Category Archives: May 1-5

Photo – Occupation of Nanterre University (early May 1968 – DUMAS Agency)

01 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in Agence Dumas, May 1-5, Nanterre, Photograph

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THE STUDENTS OF NANTERRE OCCUPY THEIR UNIVERSITY

In the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, as in many of the university cities throughout the world, the students are in turmoil. The reasons for their agitation are variable, it’s rather a matter of tension related to a certain anxiety over the future. In our photo the extremist students of Nanterre have occupied the great amphitheatre of the Faculty and are demonstrating loudly, singing revolutionary songs.

Photographic print

(early May 1968 – Dumas Agency)

17.5 x 12.5cm

On rear of photo:

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Tract – “Call to the Population” (early May 1968)

04 Friday May 2018

Posted by in Fac des Sciences, May 1-5, Students, Tract, Uncategorized

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CALL TO THE POPULATION

While fighting for their claims the students of NANTERRE clashed with the forces of the police. Comrades were caught and 7 union militants were arrested and brought before the Discipline Council.

On Friday 3 May a peaceful meeting that was taking place in the courtyard of the Sorbonne, was used as a pretext for the police, at the behest of Rector ROCHE, to enter the Sorbonne for the first time since Petain, in violation of university exemption, and arrest the meeting’s participants.

This is why thousands of students spontaneously rose up against the Rector’s provocation and the brutality of the police repression. It was following these demonstrations that hundreds of students were arrested and 4 of them were sentenced to time on a prison farm.

FROM NOW ON POLICE REPRESSION IS THE LAST RESORT

OF THE GOVERNMENT TO APPLY ITS POLICIES.

Consequently, the students and teachers of the PARIS FACULTY OF SCIENCE, aware of the seriousness of the situation

DEMAND :

– the Halt of police repression –
– the unconditional release of our convicted comrades –
– the lifting of all university and judicial sanctions –
– the retreat of the police –
– the reopening of the Faculties –
– the resignation of rector ROCHE –

CONDEMN :

– the government’s policy on unemployment –
– the expulsion and arbitrary selection of students –

DENOUNCE :

– the lies of the Press –

CALL FOR :

– a university where students and teachers have real power, which today is held by the administration alone –

CALL ON THE POPULATION TO DEMONSTRATE ITS SOLIDARITY

STRIKING STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
OF THE SCIENCE FACULTY –

Tract – “University Students, High-school Students, Young Workers” (May 5 1968 – FER)

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by in FER, May 1-5, Students, Tract, Uncategorized

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This tract was distributed on or around May 5. Given that it was offset printed, rather than mimeographed like most of the early student pamphlets, it is almost certain that it was printed before the events of May 3 took place.

It therefore gives a good indication of the state of radical student politics on the very eve of May 1968.

(Translated in Schnapp – Document 49)


University Students, High-School Students, Young Workers


At the moment when students in Prague, Warsaw, Berlin, Madrid, Algiers, New York, Tokyo, and Rome were fighting in the streets against the forces of order and reaction, in Paris, on April 27 and 28, 200 delegates representing 1100 militants, headed by young revolutionaries (“Révoltes”) and the Liaison Committee of Revolutionary Students announced the formation of a

Federation of Revolutionary Students

University students, high-school students, young workers,

At the moment when imperialism is striking at youth and the working class with blood and iron, when Stalinist bureaucracy is striking at and imprisoning students and workers fighting for socialism and worker councils, when student combats augur huge confrontations, on an international scale, between the working classes and imperialism, between the working classes and Stalinist bureaucracy, the revolutionary students declared:

At the moment when de Gaulle is planning to make the working class and, to begin with, young workers and young intellectuals, pay the price for the rationalisation of French economy, at the moment when layoffs are increasing, when unemployment is hitting hundreds of thousands of young workers, when Peyrefitte is preparing to exclude 300,000 students from the University, THE FEDERATION OF REVOLUTIONARY STUDENTS DECLARES:

DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM!

DOWN WITH STALINISM!

LONG LIVE SOCIALISM!


RESISTANCE IS POSSIBLE,
WE MUST ORGANISE IT.

WE INSIST ON A JOINT DEMONSTRATION OF THE YOUTH OF PARIS!

 University Students, men and women, Lycée students, Young Workers,

 On April 27 and 28 the FEDERATION OF REVOLUTIONARY STUDENTS came out in favor of formation of the Revolutionary Organisation of Youth and of the Revolutionary International of Youth.

 On April 27 and 28 the Federation of Revolutionary Students declared that it casts its lot with the fight led by young revolutionaries grouped around the periodical “Revoltés” in order to assemble 3,500 young people at the Mutualité on June 29 and 30.

(page 2)

 The Federation of Revolutionary Students calls on hundreds of thousands of students to fight for socialism, against capitalism, against reformist and Stalinist bureaucracies, BY JOINING ITS RANKS.

 The Federation of Revolutionary Students calls on students to fight by the thousands under the flag of socialism!

 The F.E.R. calls on students by the thousands to help build the revolutionary youth organization.

———-

 The FER calls all Paris students to its joint proclamation rally on May 10 in Paris at 8:30 p.m., at the Mutualité.


EVERYBODY 
COME TO THE F.E.R. RALLY
Friday, May 10 at 8:30 p.m.at the Mutualité

Tract – “Call to the Population” (May 4 1968, UNEF)

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in May 1-5, Students, Tract, Uncategorized, UNEF

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(Translated in Schnapp – Document 31)

NATIONAL UNION OF FRENCH STUDENTS

CALL TO THE POPULATION
Police violence erupted in savage repression against the students during the evening of Friday, May 3: 596 arrests, hundreds of injured. Like the workers at Caen and elsewhere, students, passersby, even high-school students were victims of fierce repression.

In effect, their struggle is fundamentally the same: workers reject the society that exploits them, students reject a University that tends to make them the docile leaders of a system founded upon exploitation, sometimes even the direct accomplices of this exploitation.

The reactionary press aims at presenting the student movement as a revolt of privileged youth and seeks to cut us off from our natural allies. The bourgeoisie knows that it is with the workers and only with them that the students can win. Against this wall of lies the students must make known to the public the motives of their struggle.

THE BOURGEOISIE SEEKS TO ISOLATE AND TO DIVIDE THE MOVEMENT ; OUR ANSWER MUST BE IMMEDIATE 

HERE IS WHY:

THE UNEF PROPOSES THAT THE UNIONS OF TEACHERS AND WORKERS RETURN TO THE UNIFYING PROCESS WHICH ACTUALLY FUNCTIONED DURING THE DEMONSTRATION : WORKERS, HIGH-SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS HAVE SPONTANEOUSLY RESPONDED WITH THE U.N.E.F. TO POLICE AGGRESSION.

AGAINST POLICE REPRESSION
AGAINST THE REACTIONARY PRESS
AGAINST THE BOURGEOIS UNIVERSITY

GENERAL STRIKE FROM MONDAY ON, AND UNTIL THE LIBERATION OF ALL OUR COMRADES, EVERYBODY PARTICIPATE IN THE DEMONSTRATION IN THE LATIN QUARTER ON MONDAY AT 6:30 P.M.


Students, organise basic UNEF combat committees in your faculties, by departments or by class year, to continue the struggle, particularly in view of the coming examinations. Permanent headquarters will be set up from now on by the UNEF in order to organise formation of these committees. Comrades injured in the course of the demonstrations or witnesses of police aggression, are asked to get in touch with the UNEF ( tel. DAN 8601 )