Translation:Forbidden Defence speech

If I speak, it is not to defend myself against the acts of which I am accused, because only society, which through its organization pits men in continual struggle against one another, is responsible. Indeed, do we not see today, in all classes and professions, people who wish—not death, because that sounds bad to the ear—but misfortune upon their fellow humans if it can bring them advantages? For example, does a boss not hope to see a competitor disappear; would not all merchants in general want, reciprocally, to be the sole ones to enjoy the benefits such occupations may bring?

Does the unemployed worker not wish, in order to get work, that for whatever reason the one who is employed be thrown out of the workshop? Well, in a society where such things happen, one should not be surprised by acts like those I am reproached with, which are nothing but the logical consequence of the struggle for existence that forces men, in order to live, to use every kind of means. And since everyone is for themselves, is someone in need not reduced to doing what they must?

Well, since this is the case, I have no reason to hesitate, when I am hungry, to use the means at my disposal, even at the risk of causing victims! Do bosses, when they lay off workers, worry whether they will starve to death? Do all those who have more than enough concern themselves with whether there are people lacking in necessities?

There are indeed a few who offer help, but they are powerless to relieve everyone ​who are in need and who will die prematurely due to all sorts of deprivations, or voluntarily through various kinds of suicide to end a miserable existence and avoid having to endure the harshness of hunger, the countless shames and humiliations, with no hope of seeing them end.

Thus, this is what the Hayem family and the woman Souhein did, who killed her children so as not to see them suffer any longer, and all the women who, fearing they won’t be able to feed a child, do not hesitate to endanger their health and lives by destroying the fruit of their love within their wombs.

And all these things happen amidst an abundance of all kinds of products!

One could understand if this were happening in a country where goods are scarce, where there is famine.

But in France, where abundance reigns, where butcher shops are filled with meat, bakeries with bread, where clothing and shoes pile up in stores, and where there are vacant homes!

How can one accept that everything is fine in society when the opposite is seen so clearly?

There are many people who will pity all these victims but will tell you that there’s nothing they can do about it.

Everyone must fend for themselves! ​

What can someone who lacks the necessities do when they are working, if they find themselves unemployed? They are expected to simply let themselves starve to death. Then, a few words of pity will be cast upon their corpse. That is what I chose to leave for others. I preferred to become a smuggler, counterfeiter, thief, murderer, and assassin. I could have begged: it’s degrading and cowardly, and it’s even punished by your laws that criminalize poverty. If all those in need, instead of waiting, took what they required by any means necessary, those who are content might quickly understand that there is danger in wanting to preserve the current social order—where anxiety is constant and life is threatened at every moment.

Perhaps people will sooner come to understand that the anarchists are right when they say that to achieve moral and physical peace, we must destroy the causes that produce crimes and criminals. It is not by eliminating those who, rather than dying a slow death from deprivation—deprivations they have endured and would continue to endure without hope of relief—choose, if they have some courage, to violently take what can secure their well-being, even at the risk of their own death, which can only be an end to their suffering.

This is why I committed the acts I am reproached for, which are nothing but the logical consequence of the barbaric state of a society that only increases the number of its victims through the severity of its laws—laws that punish effects while never addressing the causes. They say it is cruel to take the life of a fellow human, but those who speak this way fail to see that one only resolves to do so to avoid such a fate themselves.

Likewise, you, gentlemen of the jury, who will no doubt condemn me to death, because you believe it to be a necessity and think my disappearance will bring satisfaction to you, who are horrified by the sight of human blood being spilled—but who, when you believe it useful to shed blood to ensure the security of your existence, will hesitate no more than I did, with this difference: you will do it without risking anything, whereas, on the contrary, ​I acted at the risk of my freedom and my life.

Well, gentlemen, there are no longer any criminals to judge, only the causes of crime to destroy. In creating the articles of the Code, the legislators forgot that they were not addressing the causes but merely the effects, and thus they did nothing to eliminate crime. Indeed, as long as the causes exist, the effects will inevitably follow.

There will always be criminals, for today you destroy one, and tomorrow ten more will arise. So, what is needed? To destroy poverty, the breeding ground of crime, by ensuring that everyone’s needs are met! And how easy this would be to achieve! It would suffice to reorganize society on new foundations where everything is held in common, and where each person, producing according to their abilities and strengths, could consume according to their needs.

Then we would no longer see people like the hermit of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and others reduced to begging for a metal that enslaves and victimizes them! We would no longer see women selling their charms, like a vulgar commodity, in exchange for that same metal, which so often prevents us from knowing whether affection is truly sincere. We would no longer see men like Pranzini, Prado, Berland, Anastay, and others who, always in pursuit of that metal, end up taking lives! This clearly demonstrates that the cause of all crimes is always the same, and one would have to be truly blind not to see it.

Yes, I repeat: it is society that creates criminals, and you, jurors, instead of punishing them, should use your intelligence and strength to transform society. By doing so, you would eliminate all crimes; and your work, by addressing the causes, would be greater and more fruitful than your justice, which diminishes itself by punishing only the effects.

I am only an uneducated worker; but because I have lived the life of the wretched, I feel the injustice of your repressive laws more deeply than any wealthy bourgeois. Where do you get the right to kill or imprison a man who, brought into this world with the necessity to live, found himself forced to take what he lacked in order to feed himself? I worked to live and to provide for my family; as long as neither I nor mine suffered too much, I remained what you call honest. But then work became scarce, and with unemployment came hunger. It was then that the great law of nature, that imperative voice that brooks no reply—the instinct for survival—drove me to commit some of the crimes and offenses you accuse me of, and which I admit to having committed.

Judge me, gentlemen of the jury, but if you have understood me, in judging me, judge all the unfortunate ones whose poverty, combined with their natural pride, has made criminals, and whose wealth, or even mere comfort, would have made them honest people!