1968: Paris on fire!

[Cd.]

Note: This article is a rather biased, yet interesting account on the events of 1968. It was when the students of Paris staged an uprising which led to a general strike which brought down the French Government and instituted changes never seen before. In some respects the rebellion failed. The attempt to bring forth widespread social reforms failed. The trade unions, who played a key role in the uprising, were bought off by the government. The few uncorrupted members of the labor movement were sold out and crushed. Yet it did show that direct action by determined people was something to be feared. Never again would the French Government take the complicity of the people for granted.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws93/paris39.html

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! "

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