A Las Barricadas

A short history of the events which swept France in May and June 1968. Starting as a student revolt, the events culminated in mass workplace occupations and a general strike of 10 million workers.

The events that took place in Paris in May/June 1968 put Anarchism back on the map after its critics had written it off for dead. It also showed how quickly things can turn when the working class realises its collective strength. The revolt of over ten million people grew from nearly nothing in a matter of days.

It started when a group of anarchists and Situationists (libertarian Marxists) called the Enragés were suspended from Nanterre University in Paris for using Student Union funds to print revolutionary literature. When the Anarchists called for a protest demonstration, the students were angered by the arrival of 80 police and proceeded to drive the police out of their university.

Inspired by the huge amount of support they got, the Anarchists occupied the administration building and held a mass debate. The police surrounded Nanterre, closing down the university. The next day, Nanterre students came together in the centre of Paris and, after continual harassment and over 500 arrests, erupted into five hours of rioting with police who attacked everyone, including locals, with batons and tear gas. A complete ban on demonstrations and the closure of large sections of central Paris brought thousands of angry students onto the streets. In the face of increasing police brutality, barricades began to be built and paving stones were torn up to be hurled at police. Reporter Jean Jacques Lebel observed that “Literally thousands helped... women, workers, people in pyjamas, human chains to carry rocks, wood, iron.” By the end of the night, 350 cops had been injured in the fighting.

May 7th saw a 50,000 strong march against police brutality turn into a day long battle through the narrow streets and alleys of Paris’ Latin Quarter. When the police fired tear gas, protestors answered with molotov cocktails. When they were told to disperse, the protestors answered with chants of “Long Live the Paris Commune!” On May 10th, after massive demonstrations, the Education Minister started negotiations. But in the streets, 60 barricades had been built and workers came down to support the students. Massive demonstrations all over France ended up in a demonstration of over a million people in Paris on May 13th.

After the massive protests, the police were forced out of the Latin Quarter. Students seized the sections of Paris which police had sealed off and created an assembly to spread the struggle. Occupations soon spread to Universities all over France. From Sorbonne University (previously cordoned off by police but taken back by the students) came leaflets, proclamations, telegrams and posters. Graffiti like “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible!”, “Beneath the paving stones – the beach!” and “All Power to the Imagination!” were painted on walls. One wall had the phrase “The most beautiful sculpture is a paving stone thrown at a cop's head!”

Once again, as in all revolutionary struggles, workers councils were seen as the way forwards. Anarchists like ‘Noire et Rouge’, ‘Socialisme ou Barbarie’ and the Situationists showed support for workers’ councils to support a self-managed revolution and had a huge influence on the events that inspired it.

On May 14th, Sud-Aviation workers locked the management in their office and occupied their factory. Cleon-Renault, Lockhead-Beauvais and Mucel-Orleans did the same the next day. Then, that night, the National Theatre in Paris was seized and made into a permanent assembly for mass debate. Then, France’s largest factory, Renault-Billancourt, was occupied. Often, the workers made the decision to take such action themselves without consultation with Trade Union officials.

By May 20th, there was a general strike and the number of people involved in striking and occupying factories totalled nine million! Print workers did not want to leave the capitalist media of TV and radio to say what they want and carried on printing newspapers... as long as they carried out “with objectivity, the role of providing information”. In some cases, the print-workers had the content of newspapers changed before they would agree to print them!

4,000 students occupying Sorbonne University went down to support the Renault strikers led by big Anarchist banners and red and black flags. The state, the bosses, the unions and the Communist Party were now faced with their greatest nightmare: a worker/student alliance. 10,000 cops were called up for back up, union officials locked factory gates and the Communist Party urged their members to try and stop the revolt. They all united with the government and bosses to try and carve out a series of reforms but once the Communists and union officials tried to take these proposals to the factories, they were laughed out onto the streets by the workers. The struggle was organised by self-governing mass assemblies and co-ordinated by action committees. The "hope [of the revolt] lay in the extension of self-management…to all areas of life itself".

On May 24th, the Anarchists organised a demonstration. 30,000 people marched to the Palace de la Bastille. The police protected the Ministries using the usual (tear gas, batons etc.) but left the Stock Exchange unprotected and it was promptly set on fire by protestors.

At this point, some lefties lost their bottle. The Trotskyist JCR told people to retreat back to the Latin Quarter. Others like UNEF and Parti Socialiste Unife (United Socialist Party) blocked people from occupying the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice. Daniel Cohn-Bendit (one of the Anarchists suspended from University... from small chestnuts, hey?) said about this incident “We failed to realise how easy it would have been to sweep all these nobodies away... It is now clear that if, on 25th May, Paris had woken to find the most important Ministries occupied, Gaullism would have caved in at once”. Later that very night, Cohn-Bendit was forced into exile.

As street demos grew and occupations continued, the state prepared to use brutal force to crush the revolt. Top generals were preparing 20,000 troops to take hold of Paris with force and police had occupied communications centres like TV stations and Post Offices. Communist Party officials tricked strikers into returning to work. In the case of the Metro, they visited one station and told workers that other stations had re-opened, then they proceeded to move around all the stations saying this.

On May 27th, the government had promised a 35% increase in the industrial minimum wage and an all round wage increase of 10%. By June 5th, most strikes were over and normal capitalist life had pretty much returned to Paris. Any strikes after this date were crushed brutally with armoured vehicles and guns. On June 7th, an assault was made on the Flins steelworks, which started four days of rioting which, left one worker dead. On the 10th, police gunned down Renault workers, killing two. On the 12th, demonstrations were banned, certain radical groups outlawed and their members arrested.

Under attack from Communists, the State, Union Officials and bosses, the General Strike and occupations were slowly crushed.

So what went wrong? Was it because there weren’t any vanguard party, Bolshevik wannabes around? Was it bollocks! The only Party strong enough to have any influence (the Communists) was actively trying to undermine the uprising.

The people on the ground didn’t need some jumped up careerist politician to tell them what to do. The smaller lefty sects spent their time running after the revolt selling papers, trying to catch up with it and control it. No, it was the lack of independent, self-managed organisations to help co-ordinate the struggles. This meant that the occupations remained largely isolated from each other. And so divided, they fell. Also, as famous Anarchist Murray Bookchin said: "an awareness among the workers that the factories had to be worked, not merely occupied or struck," was missing. This awareness would have existed if there had been a strong Anarchist movement before the uprising. The Anarchist movement was too weak among the workers and, as a result, the idea of workers’ self-management was not widespread among them.

However, the May-June revolt shows that the tables can be turned on our rulers very quickly. And that all this occurred during a period of economic boom! The General Strike showed very clearly that the working class holds massive potential power. The mass assemblies and occupations gave an excellent example of Anarchy in action and how Anarchist ideas can be applied and spread quickly amongst a large mass of people. The May-June revolt showed that with preparation beforehand, an Anarchist future is not just a pipe dream or a fantasy but something that can be transformed into reality.