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Documents from May 1968

Documents from May 1968

Category Archives: May 6-12 1968

Photo – Cohn-Bendit Press Conference (6 May 1968 – Interpress Photo)

25 Friday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Interpress Agency, May 6-12 1968, Photograph

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SUNDAY 7 MAY 9:35pm

DANIEL COHN-BENDIT during an outdoor press conference in front of the Sorbonne on 6 May 1968.

Photographic print

(6 May 1968 – Interpress Photo)

12.5 x 17.5cm

Cartoon – Siné (21 May 1968)

21 Monday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Action, Cartoon, Enragés, May 6-12 1968, PCF, Siné, Waldeck Rochet

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Study for cartoon – Siné

Pen on tracing paper

9.5 x 13.3cm

In it’s final form this cartoon was published in issue 3 of the journal Action – on 21 May 1968, as below:

The text translates as: ”Take the photos of those two Enragés away from me!”.

The speaker is Waldeck Rochet – the General Secretary of the French Communist Party. “Enragé” was used a designation for ultra-leftists during May 1968, in reference to a radical leftist group from the French Revolution.

Photographs – Aftermath of the Night of the Barricades (presumably taken between 11-13 May 1968 – unknown photographer)

12 Saturday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, Night of the Barricades, Photograph, Police

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Photographic prints

(11-13 May 1968? – unknown photographer)

1. 14.5 x 14.75cm

2. 15 x 19.5cm

3. 14.5 x 24cm

Poster – Photo of Rue Guy Lussac (11 May 1968 – Guy Kopelowicz, Editions Martin Malburet)

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, Night of the Barricades, Photograph, Poster

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Photographic poster

(11 May 1968 – Guy Kopelowicz, Editions Martin Malburet)

38.5 x 57cm

At bottom of poster:

Tract – “One Common Fight” (11 May 1968 – CFDT)

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in CFDT, May 6-12 1968, Tract, Union

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CFDT: One Common Fight

The extremely violent clashes, with blind and bloody repression from the government and a several hours’ long siege by the students, determined to win, are all signs of a deep malaise among the students, but also in the whole of our Society.

THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES:

–The attitude of the Government

• in arresting several hundred students at the Sorbonne on Friday, 3 May, although a number of similar meetings had been held previously under the same conditions without harming anyone;

• sending in the police with such brutality that the press largely reported on it;

• in refusing all “overtures”, rejecting every way of defusing the situation such as releasing the imprisoned students;

• the conviction of many student without any proof, under unacceptable conditions. These instant arrests and convictions are new tactics that were inaugurated in Caen against the workers on strike, and which the workers will be the victims of tomorrow.

Actually the large peaceful demonstration organised by the UNEF on Monday 7 May showed that students are perfectly able to keep order themselves provided that the police do not interfere.

THE DEEPER CAUSES:

– The ANXIETY of the STUDENTS FACED with their FUTURE.

The university, this enormous graduate-manufacturing machine, is becoming industrialised and now produces graduates without concerning itself with job opportunities for those who are being processed. For example, students who started Human Sciences courses a few years ago, are bitter today when they learn about the scarcity of possible future employment. Nobody has informed them about this state of affairs. Such examples are unfortunately quite common. The question these students are asking themselves – and we, as workers facing our own employment problems, should understand it well, is:

TOMORROW WILL WE BE UNEMPLOYED, OR UNDER-EMPLOYED,?

– THE REJECTION OF GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITARIANISM

There is an important issue, about increasing the number of students, which poses the question of professional career prospects.

The government has unilaterally decided to reject dialogue with both the students’ and teachers’ Unions on the authoritarian methods of selection for entry to the faculties.

This method is used in exactly the same way to exclude a growing number of our own children from entry into further education.

When were the parents’ associations consulted?

–SUSPICION OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY

We would like to refer to a statement previously made by workers, and (alas) reproduced in pamphlets “Students are the sons of bourgeois parents. Tomorrow, they will be the managing directors of our industries. We want nothing to do with them.”

Let us add two comments:

• If the number of sons of working-class families is so small in universities, it is the responsibility not of the students themselves, but rather of the system that the government enforces, which tends to shut the door of higher education to children of less well-to-do families.

• Whatever their social origin, students rebel as we do ourselves against a society which does not satisfy them, because it is led by oppressive capitalism and therefore is incapable of satisfying deeper human aspirations.

The following quotation from a pamphlet produced by UNEF is indicative of this view:

“… The workers reject a society which is exploiting them, the students reject a university which attempts to change them into docile executors of a system based on exploration, and sometimes even into direct accomplices of exploitation.”

This rejection of a society of the car, TV and conditioning by advertising where men are sick, not knowing why they are living any more, is extremely healthy.”

If we are determined, this can be the beginning of a positive enterprise to build our new society not on anarchical production, waste, and wealth for same through others’ destitution, but on justice, solidarity, freedom. responsibility, and respect for every man, whoever he is.

POSITION OF THE CFDT• We workers must not let ourselves be led into unjustified reaction which would cut us off from our allies the students.

• On the contrary, with them we demand:

• the freedom of those in prison and the withdrawal of unjust charges;

• the removal of the police from the Latin Quarter;

• the reopening of the universities;

• the solution of the basic problems of the university: we are especially concerned that our children will benefit from the solution.

THIS IS WHY WE CALL ON ALL WORKERS

– FOR A 24-HOUR GENERAL STRIKE ON MONDAY 13 MAY,

– TO TAKE PART EN MASSE IN THE DEMONSTRATION

decided on by the union organisations.

Tract – “Betrayal!” (Early May 1968)

10 Thursday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, Students, Tract, Workers

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TO EVERYONE – TO EVERYONE – TO EVERYONE – TO EVERYONE – TO EVERYONE

BETRAYAL!

Monday 6 May: In the face of savage police repression students and young workers spontaneously respond to the violence of the State which only very narrowly avoids the retaking of the Sorbonne.

Tuesday 7 May: There is a new demonstration with the appearance of security personnel from various bureaucracies. After having forcefully shown the size of our movement on the Champs-Elysées, we end up facing the Latin Quarter as a result of the tactical carelessness of the security detail, who split us up under the pretext of efficiency.

Wednesday 8 May: A security detail is imposed to control this third demonstration. We vow to march on the Sorbonne. Confident, the demonstrators trust the directives of the security detail who planned and organised our defeat by calling for a shameful dispersion when faced by the cops.

The bureaucrats once again showed their true face as the sanitisers of the struggle. We clarify that this was essentially done by the members of FER (Révoltes). These facts demonstrate that every bureaucracy, no matter how revolutionary, quickly becomes reactionary compared with the struggle of the rank and file.

COMRADES!

Under the threat of being endlessly swindled, and having our struggle corrupted and diverted by the bourgeoise and its reformist allies, we must no longer blindly follow the directives of a leadership, whatever it be.

Let’s organise ourselves, for direct action, ridding ourselves of the whiners and defeatists.

EVERYONE UNITE IN DIRECT ACTION!

A group of workers and students of May 6

Photo – Jacques Sauvageot & Jacques Monod (8 May 1968 – Jean Lattès – GAMMA Agency)

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in Jacques Sauvageot, Jean Lattès, May 6-12 1968, Photograph, UNEF

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Photographic print

(8 May 1968 – Jean Lattès)

22.2 x 29.8cm

Paris – 8 May – 1968

Late this afternoon two Nobel prize winners, Alfred Kastler (physics) and Jacques MONOD, took part in a demonstration organised by the UNEF and its president Jacques Sauvageot to demand amnesty for the convicted students.

On rear of photograph:

Tract – “Declaration of the French Communist Party” (7 May 1968 – PCF)

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, PCF, Tract

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The University:
the Gaullist Régime is Responsible!

DECLARATION
OF THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

Right in the middle of the preparation period for the exams, the Sorbonne and the faculty at Nanterre are closed and police repression is on the rampage.

Responsibility for this situation lies at the door of the Gaullist régime which, for ten years, has been maintaining and aggravating an educational system which is ill-adjusted to our times, in its operation and its methods. Yesterday, the Minister of Education himself declared that there were only 10 per cent of workers’ children amongst the students. Three out of four students cannot finish their studies. And it is still against the students that the government strikes. The students’ discontent is legitimate. Besides, this situation favours the actions of adventurers whose ideas open no horizons for the students and have nothing in common with a truly progressive movement looking towards the future, with a truly revolutionary movement.

The French Communist Party calls on the workers and on all democrats to act with it and with the Union of Communist Students for:

• an immediate and total stop to all police repression. the withdrawal of police from university areas;
• the reopening of the faculties and the normal sitting of examinations;
• the liberation of the prisoners.

United democratic forces can impose these measures. To this end manual and intellectual workers, in solidarity with the students, will extend their action in different ways and will increase their resolutions and delegations to the Ministry of Education.

The French Communist Party calls on the students and the academics, and the mass of workers, to fight for:

• the construction of new faculties (notably at Villetaneuse, Créteil and at Verrières in the Paris region);
• the widespread extension of university institutes of technology, adapted to contemporary realities;
• the appointment of a sufficient number of teachers.

In this struggle the students will continue their action for the awarding of scholarships and for the installation of democratic life in the faculties and in the grandes écoles. These are the first aims of a movement which will lead to a true democratic reform in teaching.

The French Communist Party is fighting for the disappearance of capitalism and the realisation of socialism in France. Consequently it is struggling for a new democracy which will guarantee profound changes, notably in the university and in teaching.

THE SECRETARIAT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

Paris, 7 May 1968

Tract – Untitled (7 May 1968 – University Chaplains)

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, Tract

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It is not enough to put forward the deliberately violent action of extreme left and right wing “groupuscules” to explain the events of the last few days. These groups have only been able to gain influence through deluded and partially misled students

On Monday at Denfert there were not 15,000 extremists nor even simply 15,000 students in solidarity with the four convicted on Sunday. They were also there to show their dissatisfaction with the present state of the university: inadequate finances, irregular methods of work, the way in which teaching is carried out, and its content, the numerous problems caused by the Reforms, the hardship of living conditions which are intolerable for the great majority, lack of certainty about the future (exams, job openings).

These are the real problems, which were expressed as soon as the opportunity presented itself, one can deplore the violent nature of this demonstration. but tomorrow it will be better to attack the real causes.

Naturally, other factors have played a role: the organisation of riots by a minority, intending to create a climate of fear in public opinion, the hasty closure of the Sorbonne, the often brutal and disproportionate police interventions, the hasty convictions. It is therefore necessary to free those unjustly held, to put a stop to police control of the Latin Quarter, and to arrange for the faculties to be reopened as soon as possible.

However, the most important thing is the spirit in which the long and exacting (that’s to say, the most urgent) task of real university reform will be started. It will be necessary to put as much daring into that as there has been violence.

Officials and chaplains of the Christian communities of the faculties of Nanterre, Sorbonne, Censier, and Halle-aux-Vins

Tract – “Young Workers at the Heart of the Struggle” (22 May 1968 – Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne)

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by biffbang in May 6-12 1968, Tract, Uncategorized

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J.O.C.F St-Etienne, 22 May 1968
ST. ETIENNE SOUTH
4, rue Mi-Carême

YOUNG WORKERS

—————————————————–
AT THE HEART OF THE STRUGGLE
—————————————————–

The Friends were out and about ….
What we saw, is Important ……

COME
Saturday, May 25 at 2pm sharp
Salle Saint-Etienne – 4, rue Mi-Carême
In the hall of the Bishopric Bookstore

In order, together, to see how, as Jocistes, we can live through these Events and to reflect as a group on how we can continue our Action. –

“The J.O.C. has always maintained that ONE YOUNG WORKER IS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE GOLD IN THE WORLD – More than ever it is important to tell Society what we want.”

— A unique and tremendous way to help us:
A Young Worker/Alive – At the Heart of the Struggle –
   (You shall find the Federation)

In Friendship
The Federal Team

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