LoL84
1st July 2005, 13:33
Hi, i'm french.
Here a text exit of the files of political formation of my organization about May 1968.
BEFORE MAY
Politization of avantguard
The generation born during the Second World War is 20 years old in 1960. The war of Algeria makes rage: first awakening, the first engagement militants. To support the Algerian people in his right to independence, to fight against colonialism, the French imperialism, counters torture, counters the fascists who prevail in Algeria and France. But to support the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front) is also to support the socialist project which it carries.
The UEC (Union of the communist students) polarizes the majority of the young students eager to engage. Not always in the line of the Party, they start to pass to the active support for the victory of the Algerian people and not only for peace. On the basis of the faculty of the Sorbonne, committees antifascists assemble themselves and federate in the FUA (Unit Front Antifascist). With the fascists the confrontations are not rare.
On the other side of the Atlantic also, the world is shaken. In Cuba, a guerrilla started and succeeded in reversing the dictatorship. Fidel Castro nationalizes the American companies. So close to will the United States, the hopes raised by the cuban revolution gain South America? The mythical figure of Che is already widespread among politicized youth.
On the other side of the Pacific, in Vietnam, still against the USA, the Vietnamese people fights with unequal forces. The images of the war of Vietnam diffused throughout the world cause the revolt. From Berkley in Paris, from Berlin in Tokyo the students mobilize themselves on this question: demonstrations, meeting... The majority of the organizations, including the PCF (Communist Party French), are satisfied to claim peace in Vietnam. But "FNL will overcome" is a watchword which starts to be spread; the JCR (Revolutionary Communist Youth) will hang the flag of the FNL on the faculty of the Sorbonne.
All these events support the political awakening of an increasingly broad avant-garde... The violence of the French imperialism or American leads many students to radicalize themselves. Dimension internationalist is omnipresent. Each fight of independence in the Third World is the demonstration of the bankruptcy of the strategy of peaceful coexistence which is that of the USSR. So that youth politicizes itself on bases progressists, even revolutionary, but in rupture with the PCF.
Situation in faculties
The generation of the Baby-boom is thus twenty years old in the Sixties. The number of students is multiplied by ten, the faculty is not more strictly reserved to the children of bourgeois. The universities, they, did not move. Then cavity, the lecture theaters start to be overloaded, the university cities cannot accomodate everyone, it does not have there enough of Professor... The state then builds the faculty of Nanterre and Jussieu, heads of works of architecture... Nanterre in the medium of the shantytown, Jussieu on the old wine market, in full Latin Quarter.
The arrival of the children of the middle class to faculty transforms a little the studied medium: odd jobs, financial problems, rooms of good good market... The studies that is expensive, and the parents always do not have the means of paying them.
The operation of faculty either did not move: the mandarins are well places from there, the professor-students ratios are rather Master-disciple ratios. The authority reigns inside faculties, the senior is respected. But not for a long time... The moral order reigns, girls and boys are separate in the university cities, contraception does not have right of city, in the family the authority of the father is uncontested, the woman must be a good housewife... The consumer society is there: refrigerator, car, radio, cooker... The aspiration with comfort and modernity touches all the social classes with the measurement of their means.
The students wonder about their future, on becoming it that reserves the bourgeoise society to them, on the role which one will make them play later.
Militant structures
At the time of the war of Algeria there is only one UNEF (National Union of the French Students), the "large UNEF". Before May, it is rather on the decline but continuous with being a relatively massive organization. Social status of the student, allowance of study for all, more room in university cities, more professors... it also engaged against the war in Algeria.
The Union of the Communist Students then organizes most of politicized youth. Several currents clash inside, more or less in dissension with the line of the Communist Party. Many is in search of a true revolution, not Soviet who turned to the dictatorship and is far from to have reached socialism. Some will believe to find in the Chinese revolution the true revolution.
The opposition of left is then animated by militants trotskists. Finally, after an animated congress, one comes to the hands and it is on positioning compared to the candidature of Mitterrand into 1965 that the militants of the future JCR are made exclude: the PCF supports without condition the socialist candidate whereas part of the UEC is opposed to it.
Exclude from the UEC, a hundred militants melt in April 1966 the JCR. Denouncing the Stalinist dictatorship, they will join the French section of the Fourth International one only after 1968.
In April 1966, Mao Zédong launches the great "proletarian Cultural revolution", in December, to France is born the Union from communist youth Marxist-Leninist, UJC(ml) exit of a fraction of the UEC. They are recognized in the Chinese revolution, criticize the "revisionism" of Khroutchev i.e. the criticism of Stalin and shows it reformism. A certain number of them are with faculty normalienne, their headquarters will be thus the street of Ulm.
The war of Vietnam continues, of the committees are assembled a little everywhere. National the Vietnam committee, directed primarily by the JCR, is founded in November 66, whereas the Americans bombard north and the demilitarized zone. In February of the following year, are basic the Vietnam committees which are born, directed by UJC(ml). Until May 68, the revolt does not cease going up against the American giant. In January 68, the offensive of the Small fireclay cup, the thousand of dead GI' S definitively put the American public opinion on the side of peace. February the 17, and 18 1968 an international demonstration of solidarity with Vietnam is organized in Berlin. The JCR is present there as a delegation.
In the colleges also the revolt is organized, in particular around the question of Vietnam, but not only. In December 1967, birth of the CAL (Committee of Action High-school pupil), the JCR is in a majority there but they much more largely organize the high-school pupils. Exclusion for political activity of a high-school pupil of Condorcet, militant of the JCR involves manif of 2000 high-school pupils. The CAL intervene on the school questions and solidarity with Vietnam.
A fast politization of youth, a world effervescence around Cuba, of Vietnam and China, other side authority and the consumer society, immediate claims on the conditions of study and the hopes of revolution, before guard which dreams only of that... In January 68, The World (French daily newspaper) title "France is bored", and yet...
EVENTS OF MAY
As we saw, the dispute coed is made a little any azimuths. Fight against the imperialism, support for the revolutions in the Third World, refusal of becoming of framework that reserves the bourgeoisie society to them, refusal of the ideological censure of the lesson, refusal of the patriarchate, repressive morals. The bond between all these subjects, it is the fight against the established order. The anger coed accumulated her loads, May 68 will be the explosion.
Damned of Nanterre
Built in suburbs, between the shantytowns and the station of the Madness, the faculty of Nanterre cultivates a "interior life" intense. The departments of sociology, psychology and philosophy abound with new ideas and protestors.
At the beginning of January 68, François Missoffe, Minister for Youth and the sports, is shaken by the students when it comes to inaugurate the swimming pool of faculty. Challenged on the sexual problems of the young people, it suggests with his interlocutor who is not other than Daniel Cohn-Bendit to plunge three times in the swimming pool to calm itself. Students make sign a petition against the not-co-education of the dormitories in university city. In reprisals, 29 student is expelled of the city academics without notice.
Five of the 29 expelled students of the city academics did not have anything to see with sexual agitation, but are militant gauchists. Why were they excluded? Of course for their political opinions. And that means that the university administration collaborates with the police force to drive the gauchists!!! January 68 always, the students post in the hall of the portrait-photographs of the cops into civil whom they located in the faculty. The senior sends his porters to put an end to this agitation. Insufficient! The police force enters then on the campus and it is a heat brawls which opposes a few hundreds of students and the police officers.
Following the attack commando of the seat of American Express train by the "National Vietnam Committee", 6 people are challenged, of which a militant of the student JCR with Nanterre. The students of Nanterre do not remain passive in front of repression, occupy an amphitheatre to discuss then decide to occupy the room of the council of the university. They are 142 to spend the night in top of the symbol of the hierarchy which is the administrative tower of Nanterre. They and they then melt the "Movement of March 22", in reference to "Mouvement of July 26 "of Fidel Castro. It is the beginning of spring...
The incidents with the extreme-right side multiply in April. "To break of the Bolshevik" of the group of extreme-right-side "Occident" is the principal objective. Brawls, attacks of trade-union buildings, environment goes up, as well as the tone. An official statement of Occident declares: "the police force will not have any more but to collect the agitators Marxists who will lie in the streets of the Latin Quarter. Hunting for the Bolsheviks is open "
May 1, the CGT (greater French trade union directed by the PCF) tries to prevent by the force the students from expressing at the sides of the workers: the working class is then the kept hunting of the PCF which multiplies the warnings with regard to the groups of the gauchists, trotskists and other anarchists...
May 2, the students of Nanterre expect a descent of the extreme-right side whereas they organize anti-imperialist days. They transform the campus into fortified camp; the senior of the faculty cracks: Halt with the brothel, it decides the closing of the faculty.
May 3, Meeting of protest against the closing of Nanterre in the court of the Sorbonne. A strong commando of Occident is announced. The students arm themselves with feet of chair or of table and... it is the police force which arrives. The vice-chancellor of the universities cracked him too. The police officers take on board the students "taken" in the court of the Sorbonne and it is there that the catch occurs, the unexpected event which will upset this May and will make waver the capacity gaullist: The mass of the students, more only the avant-garde, is solidarized with "their comrades" and is opposed by violence to this raid. The riot lasts of long hours. Anger coed is on fire. The police officers by their brutality, bludgeoning the students like the passers by, far from extinguishing fire unchain the revolt of this youth "too spoiled" in this France which appears it is bored.
The studied movement from the 4 to May 13
During this period youth leaves all alone to the attack the gaullist power in the joy and good mood. The confrontations of May 3 involved legal sanctions (prison sentences closes), of the university sanctions (8 student agitators are convened in front of the disciplinary board of the universities). Faculties of Nanterre and the Sorbonne are closed and occupied by the police force. The students then hold their three watchwords, three principal objectives for this period.
• Amnesty and immediate release of all the demonstrators;
• Reopening of the universities;
• Withdrawal of the police force of the university districts.
With the direction of the movement is an abstract trust of organizations coeds and teaching: the UNEF and Snesup (principal trade union of the professors of faculty) for the trade unions, the "Movement of the 22 mars" and the organizations political coeds as the JCR. It is this "representation coed" which from day to day will lay down the objectives and will launch the calls to be expressed.
The students rather quickly join the high-school pupils, CAL at the head, and the young workers who take part in the barricades in reaction to the violence of the cops.
The demonstrations impel the movement in way quasi day labourer. One of it finishes with the Fields-Elysées under the Triumphal arch where 40 000 young people sing the International , which makes a little disorder in the heart of the bourgeois quarter and in front of a symbol of the warlike chauvinistic stupidity. The majority of these demonstrations fall down inevitably on the perimeter of the severely kept Sorbonne and finish in confrontations.
As of the first days is born the Barricades reflex; good way of protecting itself from the CRS (Company Republican of Safety, called Crs-s-s by the demonstrators) which wants to you tabasser. Highest and the most beautiful barricades will be built by the students in the night from the 10 to May 11. After the unfruitful tests of the previous days to make release the Sorbonne, the students decided this evening to besiege there besieging them. This time the confrontations will last all during the night.
During these first days of May, the insurrectionary climate goes growing. Even if the objectives of the students "release the Sorbonne and our comrades" can seem ridiculous, it is nevertheless nothing to defy the capacity and its police force daily. The barricade is not that a means of defense it is also one of the alive symbols of the Parisian revolutionary history, of the revolution of 1848 with the release of 1945 while passing by the Commune of 1871.
For the revolutionary students and the JCR, the insurrection, the barricades that does not form part only of the "romantic" imagery of the revolt. That belonged to the program. But it misses an actor for a social revolution: The working class. There still, the brutality of the police force will assist from the good providence. One does not count any more the hundreds of casualties, of arrests, the scenes of blind violences, bludgeoning keen. The population followed either on line, or by the radio, the confrontations of this courageous youth with the watchdogs of the mode. It is solidarized; and the parties of left vis-a-vis this situation are well obliged to give an opinion, the more so as the organizations coeds has a presentiment of some. The PCF does not have of cease since the beginning to denounce the "agitators gauchists", the "pseudo-revolutionary" who make the power play. It tries artificially to separate the good students and their right claims from the bad students gauchists and their revolution. But in the last analysis, May 11, after this rather wild night of the barricades, the CGT, the CFDT, FO, the UNEF, Snes-sup (all French trade-union confederations) call with one day a general strike for Monday May 13.
Vis-a-vis this threat of extension, the Prime Minister, Pompidou, even yields the evening, it decides the reopening of the Sorbonne for Monday May 13 and the installation of procedures of release of challenged. It is a beautiful effort to defuse the conflict. But it is already too late.
From May 13, entered the fight of the employees
May 13 is the signal of the rallying for the working class. 800 000 demonstrators in Paris, 60 000 in Lyon, 50 000 in Toulouse, Marseilles, Bordeaux... The workers followed with attention the fight of the students, some were involved in their shows of force in Paris and in province. However what can observe the workmen? The students by their methods of action, occupation of the street, occupation of the faculty, political violence not only broke with the soft demonstrations and the days of action without a future to which the trade unions reformists accustomed, but in more these methods prove to be paying and capable to make move back the capacity. As in echo with the propaganda of the revolutionary students in favour of the connection student-workers, the employees of the large companies spontaneously start a movement of occupation of the factories and prolonged general strike, as from May 14.
The flashover of the working class is not done only on one blow of head. Since 1963 a cycle of remobilisation was felt. The annual growth rate of the production passed from 11,4% in 1960 to 4,7% in 1963. The consequences are seen on the cards of pay. The average annual take-home pay of a workman increased only by 5% of 1962 to 1963, whereas it had increased by 27% of 1959 to 1962. The State attacked paid public sector. The minors counteracted by a victorious strike of more than one month for a correction of their late wages of 11,5% compared to the average of the industrial wages.
In 1963 also, in accordance with the 65 000 workmen of Renault and to the 760 000 workers of the metallurgy of the Paris area, 4 million workers gained the fourth week of paid-leaves. Up to 1968, the attacks of the Gaullist power multiplied, against "the wage higher bid" (Pompidou), counter the social security, counter the social housing, counter the right to strike and in answer: Burden and social movements! The wages show a delay of 11,8% on the prices. The workers pay the increase in the productivity. The prices, the rents, electricity, the gas, the gasoline increase.
In January 1968 in Caen, Redon, Fougères of the clashes violent one take place between strikers of Saviem, Moulinex, Radiotechnology and the CRS. In February, March, April, they are the strikes of the metallurgy, the banks, of Air-inter. In a few years the reasons of anger accumulated.
May 14, 1968, the workmen of South-aviation of Bouguenais close to Nantes give the tone: They occupy their factory and sequester their owner! The 15, in fact the executives of Renault-Cléon in their turn are sequestered. The 16 strike extends at Renault, Flins, Mans, Billancourt. It is the metallurgy, more precisely aeronautics and the car, which enters the first in fight: It involves behind it all the working class. Transport is paralysed. 200 000 strikers 17. Two million 18. Four million 20. The strike extends in all the areas, in all the trade associations. There are eight million strikers on May 22. In nine days only the strike became general and unlimited without never the trade-union directions confederal not launching the watchword from there.
The studied movement then will pass in the second plan in the political situation. But the students themselves did not finish any with this flourishing spring. For the revolutionary students, it is even now that start the serious things. The power moved back. Very well. It should now be cut down. It is already more difficult. And that implies a strong work of conviction. In the released Sorbonne, in Odéon, Censier and other "cultural" places engage of true permanent forums. All discuss of all, it is a true release of the word, which mixes student, paid... Some colleges are occupied also.
But the true objective for the revolutionary remains the factories or the districts. If a certain number of committees of action including of the students are born in the districts, the CGT savagely takes care not to let the gauchists "contaminate" the workmen with their revolutionary ideas, by closing the doors of the factories to the students. The existence of this Communist Party French reformist, institutionalized and his seizure on the proletariat via the CGT, makes difficult even impossible the junction student-workers almost everywhere... The latter, by occupying the factories joined again with the experiment of 1936. But occupation of the apparatus of production does not mean necessarily car-organization and democracy in the fight.
The experiment of the Commune of Nantes with its central committee of strike elected unifying inhabitants, workers, farmers, students and managing a time the city remains insulated. In the majority of the cases the CGT fearing the overflow is placed at the ordering of the action without more discussion. In North-Not-of-Calais, only 14% of the strike committees are elected. 23% of the committees include non-unionists. 2% of the committees are revocable! If operation in general assembly represents an innovation of May 68, the delegation of powers on mandate and the control of these delegates by the base remain largely insufficient.
The democratic deficiencies make it possible trade-union bureaucrates to isolate the workers from the revolutionary students by controlling the strike pickets, but also to partition the workers of a company to another. It will be necessary several days of discussion so that a delegation of Renault-Flins can enter to Renault-Billancourt. Proletarians of all the Renault factories, you link...
The studied movement is eclipsed by the working beachcomber. It does not have any more an objective since it gained on its three immediate points. It is not structured enough, nor rather extremely to state clear proposals for a questioning of the capacity. The students continue to call and take part in all the great demonstrations. They make an effort everywhere or that is possible to be at the sides of the workers and to engage the debate.
May the 22 and 23 the students cling in evening with the police force to the Latin Quarter. May 24 whereas the processions of paid and students converge Gare of Lyon to the call of the CGT, De Gaulle is expressed with the radio. Its proposal for a referendum on the participation makes a total bide. In answer, the demonstrators stress "Good-bye Df Gaulle, good-bye...", the processions shake. The demonstration being prohibited, it degenerates immediately into confrontations which will be propagated right bank with left bank of the Seine. Whereas the purse is set fire to by a group of demonstrators, a new night of the barricades proceeds with the Latin Quarter, up to six hours of the morning.
During this time from the 14 to May 24, everyone looks at side of the Elysium and Matignon; the power is touched, but what will occur? The committees of occupation of factories, the Sorbonne, in Odéon, the committees of action of districts, scenario writers, the CAL, all that abounds in energy but does not constitute the embryo of a democratic body of countervailing power. The more so as the PCF, which is claimed the single party of the working class, is the only one which could federate this movement but absolutely the intention does not have any. On the contrary, it took the train moving and endeavours to slow down it. The agreements of Grenelle negotiated with goes-quickly, May 25, between employers, the government and the trade unions are used to channel working dissatisfaction and to transform a political general strike into a simple protest movement.
The Cgt-cfdt platform claims: 50% of increase for the minimum wage and 10% for the other wages; the return to the 40 Hours per week paid 48; the abrogation of the ordinances of 67 against the social security; trade-union freedoms in all the companies...
These negotiations are for Pompidou the only chance to leave the political crisis. If the Communists and the CGT play the game "satisfaction of the claims = resumption of work" the power is saved. The negociations of the government with the CGT go good train and employers can be shown relatively generous when its vital interests are threatened. At the end of 72 hours of negotiations to the ministry for the social affairs, the trade unions obtained:
An increase of more than 40% of the minimum wage; from 7% at June 1 plus 3% at October 1 for the other wages; a fall of 25% of the moderating ticket for the medical care; a recognition of the local union in the company; the fifth week of paid-leaves in ten branches and many promises ever held on the reduction of the working time, on the fall of the retirement age, on the flexible salary scale.
At the exit, the trade unionists emphasize the headings wage increases and trade-union rights. The trade-union establishment will pass from 22% to 51% in the companies. But the rises of wages will be puffed out by inflation in three years. The negotiations for the return to the 40 hours will never take place. The abrogation of the ordinances of 1967 against the social security whose CGT and CFDT had made a precondition, passed to the trap door. The trade-union directions sold off the greatest strike which France known for a dish of lenses, they obtained less than in 1936 with four times more strikers. The trade unions do not sign "the draft-agreement" but that does not prevent in George Séguy, secretary-general of the CGT to declare on the perron of Grenelle that "what was decided could not be neglected." and "unless one estimates to be able to go at this time further, the resumption of work could not delay".
The workers reject the agreements of grenelle massively. The direction of the CGT then dodges its responsibilities "we cannot call with the recovery since we do not have to call with the strike", and leaves the workers to their anger taking care well not to fix mobilizing prospects to continue the movement. We are on May 27, the negotiations lasted two days and another part, politicking that one, has just begun. The UNEF, with the support of the CFDT convenes a meeting at the Charléty stadium. De Gaulle finally authorized this gathering, the police force will be held remotely. Many organizations are present: the UNEF thus, the being wary JCR, Maoists, the PSU (Left Socialist Unified, a socialist party created with the left of the Socialist Party), anarchists... Delegations of South-Aviation, Flins, Crédit Lyonnais are applauded on their arrival. This meeting is ambiguous: on a side it is the gathering of another left which that of the institutional parties but on another side it is clearly an operation of the PSU to place Mendès-France at nearest the presidential elections. Indeed the PSU, the CFDT, FO and of the personalities whose Mendès-France met the previous night to discuss the installation of a government of transition, integrating the "current of May".
The traditional left does not lose are time: the following day Mitterand, the left-wing candidate to the presidential election of 1965, gives a press conference. For the provisional government, he wants well of Mendès-France but with regard to the presidency of the Republic "right now, I announce it to you, I am candidate", declare it with the journalists.
The PCF, does not want especially Mendès-France to him because this one supports NATO. Between him and De Gaulle, it prefers De Gaulle. While waiting he wants to make the demonstration of his force: 29 Mai, the PCF calls "the workers and the working population to express massively". The government is afraid, the demonstration of several hundreds of thousands of strikers finishes with 800 meters of the Elysium. However that makes one month that the PCF is the surest rampart of the bourgeoisie against the common coed. Moreover it lets know that it is close returning in a government as after 1945, under the direction of Gaulle.
During this time De Gaulle disappeared. The fear settles in the leading class, the State trembles. De Gaulle in secrecy the head of the French forces in Germany meets, the Massu General. But disappearance lasts only a few hours, with 18h, it is back in France. The following day, May 30, De Gaulle takes again the reins of the capacity by dissolving the national assembly. It was ensured of the support of the army during its escapade in Germany, and prepares the spirits with a possible civil war by inviting the population to create committees of defense of the republic threatened according to him by totalitarian Communism. By reaffirming that it will not yield, De Gaulle reaffirms: "power with the bourgeoisie". May 30 of the hundreds of thousands of people express in her favour on the Elysées Fields. Bourgeoisie, thrown into a panic lower bourgeoisie, Gaullist and grouping fascists are gathered there to preserve their interests. That smells good, the jitter and the populism reactionary.
The PCF and the left sufficiently perspired for this May. They then play completely the institutional game of the Gaullist power. On the basis of agreement of Grenelle they lead to the resumption of work. It is the return to the normal, gradually the movement of strike backward flow, the people fights about it is withdrawn, the electoral joke can start. The CGT and the PCF are of all their weight and organize the recovery on the basis of agreement of Grenelle. Their emissary from companies in companies will make agree with the workers to return in the row. The more democratically the employees are organized, the more they were seized of their movement and the more difficult the recovery is and runs up against the will of the workers. But nothing made there.
The studied movement also can only record impotent the treason of the parties reformists and the progressive end to him of the general strike. Broadly the revolutionary organizations will call with the boycott of the elections which the parties of left will lose: to the second turn of legislative, the majority supporting De Gaulle obtains 358 seats out of the 465 of the new Parliament. The students accompany the fall until the end. 10 June, called the Help by the strikers of Renault-Flins who want to prevent the recovery, the students come many to fight at the side of the workers. During these confrontations, a high-school pupil, Gilles Tautin drown in the Seine while trying to escape the police officers. It is symbolic system death of the student movement. It is a new night of riot, then still a night of the Barricades for the students, after a demonstration monster in the honor of Gilles Tautin.
June 12, the sure government that it does not have anything any more to fear institutional parties of left - in fact it never had anything to fear some is caught some with the extreme-left and dissolves the 22 Mars movement, UJC(ml), FER and the JCR. June 16, one Sunday, the police force begins again by surprised the Sorbonne, symbol of the fight coed. Until the end of June, at the beginning of July the last squares of strikers fight more and more insulated. Then the fight finishes, May 68 enters the history...
LoL84
1st July 2005, 14:00
The continuation of the text on the consequences and the lesson of May 68 in France.
AFTER MAY
Beyond the events, certain numbers of ideas emerged from 68. Carried before May by a minority of "gauchists", after May they were spread in all the society. The organizations of extreme-left arise reinforced considerably. The students who mobilized themselves into 68 are politicized at an extraordinary speed, and then organized "May 68 politically is only one general repetition", repeat, trustful. During the years which follow, this generation which had not dreamed that of revolution will try to cause it.
In the Seventies, the Proletarian Left, heiress of UJC (ml), begin then in a series of "takeovers by forces" having for goal to educate the masses, their to show that violence must be used... Derives terrorist, which will not go until the end. Contrary to the Red Brigades in Italy or the Fraction Red Army in Germany, they have the intelligence to stop at the time, where after the assassination of one their militants in front of Renault by a watchman, they sequester a foreman but give up carrying out it. The Maoists are established in the factories: students are made engage in large companies to preach the fine words. Much of them will be laid off or will crack front.
The JCR theorizes more or less that youth will be before tactical guard of the fight and that the workmen will join it then to make the revolution. It is indeed often fastest to be mobilized. Provided education for youth showed on several occasions that it was able to find forms of action and mobilization enabling him to gain on its own claims, including violent if necessary. But when it is a question of transforming the society, to gain vis-a-vis employers, is needed whereas the workmen interferes themselves, blocking the production, occupying the factories...
"Let us be realistic ask the impossible one! ", the walls of May proclaim This euphoria, this freedom suddenly without limits, this impression that all is possible, the imagination which seizes the power, the posters, the songs created constantly, form also part of the myth and the reality of 68.
The most significant phenomenon is the rejection of the consumer society. Rejection of this company which makes to buy all and anything, which invents needs which do not exist, which does not satisfy all the existing needs, which makes work men the night to produce cars... Rejection of this company which imposes its ideology through all the media.
In the years which follow...
Everyone continues has to be agitated in all the directions... The dynamics of the general strike still remains present a long time after May 68.
Indeed, in 1973, it is the strike with the factory of watches Lip of Besancon with occupation of the factory, strike committee and general assemblies. The strike goes even further: work begins again but reorganized by the workmen themselves, which set up a democratic self-management of the company.
Strong mobilizations will continue during ten years, by implying new sectors of the working class (women, immigrants, young people of rural origin...). But it is as at that time as the ecological concern starts to take importance and that fights appear which had been far from present in 1968: movement of the women, gays and lesbiens, committees of soldiers, the peasants also enter in fight.
If the coeds were on the barricades like the students, if the workers were in strike like the workmen, it does not remain about it less than the women did not appear as an organized force, structured, and than the feminist claims missed of May 68. It is only starting from the beginning of the Seventies that the autonomous movement of the women reorganizes. In 1970, it is the creation of the "Women's Liberation Movement" (MLF). In 1971, the publication of "proclamation of the 343 *****es", who state to have fallen through, constitutes one key moment of the fight for the right to the abortion, which will lead to the law "Veil" on the IVG (Termination of pregnancy), adopted in 1974. This first victory does not mean that all is gained, far from there! Against discrimination the at the time of recruitment and in work, for freedom to be had its body, the way remains still long. But the movement of the women succeeded in creating a broad associative fabric: collectives against the rape, violences, the Family planning. And it started again to take strength with the manif one of November 25, 1995 and the constitution of the CADAC...
It is as after 1968 as is born the homosexual movement, with the constitution of the FHAR in 1971. Today, the movement for the equal rights between homosexual and heterosexual become extensive with the manif one of the annual gay-pride and the constitution of a network of associations (Assistances, Act-Up...).
Last significant element of after-68 in France: birth of the committees of soldiers. It is the movement high-school pupil of 1973 against the law "Debré" aiming at removing the deferment which is the release of the development of the antimilitarism and the constitution of committees civil antimilitarists. In 1974, at the time of the presidential election, it is "the call of the 100" soldiers who ask the candidates to express themselves on their claims (free transport, balance as of the minimum wage, freedom of expression, suppression of the military tribunals, not of incorporation abroad, etc...). It as from this moments that the movement of the committees of soldiers takes really his rise, is impelled by revolutionary militants. It is this movement which imposes a certain number of reforms in the army (increase in the pay, new payment...).
Why didn't it have there a revolution in May 68 or in the years which followed?
Because the French working class is framed since long years by a Stalinist CGT and PCF, reformists, electoralists, institutionalized. This working class is thus not prepared with this idea of revolution, it did not accumulate experiments going in the direction of a change of mode extraparlementary. There is into 68, a real combativeness of the workers, but the revolutionary organizations and their ideas are still too not very influential in the working class. The average level of conscience being below that of the reformists of the PCF and the CGT, it is thus not astonishing that the things is not to go further: One simply does not make a revolution with a handle of students and revolutionary workers even very motivated.
May 68 is not less rich of lesson
And with each sudden start of the political and social life a little consequent, 68 is used as reference.
In November-December the 86 high-school pupils and the students are massively descended several weeks in the street against the bill Devaquet (founding more selection at the university). The Chirac power, in full cohabitation played the chart of repression making disperse Thursday December 4 a demonstration of more than 800 000 young people with blows of bludgeons and the lachrymatory ones. In the night from the 5 to December 6, following a demonstration with the Latin Quarter the CRS rake the district, bludgeoning all those which pass. The CRS Schmidt and Garcia assassinate with blow of bludgeon a student who besides had nothing to do with the manifs, Malik Oussekine. The trade unions of workers call with a general strike of solidarity on December 10. Chirac takes fear in front of the risks of extension to the working class and withdraws the bill on December 8, thus defusing the conflict. The lesson of May 13 68 carried. Chirac was then to advise of Pompidou.
Were the fights coeds of 86 used as example? With their democratically car-organized coordination, they are immediately followed of great strike of the railwaymen, it such anorganized with coordination.
This question of the democratic car-organization of the movements of fight remains among the lessons of 68. What would it have occurred if the capacity instead of finding to negotiate of trade-union bureaucrates reformists, had had opposite him representatives of workers in strike, combative and representative of their base? The question deserves to be put, the more so as Blondel and Viannet have us remakes the same blow at the time of the great strike of November-December 95 in the public office. Who their asked to go to negotiate with Juppé in this social top of which it did not almost leave anything? And in front of which they came to give an account of what they had negotiated? Nobody! Because there still, the movement had not obtained democratic structure of car-organization.
This democratic need is a true stake of the fights to come. Not to build independence structural of the movements, it is to leave with trade-union bureaucrates and the politicians reformists the political ground. The trade unions are to be built, like permanent organization of defense of paid or the students. But in period of movement, it matters that the trade unions are erased in front of the structures of direction resulting from the fight.
These are the structures which while coordinating each other, can in the event of situation of prolonged strike, of political crisis, to be democratically presented in the form of an alternative capacity. It is that which the PCF took well care not to set up into 68 and it is not a question of an error of its share. The Stalinist apparatus from Moscow in Paris did not want a revolution in France which was likely to destabilize its policy of peaceful coexistence and its diplomacy anti-NATO and thus pro-De Gaulle. What it thus missed into 68, it is a revolutionary party sufficiently established in the working class to largely popularize prospects for major changes of the very whole company, while supporting the democratic structuring of the movement.
To listen to the unanimous concert of the journalists, of the "experts", Cohn-Bendit and Governed Debray, one could think that in the last analysis May 68, that was only one revolt of idealistic students, produced by a too paternalist gaullism and that my faith, today, one would have returned from there. The working class would have disappeared. The students would have calmed themselves. Capitalism from now on would be unanimously accepted as a "horizon that one cannot exceed".
The eagerness and the eagerness with which all want to bury the working class are already suspect. Behind this question is played indeed a fundamental debate: if the working class does not exist any more, which, which social force is able to change the company, to call into question the capacities of some?
Without any doubt, the working class changed. Since 68, it was massively feminized, from the traditional industrial bastions disappeared, it was intellectualized, it was precariousness with the development of unemployment. All these elements rather radically modify the conditions of its action. Other actors also make hear their voices, provided education for youth, Without-Papers, part of the intellectuals, the women, the gays and the lesbians. But a thing is sure, "the working class exists, I met it", in November-December 95 at the time of the massive strikes against the Juppé plan. In spite of the fall of the number of trade unionists and unemployment, vis-a-vis the destruction of employment and with the precariousness, the fights continue.
Second raised debate: nice the small students of today would be more reasonable and less vindicatory. The unemployment which strikes full whip the young people as well as the "school massification" (there is in 97-98 more than two million students...) change here also the conditions of the combativeness and the requirements of the high-school pupils and the students. There is not a doubt that for more than ten years provided education for youth has been mobilized above all for its study and living conditions. But the journalists and the policies would make well take guard with an optical illusion. The young people neither are satisfied of the company in which they live, nor apathetic. In France, it is them which regularly express in particular against the National Front or in solidarity with Without-Papers. And when, as in November 95 or the Seine Saint-Denis, they are mobilized for their conditions of studies, not only they do not hesitate to use methods of radical fights (sequestration of ministerial delegate, occupation of street...), But more deeply they are mobilized then to meet extreme requirements, which carry in them the questioning of the liberal dogmas, Maastricht and the reduction of the public deficits.
Lastly, on the carpet this idea returns which, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is harped to us on all the tone: "the market economy", in light capitalism, would be the only possible and acceptable system. Vis-a-vis the million died of the countries of the south, to the million unemployed in our countries, with the developments of the suicides and the every man for himself, vis-a-vis the impregnation of Fascism, with the plundering of the richnesses without any ecological concern, vis-a-vis the thousands of children who work, this type of assertion is indecent. This system, perhaps than, produced yesterday even more first of all of chaos, misery and the inequalities. To act to change company remains a requirement first. Fourteen years of Mitterandisme, 50 years of Stalinism deeply discredited any will of social transformation. But a thing is sure, the young people, the unemployed and the workers do not adhere to capitalism, the dismissals and competition do not applaud. This company always goes on the head, priorisant the privileges of some with the detriment of the good being of the greatest number.
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