• About
  • Posters
  • Posters – stamps
  • Sources
  • Tracts – May 1968

Documents from May 1968

Documents from May 1968

Category Archives: Coordination des Comités d’Action

Poster – “Elections” (? June 1968 – Coordination des Comités d’Action)

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, Elections, Poster, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

ELECTIONS

Deception? Trickery? Mockery? Division? Betrayal? Takeover? 

LEGITIMATE?   NO!
Rigged: Electoral lists are not updated! Doctored  electoral districts! Youth under 21 can’t vote, 2,500,000 (foreign) workers can’t vote! 

DEMOCRATIC?    NO! 
Fascist: Progressive organizations have been dissolved! The Government has freed the OAS terrorists! The State spreads repression in the factories and in the streets through its police and CDR commandos! 

FREE?   NO! 
Poisoned: The ORTF is besieged by the army! (Radio) Europe and Luxembourg are owned by the bourgeoisie! The mass media are on capital’s payroll! 

THESE ELECTIONS ARE A MANEUVRE TO DIVERT AND SABOTAGE THE REAL DEMOCRACY THAT WAS BORN IN MAY. 

– IN MAY THE PEOPLE CHOSE: …  WORKERS POWER! 

– IN JUNE THE PANICKING POLITICIANS MADE THEMSELVES THE ACCOMPLICES OF CAPITALIST POWER BY SUPPORTING THEIR ELECTIONS 

Co-ordination of Action Committees

(June 1968 – Coordination des Comités d’Action)

46 x 61.5 cm

Documented in:
Beauty #214; Gasquet p. 52

Online Resources:
BNF 
Zurich – 64-0668

Tract – “Renault leads the way” (early June 1968 – Action Committees)

06 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, June 3-9 1968, Renault, Uncategorized, Workers

≈ Leave a comment

RENAULT LEADS THE WAY

The state decided to make an example out of the workers of Renault, who have been at the forefront of these three weeks of fighting. To do this, it chose the moment when other sectors were returning to work. It chose the Renault corporation’s most isolated factory. THIS PUNITIVE ACT AIMED TO SET AN EXAMPLE. By doing this the state wanted to show that the established order can’t be scorned.

BUT, BY THEIR RESISTANCE, THE WORKERS OF RENAULT FLINS HAVE DEFEATED THE STATE’S CRS

Strengthened by the support of the local people, they revealed the willpower and the determination of the working class in its resolute opposition to employers’ power.

REFUSING TO INCORPORATE THEMSELVES INTO THE EMPLOYERS’ STATE, REFUSING ALL FORMES OF ILLUSORY PARTICIPATION, THEY FIGHT FOR ALL WORKERS. Effectively the benefits snatched by the workers from the bosses will, by De Gaulle’s own admission, be eaten away by inflation owing to rising prices. ONLY CONTROL THROUGH WORKERS’ POWER CAN PRESERVE THESE BENEFITS AGAINST EVERY RECLAMATION OF THE EMPLOYERS.

The struggle of the workers at Flins demonstrates that the phase of social tranquility isrelative and that, tomorrow, the movement can begin again with vigour, strengthened by the experience it has acquired.

LET’S SUPPORT THE BATTLE OF EVERY WORKER ON STRIKE.
LET’S JOIN IN WITH THE STRUGGLE OF THE WORKERS AT FLINS.

 THE ACTION COMMITTEES

Poster – “The Bourgeoisie is Afraid!” (3 June 1968 – Action Committees/March 22)

03 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, June 3-9 1968, Mouvement du 22 Mars, Poster, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

THE BOURGEOISIE IS AFRAID!

THE DESPERATE STATE PROVOKES 
It gathers all of its cops, its spies, its foremen, and the fascist remnants: the CRS and Gaullist commandos have thrown tear-gas grenades at the picket lines, and many PTT and ORTF facilities have been attacked (both in Paris the provinces).

THE STATE LIES
The entire press throws out false rumours of a return to work, remaining totally silent about the workers resistance. 
At the Gare de Lyon, of over 5,000 workers and employees, only 60 scab managers have “returned to work”; the press fantasizes about an imminent return to work at the RATP when all depots have voted with 95% supporting the continuation of the strike.

THE STATE CHEATS
It grants some provisional appeasements to workers and tries to divert their struggle onto parliamentary terrain, where it is always able to cheat the people.

MORE THAN EVER THE WORKERS ORGANISE THEIR RESPONSE 
They  search out striking workers to reinforce the mass occupation of the factories. They unite the whole working population around themselves: owners of small shops, employees, and intellectuals. They fight for the total satisfaction of all demands, for all workers.

THEY ORGANISE THEIR SELF-DEFENSE BY EVERY MEANS 
Already at Rennes the postal workers have been fighting against the CRS for an hour and a half. 
Already the strikers break down the age-old divisions between town and country, and between the industries themselves. Already the strikers of the CSF at Brest have put their production at the service of the workers, at the service of struggles against the employers. 

Today the decisive battle is carried out in the occupied factories. 

LET’S REMAIN UNITED AND RESOLUTE IN SUPPORT OF THE OCCUPIED FACTORIES. 
LET’S ORGANISE THE UNITY OF THE POPULAR FORCES IN PRINCIPLE AND IN ACTlON.
FOR THE SELF-DEFENSE OF THE MASSES. 
FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE BOURGEOIS STATE. 

The workers take up the heroic example of the Paris Commune. They will carry out the struggle until the system of employers and wage-earners is abolished. 

ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS.

3 June 1968

Coordination Committee of the Action Committees
Movement of support for the struggles of the people
Movement of March 22

(3 June 1968 – Coordination Committee of the Action Committees)

Offset/screenprint

40 x 56 cm

Documented in:
Mesa p.69; Camard #46; Beauty #160b; Gasquet p.20; Murs #138; Chartres #154; Artcurial #431

Online Resources:
ENSBA #10574
BNF

Poster – “Paris Belongs to Us” (3rd week of May 1968 – Coordination group for the Action Committees)

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, May 20-26 1968, Poster, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

PARIS BELONGS TO US

For three weeks the workers and students of Paris have occupied the factories and faculties, protested on every street of the capital, and organised themselves in response to police provocation. Their unity is forged in action, behind the barricades, in the streets, in communal debate, from the roots.

United in our struggle we have proved ourselves to be a force that the State can do nothing to oppose.

It has no more weapons to resort to other than police terrorism, with batons, tear-gas grenades and systematic beatings. Let’s not let it divide us.

WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT SEEKING?

Firstly, to divide us. How? By cutting off the workers from students and playing the politics of the carrot and stick. Pompidou and De Gaulle have offered a pseudo-reform of the University, hoping that the students would obediently come to the table. But the students know that the bourgeoisie University wont be reformed. It’s with the Workers and not De Gaulle that future of the University will be decided.

Faced with this rebuttal the state has unleashed savage repression. Its goal is to confine the struggle to the Latin Quarter, and deliberately provoke violence there, in order to show that the students as mere troublemakers, and to discredit them in the eyes of the people of Paris.

LET’S FOIL THE POLICE PLOT

On Friday and Saturday night, by the tens of thousands, we kept the mobilisation of the cops in check at the Bastille, the Gare de Lyon, the Bourse, Opera, Place Vendome, and rue de Rivoli. It was only when we had assembled around the Sorbonne that the police were able to organise the slaughter, safe from an immediate and massive retaliation by the population.

The barricades of the Latin Quarter allowed the fight to begin, but they mustn’t delimit it, or confine it to this one part of the capital.

THE FIGHT WILL BE CARRIED OUT THROUGHOUT PARIS

The cops can isolate a couple of thousand protestors who are gathered in a restricted area. They are powerless if we are tens or hundreds of thousands organised throughout the capital.

Let’s set up Action Committees in every arrondissement, and in every district.

Let’s discuss the aims of our struggle. Let’s reject the dictatorship that has oppressed Paris ever since the government of Versailles crushed the glorious Commune. No Chief of Police or Mayor can determine our destinies any longer, but rather Parisians themselves.

Together, at every level, let’s prepare action towards this goal, and let’s undertake it quickly.

THE REGIME IS TOTTERING, LET’S KNOCK IT DOWN!

Power belongs to the people.

Our struggle has shown that we are able to seize it.

WORKERS, STUDENTS LET’S COMBINE OUR EFFORTS
LET’S ORGANISE OUR FORCES

THE PEOPLE OF PARIS MUST GOVERN PARIS

(3rd week of May 1968 – Coordination group for the Action Committees)

Black Offset print

45 x 56 cm

Documented in:
Gasquet p. 14 (450 x 560) ; Beauty #369b

Online Resources:

ENSBA #12906



Poster – “Coordination group for the Action Committees” (? May 1968 – Cattolica)

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by biffbang in Artist-produced, Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, Poster, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

“Coordination group for the Action Committees”

(May 1968 – Cattolica)

Black offset on gloss paper

45.5 x 56 cm

Documented in:
Beaubourg #244 ; Camard #103  ; Gasquet p. 203, Peters #163; Artcurial #344 

Online References:
ENSBA # 10750

Tract – “Call” (14 May 1968 – La Coordination des Comités d’Action)

14 Saturday May 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, Coordination des Comités d'Action, May 13-19 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

(Translated in Beauty pp 206-7) 


CALL

Since Friday, May 3 tens of thousands of undergraduates, high school students, teachers, and young workers have engaged in a new kind of combat in the streets and faculties alike.
Beginning at Nanterre with the questioning through proper methods of action of the bourgeois university’s terms and methods, the movement today poses the question of overthrowing the Gaullist regime.

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

The groundswell, provoked by the attempt of the government and the French academic authorities to break by force the slowly developing agitation, had causes that it is important to investigate and understand. The resistance and combative spirit of the students provoked a sort of supportive enthusiasm from the people who dared to resist the CRS, mobile guards, and other police. Certainly the workers were moved by the brutality of the police repression, but it was the fact of seeing the students not behaving like sheep and resisting by fighting that constituted the new state of affairs. Since Monday the sixth, at the end of the morning we see young workers beginning to come out to fight alongside the students. The rancour the cold-heartedness provoked over the years by police persecution, and the daily vexations all exploded. The anti-strike repression, the CRS in the factories, the pigs’ raids against the children of the poor suburbs, all the daily manifestations of a State largely based on the strength of its police – all of this resurged. Abruptly freed by the announcement of combat numerous energies came to join with the students “against the cops”. Of the many possible points of attack against a ten-year-old regime, symbol of all of the conservatism of the French bourgeoisie and of the attempts made in its heart at “modernising” the exploitation of workers, it is the hatred of the police, the hatred of repression, that is the principal driving force of the action. A lesson to consider!

THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE MOMENT

3,000 on May 3, 15,000 on the sixth, 40,000 on the seventh, over 10,000 behind the barricades on the tenth, we were more than a million on May 13 for the general strike. And nevertheless… since May 13, there is a growing malaise. The words “burial” (of the movement) and “recuperation” (by the parliamentary parties) are mentioned constantly. Many fear that the support and reserves that were given to us by the leaders of the central workers’ organisations were a poisoned chalice. We have occupied the colleges, occupied the Sorbonne, but nothing is settled as long as Pompidou plays at being “savior-returned-from-distant-lands”. 

This period of uncertainty is the natural consequence of the two essential characteristics of the movement: its disorganisation and its programmatic deficiencies. While they safeguard us against the ossification of thought and sectarianism of many extreme Left groups, these two elements risk driving the movement at large to collapse if we do not take care.

TWO TRENDS

Indeed, two trends become clear from the many discussions of these last three Weeks. On the one hand are those who wish to profit from the “academic crisis” to make the government operate in the place of “academic reforms” These are often the same ones who readily agreed with seeing the occupation of the Sorbonne as a return to the pathetic folklore of yesteryear. On the other hand are those who during the week of the barricades, revived the hope of revolutionary action. These wish for the overthrow of the regime more than the “joint management of the University”, alliance with the workers more than alliance with the “great profs” who yesterday declared themselves our enemies and today pretend to be sweet. The occupation of the Rhodiaceta Tuesday morning, and of Sud-Aviation in Nantes today, shows the way. The point is not to simplistically oppose all academic demands with general political demands. All are legitimate and necessary. The point is to organise a hierarchy of their importance.

(page 2)

POLITICS AT THE FIRST RANK

The same two trends become clear on the frontlines On the one hand, those who accept sinking into the colleges to resume a “normal, improved life”; on the other, those who want to transform our reconquered colleges into an externally-focused base of action. Against the cops, it used to be necessary to say “the Sorbonne for the students”. Now that we have it, its necessary to cry “the Sorbonne for the workers”. We must use our conquered colleges as the red base where the movement organises itself, from which propaganda groups go out toward the poor suburbs and the working-class districts, where the daily outcome of the struggle lies. Now, it’s necessary to –

GO TOWARD THE WORKING CLASS

Not to organise ourselves, but to take advantage of the audience that has given us our courage and explained the necessity of overthrowing the regime. In the poor suburbs we must go to restore the sincerity of our struggle, to say why we are against capitalism. We must also go to learn the concrete truth of that which we know from books: the exploitation of work. Now, finally, we must take back the streets, for it is there that the confrontation is taking place and that the alliance with the workers is being made.

THE SORBONNE IS OUR BASE, IT IS NOT THE BATTLEGROUND

Three trends are expressed about the question of organisation. The leaders only intend to profit from the situation in order to strengthen their own group, unaware that if the masses refuse to enter it is not uniquely the consequence of their weak politicisation, but because they refuse their leaders’ sectarian quarrels or their opportunistic parliamentarism Others propose to organise as little as possible in order to guard the movement’s creative spontaneity. These comrades are fooling themselves as well, for they do not understand that while it is possible for 500 to organise themselves spontaneously to make a barricade, it is totally impossible to overthrow the regime using the same means. Its necessary to organise the base, in action, for action.

ACTION COMMITTEES EVERYWHERE

Their form can be diverse: the disciplinary base, the base of small districts, the base of the workplace, etc. But they have this in common: they are units of small size, of 10 to 30 people, because they are made for discussion, and they are above all made for action. When there is an assembly of 200 people, split it into 10 Committees! 
Each Committee gets together every one or two days. 

– Each Committee sends a delegate to the daily coordination meeting, at 2 p.m., at the Sorbonne, staircase C, first floor (at 6 p.m. for those who cant make it at 2 p.m.). 

– Each committee makes contact with nearby Committees (for example: all the Committees of the 15th arrondissement or all the “Institutional” Committees or all the “Science” Committees, etc.) to establish intermediate coordination. 

– Each Committee realises its own initiative and sign.

– Each Committee gives its advice on which course to follow and posts it. 

– A solitary person doesn’t wait to be given his instructions; he regroups some comrades, and can make contact with the co-ordinators. 

– The members of the Committees participate in debates in the lecture halls, in the committees, etc., but they do not set this against participation in their Committee. These debates are for the elevation of the general level of realisation through discussion, without taboos, on all subjects but thats it; they are not the place for organising action.

NO TO ACADEMIC REFORMISM AND TO APOLITICAL FOLKLORE
LET’S OPEN THE VOTE TO THE REVOLUTIONARY PROTEST OF THE REGIME

The Coordination of the Action Committees

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • July 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014

Categories

  • Action
  • Agence Dumas
  • Agence France Presse
  • Artist-produced
  • Associated Press
  • Atelier Graphique de l'UAS
  • Atelier Populaire
  • Berkeley
  • Booklet
  • CAET
  • CAL
  • Cartoon
  • CDR
  • CFDT
  • CGT
  • Citroen
  • CMDO
  • CNT
  • Comité Écoles d'Art
  • Comité d'Initiative Pour un Mouvement Révolutionnaire
  • Comité de grève
  • Comité des Travailleurs pour l'Unité d'Action
  • Comités d'Action Civique
  • Comités de Défense contre la Répression
  • Comites d'Action
  • Comites pour la Defense de la Republique
  • Coordination des Comités d'Action
  • Dali
  • Daniel Cohn-Bendit
  • de Gaulle
  • Ecole des Arts Décoratifs
  • Elections
  • Enragés
  • Fac des Sciences
  • Fac Medicine
  • FEN
  • FER
  • FGDS
  • First-hand Account
  • Flins
  • Flyer
  • Freemasons
  • Frey
  • Gaullist
  • Gilles Caron
  • Grenelle Agreement
  • Internationale Situationniste
  • Interpress Agency
  • Jacques Sauvageot
  • JCF
  • JCR
  • Jean Lattès
  • Journal
  • June 10-16 1968
  • June 17-23 1968
  • June 24-30
  • June 3-9 1968
  • L'Enragé
  • Maurice Grimaud
  • May 1-5
  • May 13-19 1968
  • May 20-26 1968
  • May 27-June 2 1968
  • May 6-12 1968
  • Monarchist
  • Mouvement de Soutien aux Luttes du Peuple
  • Mouvement du 22 Mars
  • Nanterre
  • Newspaper
  • Night of the Barricades
  • ORTF
  • Patrick Ribadeau-Dumas
  • PCF
  • Photograph
  • Police
  • Poster
  • PSU
  • Renault
  • Roger Frey
  • Roger-Viollet
  • Servir le Peuple
  • Siné
  • SNESup
  • Strasbourg
  • Students
  • Surrealist
  • Teachers/faculty
  • Tract
  • UJC(ml)
  • UK
  • Uncategorized
  • UNEF
  • Union
  • USA
  • Video
  • Voix Ouvrière
  • Waldeck Rochet
  • Worker
  • Workers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Documents from May 1968
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Documents from May 1968
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...