What made the French students descend en masse into the streets of Paris and then of the provinces? What was it that brought about the open confrontation on May 3rd and subsequent days in violent and bloody street battles between French youth and the forces of "law and order?"
The week May 3rd to 10th represents a decisive turning point not only for the students but for working class struggles also, For the first time young workers flowed into the streets to support the students and school pupils with their teachers; and it was the young workers, eager and enlightened, who were helping students to erect the barricades: something they had never been taught by their own organisations,
One of the main issues was that within the educational establishments there existed no medium through which students, school pupils and young apprentices could express grievances and their desire for free discussion. Provided with no material facilities, the students of Nanterre, a new residential faculty on the outskirts of Paris, were left with no alternative than to occupy the lecture theatres in order to carry out their political discussions, The intervention of the extreme right-wing group "Occident" to try to halt the movement of "contestation" against the bourgeois university, and the system which engendered it, led to the closing of the faculty by the panic-stricken administration, This sparked off a wave of radical protest among students everywhere, and the Nanterre movement went to the Sorbonne in order to extend the resistance to the repressive measures adopted by the authorities,
WHY "CONTESTATION" STARTED
The movement of "contestation" owed its development since the beginning of the academic year to the educational "reforms" contained in the Fouchet plan, The main purpose of this plan was to "rationalise" the system of national education - with more streaming and selectivity, and more examinations which effectively reduced the opportunities of working class children to obtain higher education,
The radical trend was reinforced by news of the struggles taking place in universities in other parts of Europe, particularly in Berlin, Milan, Warsaw, Prague and Madrid, With the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke, West German students intensified their struggle and extended to a general attack on the right press for [illegible] and smears against Dutschke and the SDS. The following day, in Paris, a joint demonstration and protest meeting was organised in solidarity with the German students.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
During this period, there were also left-wing solidarity demonstrations supporting the students and workers of Poland in their fight against repression and for a true socialist democracy, And the National Vietnam Committee (CVN) and the Maoist Comites de Base escalated their Vietnam solidarity demonstrations, adopting new forms of action to coincide with the Tet offensive.
On May 3rd, the day after the closing of Nanterre a gathering of students of militant left-wing groups in the courtyard were planning the defence of the Sorbonne against a rumoured fascist attack - the rector called in the police to clear the courtyard, The students offered no resistance to the police but the men were arrested, nevertheless, as they left the precincts, by riot police who had surrounded the university area.
It was this repressive and illegal action which aroused the indignation and loud protest of the students and bystanders who saw it, and against whom the police turned in fury, chasing them with truncheons flailing out of the square and up side streets, whether or not [they were] involved in the struggle, This provoked violent retaliation by the students some of whom began throwing anything they could lay their hands on, This fight went on late into the night and many [illegible] made,
EXPLAINING TO THE PUBLIC
Over the week-end, the left-wing students union (UNEF) took up the task of explaining the struggle to the public and trying to demystify the distorted accounts [illegible] in the [illegible], which were not denied by the authorities, The following [illegible] on which the political [illegible] youth groups participated and which culminated in further street fighting when the police attempted [illegible] the students out of the Latin Quarter, using tear gas bombs to clear many areas, But whole streets were occupied by students who had dug themselves in and erected barricades,
[illegible] groups in this struggle had been the March 22nd movement of Nanterre, (whose [illegible] Communiste Revolutionnaire) marxist revolutionary youth organisation which developed from an opposition tendency in the [illegible] student organisation; the UNEF, (the Union Nationale des Etudiants de France) the left-wing [illegible] (group) [illegible] Communiste-Marxiste-Leniniste).
Occupying a prominent place also was the School Action Committee (CAL) - formed in the spring in order to defend victimised militants who had been trying to organise protest activity in the schools, The expulsion of comrades from the schools led to the demand for freedom of expression, trade union and political freedom, They organised sympathetic strikes in the schools and participated actively in the student struggle,
THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
The Communist Party, hitherto hostile to the student movement, which it saw as a powerful and rival cohesive force among the radical youth, capable of appealing to young militant workers, now seized the opportunity to adopt a leading role by joining the demonstration organised by the movement on May 7th. It was coolly received, On the Friday, May 10th, a demonstration was organised starting at 6.30 in the evening. The police made no attempt to block the students' entry to the Latin Quarter - in fact they seemed almost to channel the demonstration into that area, The students proceeded to dig themselves in; the police waited until all the barricades were completed, then they moved in with tear gas bombs and combat gas grenades, similar to those used by the Americans in Vietnam and in the Black Ghettoes, For five hours the students fought to defend their positions, determined not to yield until their demands were satisfied,
These demands were: a) re-opening of the Sorbonne and the Nanterre faculty; b) [illegible] struggle; and c) withdrawal of police from the Latin Quarter
In the early hours of the morning around 5 or 6 [illegible] finally able to disperse [illegible] the police withdrew. Hundreds of people had been seriously injured and many were still being taken to hospital.
PUBLIC SYMPATHY GROWS
By the following day, public sympathy for the [illegible] created intense p[illegible] with the students' demands,
Government spokesmen later announced that the students' three demands would be met. Meantime, the Communist-dominated General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and the other unions (CFDT and FO) called a general strike and a massive demonstration for Monday, May 13th. This demonstration gathered about a million people and among the [illegible] "De Gaulle, [illegible]", "Happy Birthday, General!" (referring ironically to the tenth anniversary of the coup that brought de Gaulle to power); "Ten years is too much!"; "Fouchet resign!"; "Grimaud resign!" (Grimaud is the Paris Chief of Police); "Popular Government"; [illegible] and "Down with [illegible]"
The students proceeded to occupy the faculties and carry out debates and discussions to prepare future action, and in particular to organise local action committees in order to make contact with young workers,
What began as the movement of "contestation" of the university based on educational grievances had grown in strength with a developing consciousness of the class nature of the repression. It was increasingly realised that the struggle was with the state and all the forces of bourgeois society,
Since the students had achieved virtual satisfaction over their demands, the student and youth political organisations, which had transcended their political differences in order to be most effective in the fight against the police and judicial authorities, resumed their autonomous work at a higher level. At the time of writing it is too early to predict the outcome of the present wave of strikes and seizures of factories which have brought France to a standstill, Much depends on the ability of French workers to grasp the revolutionary possibilities of the present situation, There appears to be no [illegible] working class organisations strong enough to lead the workers in a revolutionary struggle against the ossified trade union and party bureaucracies,
INDEPENDENT CLASS ACTION
There is, however, a consciousness among the workers who took independent class action, over the heads of their organisations, that the Communist Party has betrayed them, and betrayed the students by its initial desire to isolate their struggle from that of the workers, (HUMANITE, the Communist newspaper, eagerly seized on any opportunity to denounce as "leftist" and "adventurist" those elements on its left, including the so-called "German Anarchist" Cohn Bendit, who had been in the forefront of the students' movement).
Although the Communist Party and the Left Democratic Federation (reformist class-collaborationist Alliance) along with the CGT, CFDT and FO, are demanding a new Government and G[ener]al [illegible] which will "unite all the left democratic and anti-monopolistic elements", there is still [illegible] atmosphere of freedom and relief and of a new self-confidence which the workers discovered in [illegible]
The task of the young revolutionary organisations that have come to the forefront of the French political scene must be to carry out a process of clarification of the nature and aims of the students' fight, its perspectives, and the whole question of power which the present situation poses
* "Contestation" - the policy of contesting and opposing the university authorities and their new policies.