young and old, have felt a void with which they will have to learn to go on. By my side, in Toulouse, I knew that a part of me had been torn apart forever.

In the latest days, like all of you, I have been assailed by memories. From the first time I met you, on the square of the Leonardo da Vinci University, in La Défense, back in 1995, when you tried to bypass a CRS line all by yourself, to the last time when We were together on stage with Brigada near Bordeaux, what a bunch of adventures.

Back in 1995, you were one of those humans who were called as a golem. The previous decade, with the help of a few courageous young people, you had refused the violence, stupidity and hatred that terrorized the streets of Paris. You invested physically, with thoroughness and intelligence. You were a Red Warrior. Generations of punks and skinheads will still thank you for it. And I’m part of it.

A few years later, you continued to organize the struggle, alongside other equally courageous young people, to develop anarcho-syndicalist ideas in Paris, within the CNT, and wherever you traveled.

Here again, with rigor and intelligence, you rushed into this adventure.

You managed to include into a union framework a whole union of young people cast aside who were just waiting for that. They have become conscious workers and fighters against employers threats. Against capitalism.

And then, since 1997, there was Brigada Flores Magon. You were the only one to lead the head of this group at my side for all this time, twenty-seven years. You first knew how to transform this teenage delirium with sharp rage and uncertain talent into a real music group.

You held on, despite all the pitfalls we went through. From the stage of the Villagio Globale in Rome, in front of 5,000 people, to the detention center of the Mexico City airport. In the very highs as the very lows.

During all these years, I learned from you that you should never lower your head in front of anyone. I learned empathy, I learned that you should reserve your anger for real enemies. I learned to forgive other people’s mistakes and understand mine.

I told you I loved you but I never said thank you. Thank you Julien.

When you opened the Saint-Sauveur’s bar, in this back-then popular district of Ménilmontant, you wanted to make it a space of freedom, acceptance and differences. You succeed. This bar has become legendary all over the world.

And I also know that when you created the Black Bloc MC, you did it in the same spirit. Because motorcycling was one of your passions and because no one could stop you from having adventures. You confronted other humans who did not necessarily have your ideas but who learned to respect you and your ideals.

You were not a boss, you were a leader. A sincere and sensitive man who placed the notion of friendship on a very special place in his heart. A being full of empathy whose human intelligence was remarkable.

Since last week, testimonies have been pouring in about your adventures, about what you have meant to thousands of people all-around the world.

Since July 1st we have to live with the emptiness of your farewell but we continue to hold you close to our hearts.