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Documents from May 1968

Documents from May 1968

Category Archives: May 20-26 1968

Tract – “The Chaos… is the Police!” (26 May 1968)

26 Saturday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in First-hand Account, May 20-26 1968, Police, Tract

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Sunday, May 26, 1968 – 11 am

THE CHAOS … IS THE POLICE!

This morning I see the GMR and police in the Latin Quarter, guns on their shoulders, gathered around trucks that the army is loading with our paving stones. This is done under the semi-protection of a willing student security detail.

At 6pm last night I was released from a 4th arrondissement police station, thanks to the honesty of one man.

This man? A captain of the CRS, who made a report that on the night of Friday and Saturday I had attacked him, but who didn’t press charges. Attacked with what. Nothing to add. The CRS captain is a former Resistance fighter, he has gout, and is a bit paunchy, he is an honest and courageous bureaucrat who told me that his own children are probably on the other side. It was he who, with great difficulty, prevented his men from lynching me. The CRS village idiots have accents from the Cantal/Aveyron region. They senselessly beat their prisoners with batons. I vainly call to the Red Cross (on the police side) in their white coats. The police Red Cross block their ears, and allow the prisoners to be beaten (this is at 3: 30am on Saturday morning, at the top of Rue Barbusse on Boulevard Saint Michel).

The paddy wagon we are crammed into takes 1 hour 30 minutes to reach the Seine. All the streets are blocked by barricades. The tires burst; the CRS feverishly search for cases of grenades, they no longer know where to get fresh supplies. It’s dawn, at the top of Boulevard Saint Michel; the boulevard burns, eight or ten barricades in a row.

Comrades, The sun rises!

5:30am – The truck-full of prisoners reaches the esplanade in front of the Town Hall of the 4th ..

“Oh, la la! What a fine reception committee!” the village idiots comment!

Police vans are lined up along the square in front of the Town Hall. The prisoners are thrown out from the paddy wagons with baton blows and are formed into groups. In front of the Police Station at the Town Hall and before the closed eyes of the bourgeoise houses around the square, each group is thoroughly and systematically clubbed. Then the men are taken into the Station one at a time and beaten again on the way in. Here the GMR take over from the CRS. They seem a little more determined and brutal than the CRS.

In the station, each prisoner is then registered and delivered to the Guardhouse. At the door of the Guardhouse the GMR beat each of us, and inside the city police give the crowd a wholesale beating. We can hear cries, screams, and groans. Blood-soaked men carry girls who can’t walk any longer. This is how our comrades are released into the street. A prisoner comes out of the Guardhouse. He seems to be in agony: a burst liver? He groans softly, a murmur of life .. The city police throw him into a corner like a sack, stepping over him as they leave. It’s not until 15 minutes later that a police ambulance will come to load him up on a stretcher.

About 20 of us were detained, for the statistics. Naturally plenty of foreigners and those the bourgeoisie seeks to make social outcasts since they’ve committed some misdemeanour in their lifetime. The captain’s report allows me to avoid the charms of the Guardhouse. But the cops particularly want to get me because I mock them. They harass me: “Now or later, we’ll have your hide, old fart”. All day this theme returns, embellished with “The Seine or three bullets .. we’ll get rid of you today!”

8 am – We are caged. The police come to the bars and don’t suspect that to us they are the Zoo animals that we watch behind bars. Amongst ourselves there is fraternity, including the poor pickpockets and those humiliated by this society that we want no more of. The cops press themselves against the bars, insulting and spitting at the prisoners.

Blood drips on the ground. The policemen’s ladies, decked out like pin-ups, come to offer their service and simper with the cops; inspectors walk in the blood with the most supreme indifference. The city police come to seize a prisoner from the cage and a sadist, applauded by his colleagues, sets out to crush his toes with a hammer, starting off symbolically but then less symbolically hits him on the head.

10am – A doctor bravely insists on treating the injured. All the blood-soaked young people and “outcasts” don’t dare say anything. I’m the only one not covered in blood, but the doctor is able to send me to hospital. The police go after him and threatened him with a beating. Four policemen escorted me to the Hotel Dieu. On the way it’s the same “we’ll do you in, old fart!…” An “intellectual” cop gives a “political” analysis: “Wait until it’s like Moscow here, they know how to do it. They’ll eliminate bastards like you. But us, the police, we’re always needed ..We’re not worried, but whatever happens, your number’s up..”

Hotel Dieu: the strike committee “at the service of the public” watches the police car with hostility. I raise up my fist. A young intern immediately makes contact: “Comrade ..” The police want to shove past him. The intern faces them: “Stop, this isn’t your place..” He manages to get me alone while the cops stand guard at the door. He checks that I don’t have a fracture. The comrades are notified, and while the X-rays are developed I tell the thugs: “Now you’re in a jam, if you beat or get rid of me, it’ll be reported.” The cops grumble, and talk amongst themselves, worried. Their badge numbers were recorded when they entered the hospital. When explanations are needed, they will be named, and I will be able to testify that this is only a sample of four, amongst all the police on duty at the 4th that day.

1 pm – I’m taken back to the cage. There’s no-one there but an unfortunate foreigner, who has been arrested because of an unexecuted deportation order. He’s the only human being there and I make him my comrade. He was arrested last night and would like a glass of water. I ask an inspector if he has a right to this glass of water, he shrugs and refuses to even respond.

The cops are lined up clowning around, enjoying a snack. They count their grenades, play the hard-man, and claim they’ll open fire on any gathering of more than 5 people … While the whole city has is covered with rallies at crossroads ..

At 5pm we are taken out of the cage, the foreigner first. The cops (city police) make him kneel down with arms outstretched, state that he’s a bastard, and ask the police’s forgiveness. Then he’s made to get up with a final “caress” ..

Last trip to the police station in the paddy wagon. Some ordinary “civil servants” discuss strengthening the network of informers. A superintendent and his deputy seem capable of asking questions and feigning dialogue, perhaps genuinely.

“What did you attack the captain with?”

“I stand by his report .. In your ranks that night I found only one man who was still a man. Yes, I attacked him and I continue the fight. ”

It can be said of the superintendent that he had the distinction of holding on to the vestiges of humanity with less courage and risk that the captain of the other night, the former resistance fighter, who I salute.

A bit later, in this same police station, in front of the same superintendent, the cops escorting him said: “The quarter has to be burned, completely, it’s the only way to destroy the .. ”

– Good people of the Latin Quarter, our friends, you have been warned!

– Friends, firefighters who faithfully do your job, every person on the barricades is your only true intermediary, they are the only men and you know it … There are fires that are useful to protect us from the brutes. These fires mustn’t threaten the houses that we protect and that protect us. The arsonists are on the other side, together we will get through their straitjacket ..

An immediate task for our young commune is: to organise the fight together and to protect our neighbourhoods from the helmeted hordes of chaos. They are the thugs!

Gerald SUBERVILLE – engineer
CGT delegate of his workplace.
Reserve Captain – Resistance Medal

Photo – CRS and Protestors (24 May 1968 – Associated Press)

24 Thursday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Associated Press, May 20-26 1968, Photograph, Police, Students

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Photographic print

(24 May 1968 – AP)

16.5 x 21.5cm

Photo – CRS and Protestors (23 May 1968 – Associated Press)

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Associated Press, May 20-26 1968, Photograph, Police, Students

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Photographic print

(23 May 1968 – AP)

16.5 x 21.5cm

Poster – “(French & Immigrant) Workers All United – Equal Pay for Equal Work” (22 May 1968 – Atelier Populaire)

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Atelier Populaire, May 20-26 1968, Poster, Workers

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“(French & Immigrant) Workers All United – Equal Pay for Equal Work”

(22 May 1968 – Atelier Populaire)

Brown screenprint on newspaper

71 x 85cm

Documented in:
Mesa p32; Dobson #154; UUU p29; Peters #62; Beaubourg #128; Camard #94b; Wlassikoff p62, Beauty #66; Gasquet p161; Murs #106; Chartres #7

Online References:
BNF
ENSBA #10813

Cartoon/Tract – “The Pain in the Arse General Reads” (after 19 May 1968)

19 Saturday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Cartoon, de Gaulle, May 20-26 1968, Tract

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“The Pain in the Arse General Reads”

“No matter how lofty is one’s place, he always sits on his bottom” – Montaigne

Cartoon in pencil – signed YB

21 x 32.5cm

I received this original cartoon in a selection of tracts which also included a few photocopies of it, implying that it was used as a tract at the time.

The cartoon refers to de Gaulle’s infamous speech of 19 May where he used the phrase “La réforme oui, la chienlit non!”. Taken on face value the phrase means “Reform yes, chaos no!”. But de Gaulle also intended a scatological pun here, where “chienlit” is “chie-en-lit” – shit-in-the-bed.

The phrase in important enough to have its own article on wikipedia which explains the allusions.

This cartoon piles the puns on to breaking point. The title takes “chienlit” as “chiant lit”. So here the General reads (“lit”) – with “chiant” describing him as boring, annoying or most likely “a pain in the arse”.

The drawing leaves little to the imagination – showing the general “chie” (shitting) while “lit” (reading) the “Gazette de la Chienlit”.

Finally the quote from Montaigne underscores the meaning once more.

Poster – “I Participate, You Participate… They Profit” (24 May 1968 – Atelier Populaire)

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in Atelier Populaire, May 20-26 1968, Poster, Uncategorized

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“I Participate, You Participate, He Participates, We Participate, You all Participate, They Profit”

(24 May 1968 – Atelier Populaire)

Green screen-print on newspaper

31 x 65.5 cm

Doumented in:
Mesa p94; Dobson #34; UUU p34; Peters #247; Beaubourg #161; Camard #56; Les Affiches #155; Wlassikoff p67; Beauty #147; Gasquet p.55; Murs #141 & 156; Paves; Artcurial #448; Chartres #11 &12

Online Resources:
ENSBA #10744 10515
Zurich – 64-0695
BNF 12

Tract – “Students… Workers All United in the Struggle!…” (24 May 1968 – CNT)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in CNT, May 20-26 1968, Tract, Uncategorized, Union

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A.I.T. NATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF WORKERS 39 Rue de la TOUR D’AUVERGNE – PARIS 19th

S T U D E N T S . . . W O R K E R S
            ALL UNITED IN THE STRUGGLE! . . . 

 The censure motion has been rejected… One more time politicians have given the proof of their powerlessness. It’s therefore the working class, closely united with the students, that has to take responsibility for settling social problems.

 It could well be said to us that workers’ management or self-management are hollow catchphrases, the press happily declares that “Cohn-Bendit doesn’t know”; but we are convinced that the current situation demands a radical transformation of society.

 ALONG WITH THE STUDENTS the entire working class must create a united front and continue the protest… against the Police State and sclerosis of capitalist society.

 WITH THE STUDENTS…
 … for a new society which encourages the flourishing of the intellectual abilities of all young people without distinction…
 … A society that offers everyone a rational share in the production the distribution of consumer goods; having as a principle: TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS, FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS MEANS
 … A society that takes into account the requirements of the old, it’s past workers who today no longer have the minimum which is vital to reach the end their lives with dignity
 … Finally, a society that respects the dignity and the character of the individual, that could enable the raising of consciousness

 All of this doesn’t rule out, for the time being the struggle for the repeal of all unlawful laws: The rule of the SS – restrictions on union freedoms, violations of the right to strike…

 We must never cease to condemn all violations of the rights of workers, the omnipotence of corporations, the contradictions of capitalism and its powerlessness to meet the needs of the population.

 More than ever, we have to fight against easy solutions that involve pursuing dialogue with a State that doesn’t listen, and doesn’t hesitate to use violence and repression.

 The news reports give us motive, neither mini-strikes nor petitions to elected representatives have brought remedies to the people’s malaise. The C.N.T. Has been in solidarity with the students from the start.

 In direct action, in the unlimited general strike, in this popular desire, this passion to create a better society, more just and humane, WE REMAIN UNITED RIGHT TO THE END!

       Paris, 24 May 1968
      Confederated Committee of the C.N.T.

Tract – “A Call from the United Socialist Party” (20 May 1968 – PSU)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in May 20-26 1968, PSU, Tract, Uncategorized

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(Translation – Fisera 70)

A CALL from the United Socialist Party

 Popular anger is mounting continuously among the workers and students. It is starting to appear among the peasants. Everywhere it has the same grounds: the rejection of a capitalist and centralised society, the challenge to the autocratic powers of the government, of the employers and of the big farm owners.

 The movement which emerged from the Latin Quarter has come as far as challenging power in today’s society. Action should now spring from the generalisation of occupations in workplaces, and through the adoption of precise slogans on the establishment of real popular powers:

– The students must organise their power in the schools, the faculties and in the grandes écoles.
– The workers must impose their power and that of the trade-union organisations, creating the necessary conditions for exercising this power.
– The peasants must construct collective organisations on a regional basis, and establish the conditions for the production and commercialisation of their products.

 All those who no longer accept submission to the laws of a reactionary state ought to take it upon themselves to manage their own affairs. They should set up Popular Action Committees: committees for students and teachers in the universities and schools, workers committees in companies, peasant committees in the countryside, local committees, neighbourhood committees, committees on the large estates, etc.

 The PSU calls on its militants, and on all those who have confidence in it, to join existing committees or to speed up their creation where they do not exist. It is in such committees as these that the form of a new society should express itself, through discussion and confrontation, but also through action and the setting up of effective powers

 To all those who wish to confine the peoples movement or to limit its aims in order to control it better, to those who think they can answer the overall challenge to capitalist society by simply changing the parliamentary balance or a governmental formula, to those who are still hesitating because they did not believe in the student revolt and had doubts about the student-worker liaison during the struggle, we must in future respond by opening up new prospects for them.

THE PSU PROPOSES

1. WORKERS’ POWER
in addition to the necessary political and trade-union freedoms:

The right to veto decisions made by the bosses concerning employment and working conditions. Discussions of real wages and the length of working hours. Control of the utilisation of profits and investments.
The right of civil servants to negotiate their pay and working conditions with their employer (the state). The creation of Company committees in administration and public establishments. 
Management of public companies by state and workers representatives.
The increase of financial shares in national companies and the extension of the public sector by the nationalisation of centres of economic decision-making.
Workers management of social security.

2. PEASANTS’ POWER

For the peasants, represented by their trade unions and co-operatives: 

The management of the organs of regional planning and production. 
Control of the methods of processing and selling agricultural products.

3. STUDENTS’ POWER

For the students, the main objectives are those of UNEF:

The immediate establishment of real student power in the faculties, with the right to veto any decisions taken. 
Dependent on this first point is the autonomy of the universities and faculties.
The struggle for the recognition of the CAL (School Students’ Action Committees) and for their freedom of expression and action

WE MUST DEMAND

1. INFORMATION serving the workers:

 The transformation of ORTF into an autonomous public body, independent of the State and democratically controlled. 

 Nationalisation of the press printing companies delivery services, advertising, by the creation of national boards managed by workers representatives, and by putting the technical information services at the disposal of the various trends of opinion.

2. A CULTURAL POLICY with a socialist character: 

a) the transformation of the activity of the Youth Centres and Culture Centres into free debating and creative centres under the management of young workers; 

b) the takeover of other sectors of cultural life by writers and artists who have taken a stand against bourgeois culture.

3. A REGIONAL ORGANISATION

 To fight underdevelopment and authoritarian centralisation. It is vital that the Popular Acton Committees co-ordinate their actions at a regional level.
Instead of Gaullist government agents, regional authorities controlled by the people should be created, as embryos of assemblies capable of solving the problems of cultural and economic development (education, employment, industrialisation).

The PSU presents these proposals for open debate by the Popular Action Committees

Tract – “Workers Students” (20 May 1968 – Comité d’Action Etudiants Ouvriers)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in Comites d'Action, May 20-26 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

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Students Workers

 During the protests that have shaken the sterile “Gaullist order” the people have become aware of the immense force they represent, while at the same time assessing the real weakness of the state.

 10 years of the Gaullist regime have proven to the total ineffectiveness of traditional forms of struggle.

 The bosses and the government are stunned. Panic-sticken Capitalism entreats the “representative leadership” of the working class to take things in hand.

 It knows that in times of profound social crisis the reformist leadership are the best and ultimate bulwark of the regime.

 In the trap of their negotiations, these leaders divert workers from total victory in favor of interim financial benefits quickly offset by the increased cost of living.

 The workers and students do not want their fight to end up like the movements of 1936 and 1945.

        It must go all the way. WE HAVE OCCUPIED THE FACULTIES, THE ADMINISTRATIONS , THE FACTORIES …

we will stay there

 Let us make them function by us and for us, showing that workers’ management has the ability make things better for all, rather than the benefit of the few that the capitalists scandalously used them for.

 Do not let the bourgeois politicians or the social democrats negotiate a return to order with a sitting cabinet.

 We insist on the departure of De Gaulle and the creation of a workers’ government. The state which we want must institute direct democracy within a socialist framework, established through the directions of grass-roots committees.

 These committees will have the duty to ensure its effective implementation.

 WE WON’T FALL INTO THE TRAP OF FUTILE DISCUSSIONS

power is to be taken

Students Workers Action Committee

Tract – “Progressive Students’ Plan for a University to Serve the People” (around 20 May 1968 – Mouvement de Soutien aux Luttes du Peuple)

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in May 20-26 1968, Mouvement de Soutien aux Luttes du Peuple, Tract, Uncategorized

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(Translation – Fisera 58)

PROGRESSIVE STUDENTS PLAN
 FOR A UNIVERSITY TO SERVE THE PEOPLE

 The progressive students submit to the working-class masses a programme for the radical transformation of the university, with the aim of placing it under the control and at the service of the people:

 

    1. Education should combine intellectual and productive labour. For a few months of the year, students will work on factory production lines, on the streets and in the countryside, in order to transform and to learn from their life with workers and peasants.

    2. Universities will be completely open to workers who wish to attend courses there. All university facilities will be available to the people.

    3. Higher education will reserve more than 50% of its places to working-class and peasant children.

    4. All lecturers and assistants of higher education will devote a certain amount of their time to helping workers study, and especially to improving the literacy of immigrant workers.

    5. Education will be reshaped, and useless subjects will be scrapped. Exams will no longer be suddenly sprung on students, who will be allowed to collaborate freely amongst themselves and with their lecturers.

To achieve this plan, the masses must unite, overthrowing Gaullist, conquering and radically transforming society.

 This will only be possible if the large mass of progressive students unites closely with the mass of workers and poor peasants. Students must move resolutely towards the people, in order to support their heroic struggle against unemployment and starvation wages, against the monopolising of land and against fascism and repression in the factories.

 For a people’s university in a free peoples regime. 

 LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF WORKERS, OF POUR PEASANTS AND OF STUDENTS.

 DOWN WITH GAULLISM, THIS ANTI-POPULAR REGIME OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY.

Movement of Support to the People’s Struggle.

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