Politique française: Mai 68

Les évènements qui ont lieu en ce moment sur le campus de la Trobe, nous poussent, Marion et moi, à revenir sur les différents mouvements étudiants qui ont eu lieu dans le passé en France. 

La grève, la contestation, trait dérisoire et défaut ultra caricaturé dans la presse et à l’étranger, est un droit Français hérité (INALIENABLE) d’un passé révolutionnaire et guerrier. Après tout la France est le pays des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen !

Petite rétrospective et Linkographie :

Nous découperons cette saga en trois épisodes marquants ! Et commençons tout de suite par l’évènement qui à marqué l’Histoire : Mai 68!

The May 1968 protests were significant in French history for involving the first wildcat general strike ever, and the largest general strike to date which brought the economy of an advanced industrial country to a virtual standstill. It commenced with a series of student occupation protests. The strike involved 11,000,000 workers, over 22% of the total population of France at the time, for a continuous two weeks, and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of President Charles de Gaulle's government. In staging wildcat strikes, the movement contrasted with the trade unions and the French Communist Party, which began to side with the de Gaulle government.

It began as a long series of student strikes that broke out at a number of universities and lycées in Paris, following confrontations with university administrators and the police. The de Gaulle administration's attempts to quell those strikes by police action only inflamed the situation further, leading to street battles with the police in the Latin Quarter, followed by a general strike by students and strikes throughout France. The protests reached such a point that government leaders feared civil war or revolution. De Gaulle fled to a French military base in Germany, where he created a military operations headquarters to deal with the unrest, dissolved the National Assembly, and called for new parliamentary elections for 23 June 1968. Violence evaporated almost as quickly as it arose. Workers went back to their jobs, after a series of deceptions by the Confédération Générale du Travail (the leftist union federation) and the PCF. When the elections were finally held in June, the Gaullist party emerged even stronger than before.

Pour en savoir plus, n’hésitez pas à vous rendre sur la page Wikipédia consacrée à l’Event.

Une superbe exposition sur Mai 68 est disponible sur le site de la BNF.

• Un Dossier sur Mai 68.
• Un Autre Dossier.
• Un Cours sur Mai 68.
• Un site qui regroupe les différents slogans de Mai 68!

Some Mottos:

• Il est interdit d'interdire
• Dessous les pavés, c'est la plage !
• Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible ! (Che Guevara)
• Désirer la réalité, c'est bien ! Réaliser ses désirs, c'est mieux !
• La chienlit, c'est lui ! L'anarchie, c'est je !
• Les murs ont des oreilles. Vos oreilles ont des murs.
• Mettez un flic sous votre moteur.
• Ici, on spontane.
• Le rêve est réalité
• L'imagination prend le pouvoir.

Quelques Affiches:

A LA TELEVISION:

Une émission sur les évènements de Mai 68:

Le site de l'INA (Archives) met a disposition les sources audiovisuelles parlant de Mai 68.

Une petite chronologie retraçant Mai 68 :

• March 22: students headed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit occupy the University of Nanterre.
• May 2: the university of Nanterre is officially closed
• May 3: students occupy the university of La Sorbonne. The police throws them out, resulting in the first demonstration.
• May 6: more demonstrations, getting more violent (barricades). Spreads to other cities.
• May 10: more barricades in the latin quarter. The battle with the police lasts all night.
• May 13: for the first time, unions decide to side with the students (or to take advantage of the "mess"), in contradiction with the communist party, and decide for a general strike. The "worst" strike the country ever had. 10 million people are on strike. Demonstrations now include students AND workers.
• May 15: the Odeon theater and the Sorbonne university are occupied by students, factories (like Renault) are occupied by workers.
• May 19: De Gaulle was on a trip to Romania, he comes back and says he agrees to negociate but not to resign. The whole country is paralysed by the strike. De Gaulle calls that "la chienlit", which is a very old-fashion way to say "a big mess". Students reply: "La chienlit, c'est lui".
• May 22: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a jew and German citizen, is officially "persona non grata" in France. Students reply "nous sommes tous des juifs allemands". He manages to come back to France anyway.
• May 24: There will be a referendum in June says De Gaulle. Fights keep going. A student and a policeman die.
• May 27: negociations between the government and the Unions: salaries are raised, union rights are increased. A big student meeting in Paris suggests a new government if De Gaulle resigns.
• May 29: De Gaulle flips. He goes to Baden Baden where the head of the french army is, and checks that the army would back him up in case of a civil war.
• May 30: De Gaulle confirms that he won't quit. He "disolves" the congress and calls for new elections. The "Gaullists" call for a demonstration on the Champs-Elysees: it's very succesful (and quiet).
• May 31: the government is modified. The strike is over.

Quelques photos des évènements:

Voici donc l’un des mouvements étudiants les plus importants en France. Dans le prochain article consacré à cette série, nous avancerons plus loin dans l’Histoire pour revenir sur les évènements de 2002-2003 contre la reforme LMD.