Category Archives: Tract

Tract – “What is happening at the ORTF?” (Around 7th June 1968 – Intersyndicale de l’ORTF)

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in June 3-9 1968, ORTF, Tract, Union

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UNION OF THE O.R.T.F.

116 Quai du President Kennedy, Paris 16
What is happening at the O.R.T.F.?

The television is on strike

France-Inter is on strike

THE ARMY AND THE POLICE HAVE BESIEGED THE TRANSMITTERS.

The pictures that you see, the news reports that you hear, are no longer ours, but THOSE OF THE GOVERNMENT.  All the staff of the O.R.T.F. are on strike.

WHY?
For impartial NEW REPORTS, honest and complete.
For INDEPENDENCE from the government, whatever it’s [composition].

For quality programmes.

THE FIGHT OF THE O.R.T.F. ON STRIKE IS THAT OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY.

Tract – “Why is the ORTF on strike?” (Around 3rd June 1968 – Comité de grève)

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

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The O.R.T.F. is on strike

WHY  ?

The journalists of the radio and television explain it to you:

More than 12,000 technicians, workers, employees, journalists, filmmakers and presenters have stopped work. They want to serve the 30 million listeners and viewers and not partisan propaganda. The O.R.T.F. must be a true reflection of France and the French, what they do, think, like and desire. This is also what was provided for by the Act of 27 June 1964 on the status of the ORTF which assigned to the Office of French Radio and Television, “objectivity and accuracy of information, giving the ability for large currents of opinion to express themselves through it.”

The journalists of the radio and television, intend to practise our profession freely. We have always sought to do so. But the pressures of the government and the management of the ORTF, chosen by that government, are depriving you of some of the information we gathered for you.

A serious crisis has broken out in the country. Aware of our obligations to you, we have done everything to keep you informed until the day we were totally prevented.. We then refused to provide a truncated newscast and together we protested by stopping work.

Today the problem is posed. The O.R.T.F. must be independent from any government or any party. It is not yet so:

— its board of directors is appointed by the government,

— As its CEO,

— the heads of radio and television are, in fact, appointed in the same manner.

The O.R.T.F. remains the government’s own

The government can:

— cancel a show like “The camera explores time” against the will of viewers,

— sack journalists respected by the public

— censor broadcasts like the sequence in “Panorama” on the student movements,

— in place of commentary made in the world of the workers, peasants or the university, substitute official statements on the same subject …

— divert attention from the French internal situation, to the problems of other countries …

— give the airtime to the majority, refusing it to the opposition and even to public opinion.

This will continue as long as the O.R.T.F. is submitted to the government. This will be so regardless of which government [is in power].

To change this, to ensure the French full and impartial information, the staff of the O.R.T.F propose a statute that provides for:

— the appointment of the management of the Office by representatives of all the forces of the Nation,

— the possibility for all groups: political, union, economic, philosophical or religious to appeal to a council of arbitration in the case of a breach of objectivity.

This statute is realistic : lawyers have studied it, and political groups, trade unions, cultural associations have given it their support. There will be a bill, the Members of Parliament elected by you will be asked to vote on it.

So demand of your candidates, of your associations, of your unions, that they take a stand. This battle concerns you all. The strikers of the O.R.T.F. are fighting for you, they need you.

Tract – “For the Power of the Workers Councils (22nd May 1968 – CMDO/SI)

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in CMDO, Internationale Situationniste, May 20-26 1968, Tract, Worker

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(Translated by Ken Knabb)

FOR THE POWER OF THE WORKERS COUNCILS

In the space of ten days workers have occupied hundreds of factories, a spontaneous general strike has brought the country to a standstill, and de facto committees have taken over many state-owned buildings. This situation — which cannot last, but must either extend itself or disappear (through repression or defeatist negotiations) — is sweeping aside all the old ideas and confirming all the radical hypotheses on the return of the revolutionary proletarian movement. The fact that the whole movement was actually triggered five months ago by a half-dozen revolutionaries of the “Enragés” group reveals even better how much the objective conditions were already present. The French example is already having repercussions in other countries, reviving the internationalism that is inseparable from the revolutions of our century.

The fundamental struggle is now between the mass of workers — who do not have direct means of expressing themselves — and the leftist political and labor-union bureaucracies which (even if merely on the basis of the 14% of the active population that is unionized) control the factory gates and the right to negotiate in the name of the occupiers. These bureaucracies are not workers’ organizations that have degenerated and betrayed the workers; they are a mechanism for integrating the workers into capitalist society. In the present crisis they are the main protection of this shaken capitalism.

The de Gaulle regime may negotiate — essentially (even if only indirectly) with the PCF-CGT [French Communist Party and the labor union it dominates] — for the demobilization of the workers in exchange for some economic benefits; after which the radical currents would be repressed. Or the “Left” may come to power and pursue the same policies, though from a weaker position. Or an armed repression may be attempted. Or, finally, the workers may take the upper hand by speaking for themselves and becoming conscious of goals as radical as the forms of struggle they have already put into practice. Such a process would lead to the formation of workers councils, making decisions democratically at the rank-and-file level, federating with each other by means of delegates revocable at any moment, and becoming the sole deliberative and executive power over the entire country.

How could the continuation of the present situation lead to such a prospect? Within a few days, perhaps, the necessity of starting certain sectors of the economy back up again under workers’ control could lay the bases for this new power, a power which everything is already pushing to burst through the constraints of the unions and parties. The railroads and printshops would have to be put back into operation for the needs of the workers’ struggle. New de facto authorities would have to requisition and distribute food. If money became devalued or unavailable it might have to be replaced by vouchers backed by those new authorities. It is through such a practical process that the consciousness of the deepest aspirations of the proletariat can impose itself — the class consciousness that lays hold on history and brings about the workers’ power over all aspects of their own lives.

Paris, 22 May 1968
COUNCIL FOR MAINTAINING THE OCCUPATIONS

Tract – “AND NOW TO THE FACTORIES!” (7th May 1968 – UJC(ml) & ‘Servir le Peuple’)

21 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in May 6-12 1968, Servir le Peuple, Tract, UJC(ml)

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(Translated in Schnapp Document 40)

AND NOW
TO THE FACTORIES!

Call to action by the UJC(m-l) and “Serve the People” Clubs

Anger is rumbling among the masses. A million out of work. Starvation wages. Fascist repression at Dassault Citroën, Simca, and in many other plants. The CRS against workers’ and peasants’ demonstrations in Le Mans, Radon, and Caen.

For several months now, popular revolts have been breaking out against the employers and Gaullism.

Everywhere the reformist party machines, the revisionist leadership of the PCF, and the bureaucratic leadership of the CGT have striven to break the mass movement in Rhodiaceta, at Schwartz-Hautmont, Aluvac, the ceramic factories of Alès, and in many other places. But more and more the CGT and the PCF organizers have been checkmated and unmasked by the mass movement. More and more the masses are becoming conscious of these maneuvers which aim at crushing the class struggle in the factories in order to canalize action in favor of reformist objectives and, above all, of parliamentary debates.

On the occasion of student demonstrations, with violent police repression, popular pressure made itself felt: on Monday and especially Tuesday, workers and young laborers came to demonstrate in the steets with the students. This worker participation reflects the deep-seated anger that exists among the broad masses of the working class against Gaullism, which is a regime of unemployment and misery, and against revisionism, which is a reactionary trick for demobilizing
the masses.

The masses want to fight against Gaullism.

On the question of street demonstrations, their slogans, and their itineraries: from now on we must take up the fight against the obstacles erected by the reformlsts, we must help the masses to overcome these and to clear a way towards the revolutionary class struggle.

Three reactionary forces have leagued together in order to repress and check the revolutionary mass movement.

Gaullism has repeatedly hurled its aggressive troops against the populace, the students, and the workers.

The social democrats (PSU, SFIO, Trotskyites, and the executive commlttee of the UNEF) were quick to try to turn the student movement to account. Their goals are to keep the students isolated from the working class and limit the movement to reformist objectives: “structural reforms for the University, openings for young cadres, etc. These objectives are reflected in the reactionary political line followed these past days by the UNEF officers: at all costs keep the students in the Latin Quarter, limit slogans to absurd student demands, incapable of uniting students with the broad masses of workers and peasants.

The revisionists of the PCF and of the CGT leadership began by brutally attacking the student movement, revealing their true counter-revolutionary nature. The anger of the masses exploded against these traitors, who are police accomplices. Frightened, they have retreated a bit and rallied to the operation of their social democratic friends to limit the movement’s objectives to the three points laid down by the UNEF officers. That is, the revisionists pretend that the workers are demonstrating for academic freedoms.

This is not true: the workers are demonstrating because they want to fight against Gaullism, a regime of unemployment and misery, because they want to make an end to repression. One flag only can unite the broad masses of workers, poor peasants, and students:

The overthrow of Gaullism.
The conquest of freedom for the broad masses of the people.
Control over the exploiters

Let us sweep away the reformist slogans, which are purely academic, as well as the small revisionist and social democratic groups who are working together in an attempt to prevent us from having access to the masses of the people and to the revolution!

We must leave the bourgeois neighborhoods, which are not our concern. We must go to the factories and to the working class neighborhoods to join with the workers.

DOWN WITH GAULLISM

FREEDOM FOR THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE!

UJC (m-l) , Cercles “Servir le Peuple” Tuesday, May 7, 1968.

Tract – “The Struggle Continues” (10th May 1968 – Comités d’Action du 3 Mai)

15 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Comites d'Action, May 6-12 1968, Tract

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(Translation from Schnapp – Document 50)

FRIDAY 6 P.M. THE ACTION COMMITTEES

THE FIGHT CONTINUES

THE CLOSING OF NANTERRE AND OF THE SORBONNE
REPRESSION IN THE LATIN QUARTER
By Way of answer: MORE AND MORE NUMEROUS DEMONSTRATIONS
ON TUESDAY EVENING 50,000 STUDENTS AND WORKERS MARCHED
as far as the ARC DE TRIOMPHE.

And yet, on Wednesday evening, those who answered the call of the UNEF found themselves inflicted with another traditional meeting. Loudspeakers for the “officials”, jawboning that opened up no perspectives, and to end with, a long walk that finished without explanations with a call for dispersion m spite of the obvious discontent of most of the demonstrators and at the risk of breaking up the movement.

During all this time the press, with shadings and varied tactics, misrepresented the facts, lied about the movements objectives and, as in BERLIN and in ROME . . . tried to pit workers against students.

To avoid the recurrence of a dangerous mistake like that of Wednesday evening at the LUXEMBOURG,
To avoid all other manoeuvres,
To expand our movement,
To deepen and define our objectives,

1) Liberation of university premises and surrounding areas.
2) Liberation of all our comrades still in prison, and annulment of penalties.
3) Annulment of faculty lockouts.
4) Resignation of those responsible for police intrusion into the Sorbonne courtyard: Rector Roche having acted upon the request of Dean Durry.
5) Complete freedom of political expression in the faculties.

In order to popularise our struggle among the workers,

WE MUST ORGANISE : CREATE ACTION COMMITTEES

EVERYBODY TO DENFERT-ROCHEREAU

FRIDAY EVENING 6:30 P.M.

The May 3 Action Committees