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Title: Paris 1968 Author: Dermot Sreenan Date: 1993 Language: en Topics: 1968, France 1968, France, Paris, Workers Solidarity Source: Retrieved on 3rd August from https://web.archive.org/web/20070817150729/http://struggle.ws/ws93/paris39.html Notes: From Workers Solidarity No39.
THESE DAYS you are more likely to hear the word ârevolutionâ 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 (ÂŁ46) 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 22^(nd) 1968 eight students broke into the Deanâs 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.
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 Deanâs 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 âWhy do we need
sociologists?â. 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 2^(nd) of April a meeting of
1,200 students was held in one of the main lecture halls.
After the Easter break agitation was more rampant. On April 22^(nd) (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
âOutright rejection of the Capitalist Technocratic Universityâ and
followed this by a call for solidarity with the working class. It was
clear that the March 22^(nd) 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 3^(rd). 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 âthe French did not interest their leadersâ 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.
On Friday May 3^(rd) 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 âNanterre Eightâ 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 Lecturersâ 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 22^(nd) Movement. The original
discontent had arisen from overcrowding but it now began to take on a
larger perspective.
On Monday May 6^(th) the âNanterre 8â passed through a police cordon
singing the âInternationaleâ. 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 â68 as
âBloody Mondayâ.
A long march followed on the Tuesday and by outmanouvering the police
Red & Black Flags were draped from the Arc De Triomphe and the
âInternationaleâ 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.
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 studentsâ stomach for a fight against the state. On
Friday (May 10^(th)) 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
âLiterally thousands help build barricades ...women, workers,
bystanders, people in pyjamas, human chains to carry rocks, wood, ironâ.
âOur 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.â 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
âLiberez nos comrades! â.
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 13^(th) 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 âDe
Gaulle Assassinâ. 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.
The PCF (French Communist Party) had condemned the Nanterre rebels from
the start. Their future General Secretary, Georges Marchais, published
an article entitled âFalse revolutionaries to be unmaskedâ. In this
article he claimed the March 22^(nd) Movement were âmostly sons of the
grand bourgeois, contemptuous towards the students of working class
originâ and predicted that they would âquickly snuff out their
revolutionary flames to become directors in Papaâs business.....â
But by May 8^(th) 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 (Franceâs most famous Communist writer) was sent to address
a meeting at the Odeon. Those of the March 22^(nd) Movement who were
present jeered and heckled him throughout with satirical cries of âLong
live Stalin, father of all peopleâ.
One member of the political bureau Roger Garudy embraced the studentsâ
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 âPrague Springâ. He was
soon expelled from the PCF.
Mostly, the PCF persisted in classifying the student movement as âan
entire ultra-left, petty-bourgeois cocktail of Bakunin, Trotskyism and
plain adventurism...â. Around this time an anonymous article was
published in the party paper âLâHumaniteâ. Itâs author claimed that the
Minister for Youth had âcontactsâ with Cohn-Bendit and that money was
granted to the March 22^(nd) 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 âEverything
is Possibleâ and âIt is Forbidden to Forbidâ. 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 14^(th) 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 âbeing the rite of initiation into the capitalist
societyâ. The March 22^(nd) Movement wanted to âeradicate the
distinction between workers and managers rather than turn more workersâ
sons into managersâ.
The Ecole de Beux Arts (School of Fine Arts) was occupied on May
14^(th). 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 collectorsâ
items and were soon to be found in the homes of the rich.
The posters were covered with such slogans as âMankind will not live
free until the last capitalist has been hanged with the entrails of the
last bureaucratâ. âThe general will against the will of the generalâ.
âCommodities are the opium of the peopleâ. 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 âJean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut seized the
festival hall in support of the national strike movementâ.
On the 14^(th) 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 â for a short time â
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 16^(th) 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 18^(th) 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 19^(th) of May saw two
million people on strike and 122 factories were reported to be occupied.
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 20^(th) 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
20^(th) 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 studentsâ 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 21^(st). The air traffic
controllers in Orly and French television (ORTF) had already voted to
come out the previous Friday.
On the 20^(th) of May ORTF staff issued the following demands;
Teachers were on strike as of the 22^(nd), although many attended school
in order to keep in contact with school students as the unions had
requested.
Within a fortnight of the general strike being called, more than nine
million workers were out on strike. As one person put it âOn Wednesday
the undertakers went on strike. Now is not a good time to die.â
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 âcarries out with objectivity the role of providing information
which is its dutyâ. 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 âLe Figaroâ or âLa Nationâ.
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.
In Nantes, the whole movement and events of 1968 were to reach a
pinnacle. For a week in May the city and itâs 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 24^(th) 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 workersâ 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 âThis shop is
authorised to open. Its prices are under permanent supervision by the
unionsâ. Teachers and students organised nurseries so that strikersâ
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.
De Gaulle, now fearing for the survival of his government and slowly
looking at his power disappear, addressed the country on television on
May 24^(th). He spoke of âa more extensive participation of everyone in
the conduct and the result of the activities which directly concern
them.â De Gaulle asked the people through a referendum as a âmandate for
renewal and adaptionâ.
On the same day the March 22^(nd) 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 âAs 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....â.
Cohn-Bendit was forced into exile later that very night.
The students of the March 22^(nd) 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 studentsâ struggle,
although confused, and encompassing many varying ideologies, had been an
inspiration. The dynamite was there and the student uprising was the
fuse paper.
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 workersâ 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.
By Monday May 27^(th) 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 âGovernment of the Peopleâ. 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 armyâs help to maintain his grip on power. On May 30^(th) 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,
âthe 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....â. Following
De Gaulleâs address the CRS were sent to disperse the remaining pickets
from workplaces.
By June 5^(th) 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.
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 22^(nd) Movement aspired to a classless
society based on workersâ 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.
Why did France â68 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 âbread and butterâ 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 â68. 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.
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. Workersâ 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.