(Translated in Fisera – Document 181)

20 MAY 1968

MANIFESTO 1

The student movement has sparked off, among a large number of managerial staff, a new analysis of their purpose in the enterprises and of the goals of the consumer society that they are helping to construct, whether consciously or not. 

For these managerial staff, the student movement represents a fundamental questioning of the nature of our society. This questioning may have given rise to verbal excesses, which only express the depth of the problem in question. The managerial classes believe that they have an important role to play in order to contribute to the formation of bases and structures for a society which will turn man into something other than a consumer.

A revolution of this type means:

1. The elaboration of an original industrial society going beyond those which are normally proposed, whether they be of the American or of the Soviet type. This society’s basic characteristic will be that it is built for and by all the wage-earners, who will constitute its driving force.

2. The working out of concrete situations for the democratisation of the management of industry, and of general economic programmed, to the usual objectives of profitability and expansion – of which the material gains are real – must be added the goal of personal fulfilment at work as well as in free time activities.

In the short term – for the same reason as the questioning of society – the questioning of the trade-union and political organisations entrusted with defending and expressing the hopes of the wage-earning classes. becomes a necessity.

Aware that the battle being fought at the universities cannot be brought to a successful conclusion without the spreading of the movement to all economic sectors. the “C 4” proposes:

— to participate alongside the students in the reorganisation of educational structures and methods;

— to introduce both reflection and action in professional circles.

The Coordination Committee 
of the Protesting Managers – “C 4”