A-Infos (en) Paris 1968 : When France rebelled

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Paris 1968 : 30 years ago : When France rebelled

THESE DAYS you are more likely to hear the word
'revolution' on the soundtrack of a film or on
the latest pop release than you are to hear
someone talking about bringing one about. It is
partly for this reason that people think of
revolutions as buried deep in history. Yet, as
little as 25 years ago France was on the verge of
a total revolt with 12 million workers on strike,
122 factories occupied, and students fighting
against the old moribund system in which they
found themselves.

In the late sixties in France real wages were on
the rise, but large sections of the working class
were still suffering from low pay. This was
despite foreign trade having tripled. 25% of all
workers were receiving less than 500 francs (£46)
per month. Some unskilled workers were only
getting 400 francs per month. Unemployment was at
half a million, in a period which was considered
a post-war boom. Trade union membership had
dropped to around 3 million, as opposed to 7
million in 1945. Not many victories had been won
in the preceding years. Michelin boasted that
they had only talked to trade unions three times
in thirty years. So how did everything change so
quickly in the France of 1968?

Nanterre was a university outside Paris. It was a
new souless campus built to cater for the
increased influx of students. The place was
unlike the throbbing cultural live wire of the
famous Latin Quarter (Left Bank).

On March 22nd 1968 eight students broke into the
Dean's office as a way to protest at the recent
arrest of six members of the National Vietnam
Committee. Among these was a sociology student
called Danny Cohn-Bendit. He had been part of a
group who organised a strike of 10,000 to 12,000
students in November of 1967 as a protest against
overcrowding.

STUDENT ANGER

In the preceding 10 years the student population
had risen from 170,000 to 514,000. Although the
state had provided some funding this was not
equal to the huge influx of students it had asked
the universities and colleges to take. The total
area covered by university premises had doubled
since 1962 but the student numbers had almost
tripled. Facilities were desperately inadequate
and overcrowding was a serious issue.

Six days after the occupation of the Dean's
office the police were called in and the campus
was surrounded. 500 students inside the college
divided into discussion groups. Sociology
students began to boycott their exams and a
pamphlet was produced entitled 'Why do we need
sociologists?'. The students called for a lecture
hall to be permanently made available for
political discussions.

The lecturers began to split, some in favour of
the student demands. The college did provide a
room, but by the 2nd of April a meeting of 1,200
students was held in one of the main lecture
halls.

MARCH 22nd MOVEMENT

After the Easter break agitation was more
rampant. On April 22nd (one month after the
occupation) a meeting was held in lecture hall
B1. It was attended by 1,500 students and the
resulting manifesto called for "Outright
rejection of the Capitalist Technocratic
University" and followed this by a call for
solidarity with the working class. It was clear
that the March 22nd Movement (which had come
together as a semi-formal alliance of anti-
authoritarian socialist students) was winning the
battle of ideas in the campus amongst their
fellow students.

The college decided to discipline eight of the
students involved, including Cohn-Bendit. They
were called upon to appear before the
disciplinary committee of the Sorbonne on May
3rd. Four lecturers volunteered to defend them.

The education strike had not interested the
Minister for Education. There were major
industrial strikes the preceding year at
Rhodiaceta and Saviem. In Rhodiaceta (a synthetic
fibres factory in Lyons) a strike took place
involving 14,000 workers over 23 days. Management
went on to sack 92 militants at the end of the
year and had also resorted to lock-outs. In June
of 1967 Peugeot called in riot police during a
dispute and two workers were killed.

>From March to May 1968 there was a total of
eighty cases of industrial action at the Renault
Billancourt car plant. It was becoming obvious
that "the French did not interest their leaders"
as Alain Touraine (a professor at Nanterre who
was prepared to defend the student action) said.
These leaders were soon about to be awoken from
their oblivious slumber.

RED & BLACK Flags drape the ARC De TRIOMPHE

On Friday May 3rd a few students gathered in the
front square of the Sorbonne. The students were
from Nanterre and they were joined by activists
from the Sorbonne college itself. The 'Nanterre
Eight' were about to face charges on the
following Monday. The eight and some colleagues
from Nanterre were meeting student activists from
the Sorbonne to discuss the impending Monday.

The crowd began to swell and the college
authorities panicked. By 4pm the Sorbonne was
surrounded by police and the Campagnies
Republicaines de Securite (CRS riot police).
Students were being arrested by the CRS, on the
basis that they were spotted wearing motorcycle
helmets. News spread rapidly and students came
from all over the city. Fighting began to free
those who had already been arrested. Such was
this battle between students and police that the
college closed.

This was only the second time in 700 years that
the Sorbonne was forced to close, the other time
being in 1940 when the Nazis took Paris.

The National Union of Students (UNEF) and the
Lecturers' Union (SNESup) immediately called a
strike and issued the following demands

1. Re-Open the Sorbonne.

2. Withdraw the Police.

3. Release those arrested.

These unions were joined by the March 22nd
Movement. The original discontent had arisen from
overcrowding but it now began to take on a larger
perspective.

POLICE RIOT

On Monday May 6th the 'Nanterre 8' passed through
a police cordon singing the 'Internationale'.
They were on their way to appear before the
University Discipline Committee. The students
decided to march through Paris. On their return
to the Latin Quarter they were savagely attacked
by the police on the Rue St. Jacques.

The students tore up paving stones and overturned
cars to form barricades. Police pumped Tear Gas
into the air and called for reinforcements. The
Boulevard St Germain became a bloody battleground
with the official figures at the end of the day
reading: 422 arrests and 345 policemen injured.
This day was to go into the annals of '68 as
"Bloody Monday".

A long march followed on the Tuesday and by
outmanouvering the police Red & Black Flags were
draped from the Arc De Triomphe and the
'Internationale' echoed around the streets. The
week continued on in a similar fashion and the
streets were alive with crowds and talk of
politics. By Wednesday public opinion was
shifting.

STOMACH FOR A FIGHT

The middle classes were appalled by the brutality
dished out to the students by the police and
large sections of the working class were inspired
by the students' stomach for a fight against the
state. On Friday (May 10th) 30,000 students,
including high school students, had gathered
around the Place Defret-Rochercau. They marched
towards the Sorbonne along the Boulevard St.
Germain. All roads leading off the boulevard were
blocked by police armed for conflict.

Fifty barricades were erected by the
demonstrators in preparation for an attack by the
police. Jean Jacques Lebel a reporter wrote that
by 1am "Literally thousands help build barricades
...women, workers, bystanders, people in pyjamas,
human chains to carry rocks, wood, iron". "Our
barricade is double: one three foot high row of
cobble stones, an empty space of twenty yards,
then a nine foot high pile of wood, cars, metal
posts, dustbins. Our weapons are stones, metal,
etc found in the street." reported one eye
witness.

Radio reporters said that as many as sixty
barricades were erected in different streets.
France stayed up to listen to reports on Europe
One and Radio Luxembourg. The government had
yielded on two of the three demands but would not
release those arrested. There was to be no
"Liberez nos comrades! ".

THE BEAT GOES ON

The barricades were attacked by the police. They
used tear gas and CS grenades. Students and
demonstrators used handkerchiefs soaked in baking
soda to protect themselves from the nauseous
gasses. Fighting continued throughout the night.
Houses were stormed by the police and people were
dragged and clubbed as they were thrown into
vans. The police, and in particular the CRS, were
most brutal in their treatment of the
demonstrators.

There were reports of pregnant women being
beaten. Young men were stripped and some had
their sexual organs beaten until the flesh was in
ribbons. At the end of this battle of the streets
there were 367 people injured, and 460 arrested.
On Saturday morning troop carriers were brought
in to clear the barricades and they were booed
and hissed as they drove down the Boulevard St
Germain.

On Monday May 13th the students were released but
the spark had already started the forest fire.
The trade unions called a one-day strike and a
march was organised in Paris for the same day.
Over 200,000 people (a conservative figure)
turned up for the march shouting "De Gaulle
Assassin". The leader of the government was now
singled out as an enemy by the people. After the
march there was a call for the crowd to disperse
and many did but a large group of students
decided that they would occupy the Sorbonne.

COMMUNISTS UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS.

The PCF (French Communist Party) had condemned
the Nanterre rebels from the start. Their future
General Secretary, Georges Marchais, published an
article entitled "False revolutionaries to be
unmasked". In this article he claimed the March
22nd Movement were "mostly sons of the grand
bourgeois, contemptuous towards the students of
working class origin" and predicted that they
would "quickly snuff out their revolutionary
flames to become directors in Papa's
business....."

But by May 8th the when the party leadership saw
the size of the movement they changed their tune
and attempted to take control of the uprising.
They saw that the example of the students was now
being followed in the workplaces. They thought it
better to be seen encouraging action than letting
the situation escape their control.

Once again the Communists had misjudged the
situation. The CGT (the Communist dominated trade
union) leadership also started to support
workplace action, though only after workers had
already taken the lead. Louis Aragon (France's
most famous Communist writer) was sent to address
a meeting at the Odeon. Those of the March 22nd
Movement who were present jeered and heckled him
throughout with satirical cries of "Long live
Stalin, father of all people".

One member of the political bureau Roger Garudy
embraced the students' doctrine of economic self-
management, autonomous councils and
decentralisation. Along with extending solidarity
with the aims of the students he also applauded
the events of the "Prague Spring". He was soon
expelled from the PCF.

TRUTH IS WHATEVER SERVES THE PARTY

Mostly, the PCF persisted in classifying the
student movement as "an entire ultra-left, petty-
bourgeois cocktail of Bakunin, Trotskyism and
plain adventurism...". Around this time an
anonymous article was published in the party
paper 'L'Humanite'. It's author claimed that the
Minister for Youth had "contacts" with Cohn-
Bendit and that money was granted to the March
22nd Movement. This accusation was a complete
fabrication and the height of some very strange
imagination. This, of course, was neither the
first nor last time the Communists resorted to
this type of tactic.

The Sorbonne became transformed overnight as
posters of Marx, Lenin, and Mao decorated the old
pillars surrounding the front square. Red & Black
flags hung alongside the Vietcong flag. Trotsky,
Castro and Che Guevara pictures were plastered on
walls alongside slogans such as "Everything is
Possible" and "It is Forbidden to Forbid". This
picture of the Sorbonne gives a good indication
of the confusion of ideologies encompassed within
the student movement.

A fifteen person occupation committee was elected
on the May 14th and its mandate was limited to 24
hours. The central amphitheatre was pulsating day
and night with political debate. The examination
system was condemned as "being the rite of
initiation into the capitalist society". The
March 22nd Movement wanted to "eradicate the
distinction between workers and managers rather
than turn more workers' sons into managers".

REVOLUTIONARY COLLECTABLES

The Ecole de Beux Arts (School of Fine Arts) was
occupied on May 14th. There were meetings every
morning at which themes were chosen. Then posters
would be produced via a silk screen production
basis. It was most ironic that these posters
became almost immediately collectors' items and
were soon to be found in the homes of the rich.

The posters were covered with such slogans as
"Mankind will not live free until the last
capitalist has been hanged with the entrails of
the last bureaucrat". "The general will against
the will of the general". "Commodities are the
opium of the people". Paris was plastered with
such posters.

The political atmosphere of the time led to
occupations by radical doctors, architects, and
writers. Even the Cannes film festival was
disrupted in 1968 when "Jean-Luc Godard and
Francois Truffaut seized the festival hall in
support of the national strike movement".

STRIKES

On the 14th of May the workers of Sud Aviation
near Nantes occupied their factory. Then Renault
plants at Cleon, Flins, Le Mans and Boulogne
Billancourt all went on strike. Young workers at
Cleon refused to leave the factory at the end of
their shift and locked the manager into his
office. The union leadership were stumbling
behind the mood of the workers. At places like
Sud-Aviation the decision to go on indefinite
strike was taken by the workers without
consulting the union officials.

The CGT leaders had been taken totally by
surprise and now were desperately trying not to
lose all influence. The workers were leading, in
their demands and actions. The union leadership -
for a short time - followed like a dog keeping up
with its master, as it saw this as the only
method to maintaining some influence over the
workers.

On May 16th a few thousand students marched to
Boulogne Billancourt where 35,000 workers were on
strike. The CGT officials locked the factory
gates to discourage communication. But workers
got up on the roof of the factory and shouted
greetings and discussions took place though the
iron railings. Solidarity was there and it could
not be suppressed by a few chains and locked
gates.

Industrial Normandy, Paris and Lyons closed down
virtually on mass. On May 18th coal production
stopped and public transport in Paris halted. The
National Railways were next to go out on strike.
Gas and electricity workers took over control of
their workplaces but continued domestic supplies.
Red flags hung from shipyards at St Nazaire which
employed 10,000 workers. The weekend of the 19th
of May saw two million people on strike and 122
factories were reported to be occupied.

STRIKE WAVE SWEEPS FRANCE

Money withdrawals from banks were limited to 500
francs as the possibility of a Bank Of France
strike panicked people. Petrol supplies soon
dried up as drivers stocked up. By Monday the
20th no cross-channel ferries were in operation
and tourists queued for buses or evacuation
coaches to Brussels, Geneva, and Barcelona.

The Citroen factory which employed a lot of
immigrant labour from Portugal, North Africa and
Yugoslavia was still in operation. On the May
20th as the morning shift headed into work at 6am
they were greeted with the sight of a student
picket. As the young foreign workers were
puzzling over the students' leaflets and whether
or not to go into work along came a march of
colleagues from a nearby factory. Citroen was on
strike.

The textile industry and big department stores of
Paris joined the snowballing general strike on
Tuesday 21st. The air traffic controllers in Orly
and French television (ORTF) had already voted to
come out the previous Friday.

On the 20th of May ORTF staff issued the
following demands;

1. Forty Hour Week

2. Lower Retirement Age.

3. Abrogation of the anti-strike laws of 1963.

4. Minimum wage of 1000 francs a week.

5. Repeal of the government's involvement in the
television station.

Teachers were on strike as of the 22nd, although
many attended school in order to keep in contact
with school students as the unions had requested.

NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME TO DIE

Within a fortnight of the general strike being
called, more than nine million workers were out
on strike. As one person put it "On Wednesday the
undertakers went on strike. Now is not a good
time to die."

Workers displayed a great ability to lead by
example. The gas and electricity workers joined
the strike but maintained supplies apart from a
few brief power cuts. Food supplies reached Paris
as normal after initial disruptions. The postal
workers agreed to deliver urgent telegrams.

Print workers said they did not wish to leave a
monopoly of media coverage to TV and radio and
agreed to print newspapers as long as the press
"carries out with objectivity the role of
providing information which is its duty". In some
cases print-workers insisted on changes in
headlines or articles before they would print the
paper. This happened mostly with the right wing
papers such as 'Le Figaro' or 'La Nation'.

In some factories workers continued or altered
production to suit their needs. In the CSF
factory in Brest the workers produced walkie-
talkies which they considered important to both
strikers and demonstrators alike. At the Wonder
Batteries factory in Saint-Ouen the strike
committee disapproved of the reformist line of
the CGT and decided to barricade themselves in
rather than talk to the union officials.

A WORKERS' CITY

In Nantes, the whole movement and events of 1968
were to reach a pinnacle. For a week in May the
city and it's surrounding area was controlled by
the workers, themselves. The old guardians of
power and authority looked on helplessly as
workers took control of their own lives and city.
On May 24th road blocks were set up around the
city as farmers made a protest of solidarity with
the workers and students.

The transport workers took over the road blocks
and they controlled all incoming traffic. Petrol
supplies were controlled, with no petrol tankers
being allowed into the city without the workers'
permission. The only functioning petrol pump was
reserved for use by doctors. By circumventing the
middle man, the workers and farmers made it
possible to reduce the cost of food. Milk was now
50 centimes as opposed to 80 previously. Potatoes
dropped 48 centimes per kilo in price.

To make sure these price cuts were passed on,
shops had to display stickers provided by the
strike committee saying "This shop is authorised
to open. Its prices are under permanent
supervision by the unions". Teachers and students
organised nurseries so that strikers' children
were cared for while the schools were closed.
Women played a very active role in Nantes
organising, not only as strikers but also playing
a vital role in committees dealing with food
supplies.

This all too brief week in Nantes is a prime
example of the working class seizing control of
an area and running it in a socialist manner,
even in such difficult circumstances. We can see
that the society created in many ways was an
improvement on the one Nantes unfortunately
slipped back into after the events of 1968.

PACIFY AND DISSIPATE

De Gaulle, now fearing for the survival of his
government and slowly looking at his power
disappear, addressed the country on television on
May 24th. He spoke of "a more extensive
participation of everyone in the conduct and the
result of the activities which directly concern
them." De Gaulle asked the people through a
referendum as a "mandate for renewal and
adaption".

On the same day the March 22nd Movement organised
a demonstration. 30,000 marched towards the
Palace de la Bastille. The police had the
Ministries protected, using the usual devices of
tear gas and batons, but the Bourse (Stock
Exchange) was left unprotected. This was the time
to act and a number of demonstrators armed with
axe handles, wooden clubs and iron bars went and
set fire to it.

It was at this stage that some left wing groups
lost their nerve. The Trotskyist JCR turned
people back into the Latin Quarter. Other groups
such as UNEF and Parti Socialiste Unife (United
Socialist Party) blocked the taking of the
Ministries of Finance and Justice. Cohn-Bendit
said of this incident "As for us, [March 22
Movement] we failed to realize how easy it would
have been to sweep all these nobodies away....It
is now clear that if, on 25 May, Paris had woken
to find the most important Ministries occupied,
Gaullism would have caved in at once....". Cohn-
Bendit was forced into exile later that very
night.

The students of the March 22nd Movement would not
have caused the collapse of Gaullism with this
occupation, but it would have raised the
consciousness of many of the young militant
workers who were inspired by the fighting spirit
shown by the students. The students' struggle,
although confused, and encompassing many varying
ideologies, had been an inspiration. The dynamite
was there and the student uprising was the fuse
paper.

TO THE MINISTRIES

The occupation of the Ministries would have been
one step further along the line towards a social
revolution. Of the 12 million workers now on
strike only 3 million were previousely involved
in trade unions. The general strike which had
paralysed the country saw workers' demands far
surpass those issued by the union leaders.
Expectations had been raised by the wave of
agitation that was sweeping across the land.

The occupations of the Ministries could have
brought an awareness to people that what could be
won here was more than economic agreements with
the bosses. The move would have brought the
workers closer to the realisation that what was
at stake here was how the system was run and not
just how to tinker with its engine. In every
uprising of the sort we witnessed in 1968 there
is a need for organised groups to win the battle
of ideas and to fuse those ideas into action so
that people are aware of what can be gained, what
victories are possible.

The student movement, if it had of occupied the
government buildings, would have taken a step in
this direction. The workers were inspired by the
fight of the students on the streets of Paris,
militant workers would have been inspired by the
occupations of the Ministries, and a realisation
could have swept through France that there was
more to be won than pay rises from the bosses.

FIN

By Monday May 27th the Government had guaranteed
an increase of 35% in the industrial minimum wage
and an all round wage increase of 10%. The
leaders of the CGT organised a march of 500,000
workers through the streets of Paris two days
later. Paris was covered in posters calling for a
'Government of the People'. Unfortunately the
majority still thought in terms of changing their
rulers rather than taking control for themselves.

De Gaulle and his puppets had been so scared by
the possibility of revolution that he flew to
military airfield at Saint-Dizier and talked with
his top Generals, making sure that he could rely
on them if he needed the army's help to maintain
his grip on power. On May 30th he once again
appeared on French television abandoning his
plans for the referendum and promising elections
within forty days.

De Gaulle in typical fashion promised tougher
measures if, as he put it, "the whole French
people were gagged or prevented from leading a
normal existence, by those elements (Reds &
Anarchists) that are being used to prevent
students from studying, the workers from
working....". Following De Gaulle's address the
CRS were sent to disperse the remaining pickets
from workplaces.

By June 5th most of the strikes were over and an
air of what passes for normality within
capitalism had swept back over France. Any
strikes which continued after this date were
crushed in a military style operation using
armoured vehicles and guns. In isolation those
pockets of militancy stood no chance.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

All street demonstrations were banned and once
again the PCF sought respectability by using its
influence to destroy what was left of the action
committees. By the end of June the colleges were
regained and the Red & Black flags were torn down
from the front of the Sorbonne.

In this climate of defeat and demoralisation
people turned back to the certainties of
conservatism. In the elections the Gaullists
captured 60% of the vote. Their grip on the reins
of power was reinforced.

In 1968 you had a system which is replicated in
most countries in western Europe today. Yet,
during the events of May that system was in total
turmoil and De Gaulle had forseen that he might
have had to use the army to crush the movement of
people. The streets of France could have flowed
with blood like they most certainly did in Chile
five years later.

Cohn-Bendit and the March 22nd Movement aspired
to a classless society based on workers' councils
where the division of labour between order-givers
and order-takers disappeared. But obviously this
vision of a future society was not shared by
others on the left and the part they played was
to place more obstacles in the way rather than to
overcome the ones that already existed.

Where the power of the state has been broken
down, the working class led by example, as in
Nantes where they showed themselves capable of
controlling and managing their city. The most
active strikers were more progressive and far
sighted than their union leaders. Workers showed
that there was more to be attained than simple
demands and inspiringly took that fight to the
bosses.

STALINISTS WANTED TOTAL CONTROL

Why did France '68 ultimately fail? There was no
co-ordination of ideas or tactics when events
reached a crucial stage. The influential PCF
believed that their power would increase in the
elections and so were hostile to all movements
which were outside of their control. The trade
union leadership helped pacify the workers by
restricting the focus of workers to 'bread and
butter' demands and away from the wider political
issues.

Many people had fine aspirations but not much
idea of how to achieve those aims. Too many
things were left to chance and the whole movement
seemed to stumble on from day to day like a blind
man desperately trying to find the light of
freedom that must exist at the end of the tunnel.
What lessons can we learn from the events of '68.
We saw a developed capitalist society being
brought to the edge of revolt, people questioning
the entire system.

The events took place very rapidly as the working
class, fused by the energy and bravado of the
students, raised demands that could not be
catered for within the confines of the existing
system. The general strike displays with
beautiful clarity the potential power that lies
in the hands of the working class. However, the
situation needed more co-ordination and
organisation. The workers needed to organise
inter-workplace committees, and create a
mechanism whereby delegates began to deal with
the real problems.

FROM NEGOTIATIONS TO REVOLT

The anti-authoritarian left, though very active,
were too weak among striking workers. The various
workers on strike could have co-ordinated their
action in order to push the state backwards.
France was already in turmoil industrially and
the government was weakening. Workers' councils
and real democracy throughout the workplaces
could have led to stronger negotiations and,
eventually, outright revolt.

Once the factories went into a position of self-
management the state would be losing the battle.
Self-management never got onto the agenda, for
reasons explained above. Shopfloor workers needed
a mechanism to represent their views and have an
effective democratic decision making process. The
union leadership feared and circumvented this.
But through democratically elected delegates,
factory committees could have raised demands
which would be impossible for the state to
satisfy. It could have posed the question, who
should run France ?

We, the working class, must prepare ourselves for
the rapid explosion of revolt, so that we do not
settle for pay rises when more is to be won. We
win pay rises when we can but in France in 1968
the state was more vulnerable and the possibility
for a radical change in society was there. We
must have the ideas and a system prepared to
replace the one we live under at present. When
our chance comes to knock the bosses from their
pedestal we must grab it with both hands. We must
destroy and replace the system when it falls into
a position of weakness, not just for our own
sakes but for the future of humanity.

Dermot Sreenan

originally published in 1993 in Workers Solidarity

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