The desire of the students and workers to continue the occupation of their workplaces has unambiguously demonstrated the profound deficiency of the negotiations. Together, at Charlety Stadium, they powerfully showed what their objective was

Ten years of Gaullism

Centuries of exploitation

That’s enough

what the workers and students want is power.

De Gaulle uses the carrot and the stick, we understand the stick well… now. It is the call to civil war, the march towards a potential fascist regime. De Gaulle defends neither the “Republic” nor “democracy”, but his regime, that of the Bourgeoisie.

From now on he will only be able to remain by organising violence.

His carrot is poisoned, the workers know that any increase in wages is only a decoy, inflation will quickly bring their purchasing power back to the level it was before; it is the same with every partial concession a capitalist regime agrees to.

Only a radical change in economic structures can allow the demands of the workers to be met.

In the same way the students know that being satisfied with the rearrangement of the current framework of the University would be useless; it would remain the tool of the bourgeoisie. It’s here that the fight of the students joins with that of the workers: a democratic university is impossible in a capitalist society. The democratic University must be that of all workers at the service of the working class.

THE STRUGGLE MUST BE CONTINUED

Mass demonstrations are needed, but they aren’t enough.

The question of power isn’t resolved by ballots or votes, but by continuing the strike, the occupations, and by organising in our places of work; in other words by taking the responsibility for the life of our faculties, of our factories for ourselves.

NATIONAL STUDENT UNION OF FRANCE

30 May 1968.