Category Archives: Students

Tract – “The Struggle Must be Continued” (30 May 1968 – UNEF)

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in Grenelle Agreement, May 27-June 2 1968, Students, Tract, UNEF

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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.

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Tract – “CRS Comrades” (undated)

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Police, Students, Tract, Workers

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C.R.S. COMRADES

You do unpopular work, that’s OK; and we imagine that you don’t always do it willingly.

But currently, not only are you doing a revolting job, but a stupid one; because the government that you are defending is condemned by the whole of France.

BECOME OUR BROTHERS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST ARBITRARINESS AND INSTITUTIONALISED STUPIDITY

WORKERS AND STUDENTS LIASON COMMITTEE

C.L.E.O

Tract – “Let’s Continue the Battle in the Street” (17 May 1968 – Mouvement du 22 Mars)

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in May 13-19 1968, Mouvement du 22 Mars, Students, Tract

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LET’S CONTINUE THE BATTLE IN THE STREET

After Pompidou’s speech, it is clear that our aims and those of the bourgeois state are not the same:

– The police repression of recent demonstrations shows that the state cannot tolerate direct confrontation with the authorities in the streets.

– Appeals for co-operation and to the good sense of the mandarins and various bureaucratic apparatuses, plus the reopening of the Sorbonne, show that the state wants to smother and direct the stream of discontent which has been sparked off by the use of repression by tolerating only the traditional forms of opposition: parliamentarianism, discussion round the fireside of the same type as the Grégoire and Tourée commissions, etc. This form of opposition has already shown its sterility.

– Students, school pupils, the young unemployed, lecturers and workers were not fighting side by side in the barricades last Friday night to save the university for the sake of bourgeois interests: there is a whole generation of future managerial staffs who refuse to be the planners of bourgeois needs or the agents of exploitation and continued repression of the workers.

– The state has presumed to represent the general interest and to play the role of arbiter between the classes: the law (400 arrests) and order (more than 1,000 wounded) apparatus has shown clearly that it represents the interests of only one class and defends only bourgeois order.

– Those in power are biding their time today, they tremble for their future. The spontaneous new forms of confrontation which occurred on Friday are. intolerable to the bourgeoisie: the barricades in the Latin Quarter are not simply an expression of students defending their interests as students, their real point is to encourage others to enter into direct confrontation with the state and its police force. This is why young workers were fighting side by side with students, school pupils and lecturers on the barricades: the battle against the police apparatus is the struggle of every worker.

FROM NOW ON

IT IS IN THE STREET

IN THE FACTORIES

THAT THE STRUGGLE AGAINST BOURGEOIS OPPRESSION AND REPRESSION CONTINUES!

Photo – Jacques Sauvageot press conference (17 May 1968 – Agence France Presse)

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Agence France Presse, Jacques Sauvageot, May 13-19 1968, Photograph, Students, UNEF

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POLITICAL STATEMENT BY MR. SAUVAGEOT

During a press conference Mr. Jacques Sauvageot, deputy President of the UNEF, made a political statement, that can be summarised under four points:

1. Institution of “student power” with a right of veto.

2. The autonomy of universities and faculties.

3. The expansion of the current protest movement to the news, the press, and to cultural and artistic activities.

4. A united movement with factory and agricultural workers.

Photographic print

(17 May 1968 – AFP)

17.7 x 13.5cm

Tract – “Everyone to the Faculties” (14 May 1968 – High School Action Committee)

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Comites d'Action, May 13-19 1968, Students, Tract

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EVERYONE TO THE FACULTIES

Action won’t cease after a demonstration, even if it brings together more than a million people. We are all agreed that the crumbs thrown by the Gaullist regime can’t resolve the crisis in the University.

After the use of deadly gas, incendiary bombs and attack grenades by the CRS (estimated to have injured a thousand) it’s necessary to add to the three demands of the UNEF:

– THE DEMAND FOR THE RESIGNATIONS OF GRIMAUD AND FOUCHET, already common to the UNEF, SNESup and MVT 22 March.

Until this condition is met, the CAL calls for the continuation of the multifaceted strike (in particular the formation of Study Groups to examine the demands of high-school students)

– THE RIGHT TO STRIKE ARISING FROM THE RIGHT OF UNION AND POLITICAL ACTION

Starting last night the students have reached a new stage in their struggle by occupying the Faculties and setting up Action Committees that gather together: high-school and university students with workers.

The CAL commits us to go en masse to the Faculties to discuss demands together with the blue-collar and white-collar workers.

COME IN GREAT NUMBERS!

Tract – “Betrayal!” (Early May 1968)

10 Thursday May 2018

Posted by 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