On The Barricades In May 1968
Karen Moller
From Swans
France was a champagne bottle ready to
explode. The student riots and the subsequent barricading of
the Latin Quarter started the necessary upheaval that shook
that country into the present.
May 1968 started like any other month but after the first
week, it was obvious that dramatic changes were in the air.
I had just finished presenting my new London fashion show to
the wholesale industry and rather than go to bed, I turned
on the radio and heard the first news of the student riots
taking place in Paris.
According to Le Monde, the trouble had begun earlier at
Nanterre, a suburban university. Since worldwide student
unrest was endemic I naturally expected the French students
to be more politicized. Instead, much of their anger
centered on their personal frustrations with university
deficiencies. When their demands were ignored by the
authorities, the students took over the Sorbonne in the
Latin Quarter (the heart of the student area) and raised
barricades. The universities in France, even more so than in
England or the United States, were sacred institutions,
almost like churches. Technically, the police had a right to
enter them, but if they did, they did so with great
discretion. Roche, the dean of the Sorbonne, had panicked
and called on the chief of police, Grimau, to clear out the
students. Grimau was careful; he knew he was not dealing
with Algerians or the poor and unemployed, where he could
get away with murder. Careful or not, the police forcing
their way into the Sorbonne had angered not only the
students, but everyone.
Unable to contain my curiosity, I telephoned Adrienne who
lived in Paris. "Shit!" she said as soon as she heard my
voice. "Right in the middle of Paris they think they can get
away with beating kids and herding them into the paddy
wagons." She urged me to come over. No need to be asked
twice! I arrived in time for the protest march held on the
tenth anniversary of de Gaulle as President. It should have
been a day of celebration for him. Instead, the city took to
the streets with factory workers, students, and ordinary
people in outrage against his government and the
heavy-handed action of the police.The march from the Place de la Bastille to Denfert Rochereau
continued all day with the number of participants expanding
limitlessly as people joined along the way. In sheer
exuberance, people burst into laughter for no reason and
shouted slogans like, "We are all German Jews" in homage to
the student leader, Danny Cohn-Bendit, who had dual French
and German nationality, but whom the government insisted on
calling a German Jew. Others were singing The
Internationale, the Marseillaise, and songs from the 1871
Commune.
The next day I went with Adrienne to the Beaux-Arts, where
the art students were actively producing thousands of
anti-government posters, many of which already covered the
walls of Paris. The art school was packed with people
standing around in groups, comparing notes, discussing the
general strike, and planning the evening ahead.
Adrienne, in her capacity as Maoist representative, was one
of the twenty-five people that made up the Comités d'Action.
I found it curious that Adrienne refused the rules of
bourgeois society, yet accepted what were to me the much
more oppressive rules of the Maoists. In fact it seemed
ironic that the true guarantors of democracy appeared to be
the Anarchists. Their suggestion that the various factions
should forget their differences and form a common platform
with a true revolutionary moral code was by far the most
sensible of all the proposals discussed.
As the speeches went on, someone who looked like a petty
official took the microphone and introduced himself as
Lionel Jospin (a leftwing union representative and later
French Prime Minister). He scolded us and tried to persuade
us to go home by saying something to the effect that, "A
dreadful dissension reigns over you and an appalling
thoughtlessness marks your actions." The grim and hostile
crowd made grunts of disapproval. It was evident the unions
felt in mortal danger because the revolution had started
without them. In fact, it wasn't just Lionel Jospin that had
failed to grasp the historical significance of the moment.
The Socialists and Communists weren't making any significant
contribution either. A middle-aged man dressed like a
university professor stepped onto the platform and announced
that the students had now reoccupied the Sorbonne. He turned
to the previous speaker. "It's too late, Jospin. We don't
need you or the unions. You can go home."
Later that day, Adrienne and I headed out to join one of the
twenty-five barricades installed on the Left Bank. The
electricity supply had been interrupted and the lack of
street and traffic lights caused chaos. Our barricade was
about two meters high and made of wooden crates, flowerpots,
and pieces of furniture that the local inhabitants of the
area donated from their cellars and shops. A burned out car
added to the heap and blocked one end of the barricade.
Students had been at work since early afternoon gathering
paving stones, dug up from the street, and now those stones
were piled high on top of the barricade for future use
against the police.
Since there was little to do, I sat on the top of the wooden
crates and gazed out at the city. A soft rain fell, and
seemed to spread a polish on the surrounding mounds, making
them glow in the faint light. France was taking on an
extraordinary make-believe quality. Actually, as the hours
ticked by and the dark mass of police at the end of the
street thickened like a dish of lentils cooking on a back
burner, it felt less and less dreamlike and more scary
reality-like. Only later did I realize just how lucky we had
been. Apparently, they used not only tear-gas grenades, but
also the dangerous, explosive stun grenades and grenades
containing CS gas, which could be fatal.
One of the students nearby had a transistor radio. He turned
up the volume and we heard an interview with student leader
Cohn-Bendit, popularly known as Danny the Red. He was
absolutely brilliant, cunning, and ruthless. He seemed to
remember everything he had ever read. "Don't get caught
alone," he warned. "They'll club you and kick you when
you're down."
When morning broke, I was very tired. People opened their
doors all down the street and brought us coffee and
chocolate. It was a strange anticlimax. I was elated to have
gotten through the night, but then nothing had really
happened, apart from a few bursts of tear gas. The fighting
had been elsewhere. As it turned out that was to become the
general pattern. The most brutal encounters occurred at
night, followed by almost idyllic calm in the day when songs
and poetry alternated with spontaneous meetings and
revolutionary speeches. Talk submerged the streets as people
filled the squares and shared their secrets with neighbors
who, until then, they had never spoken to. Nevertheless,
there was a heavy sense of impending trouble. Place Maubert
looked desolate and ruined, as if Paris had suddenly become
a shabby city that no one had the time or money to clean. A
pile of burnt garbage smoldered in the middle of the square,
traffic lights were smashed, and burned-out cars and broken
street signs lay in the gutter. The grills were torn up and
the trees flattened.
We stopped at a local café, where a glance around was enough
to alert me that, from our appearance, everyone in the bar
knew where we had spent the night. The barman looked us over
as we sipped our coffee. Then, nodding in sympathy, and with
a certain rough affection, he refused our francs. We were
about to leave, when a man arrived with a newspaper. "The
Dean of the Sorbonne wants to negotiate," ran one headline.
"Reason Could Prevail," ran another. I was not so sure. Many
shops were closed. Perhaps more afraid of the students than
the police, several shop owners had put up signs in their
windows that read, "Solidarity with the students."
Later that day, after another meeting at the Beaux-Arts,
Adrienne was put in charge of the most important student
enclave in Rue Gay-Lussac near the Contrescarpe. She had
grown up in that area and knew every twist and turn of the
streets and alleyways. The students controlled the area so
no one believed the police would dare to invade, but
Adrienne took no chances and stationed lookouts on the
roofs. Toward the end of the day, we got word that a group
of six or seven policemen were making their way from doorway
to doorway. Adrienne gave a whistle and paving stones
showered down. The aim was not to hit the officers, but as
she put it, "to scare the shit out of them."
Instead, it was scaring the shit out of me. If something
went wrong, like accidentally hitting a policeman, we would
end up spending years in prison. Luckily, the police took
off at the first volley and no one was seriously injured.
Later that night, dressed in a couple of old black sweaters
to make us less conspicuous, we headed out to Rue Gay-Lussac
barricade. Some workers had kindly dumped a load of building
blocks nearby, and after an hour of passing up the blocks to
comrades, my hands were raw. Adrienne smiled, confident that
we were in control, and with no sign of imminent trouble,
she suggested we take a break. We took a walk down Boulevard
Saint Michel and to our surprise, we found ourselves
drinking coffee next to the CRS, the special riot police.
They seemed like kids, as young and scared as we were.
Adrienne was never one to lose her cool. After exchanging a
few pleasantries with the CRS, she said, "We are making the
world better for you as well." The young policeman looked
skeptical, then with a nod of his head, he replied, "And we
are just doing our job."
Back at the barricade, I gazed out at the surrounding
buildings and the dark, forbidding sky. The stabbing rays of
the police spotlights threw long, violet shadows into every
nook and cranny, and made the entire area dissolve and
reassemble in such a way that it looked unfamiliar. Someone
began singing the Marseillaise. Gradually, one after
another, we joined in, forgetting our danger. The silence
that followed our song was absolute except for the soft,
clear drumming of the tear gas going off in the distant battles.
At about 2 a.m., things started to happen. I suspected that,
like me, my fifty or so companions were damp with sweat and
fear as the CRS put on their helmets. They moved forward
like a solid wall, swirling their rolled-up policeman's
capes made of a special lead mixture, so compact it could
knock a person unconscious. The scale of the attack was
dumbfounding, like a volcano erupting. I panicked and began
wildly throwing paving stones, bottles, and lumps of earth.
I could hear the wailing sirens of the nearby ambulances,
but they could not get through to us. Suddenly a taxi
appeared out of nowhere and carried two of the wounded to
the Sorbonne, where doctors were on hand. More comrades
streamed in from defeated areas and confirmed that the
police were even beating people on stretchers. I heard a
series of thuds and tear gas canisters landed, belching
smoke in thick, blue clouds. The humidity kept the gas close
to the ground, and the acid mist burned my eyes and
nostrils. The itching was terrible and I wanted to rub my
eyes, but I knew that would only make them worse.
When a photographer was knocked over and his camera smashed,
we knew it was the end. We ran, pursued by the sound of
sirens, our footsteps hitting the pavement with the
regularity of a metronome. I was in despair that we were
losing ground but Adrienne brushed off the night's defeat as
a hiccup. "The government may think they'd saved their skin,
but they haven't. The struggle is only starting. Tomorrow,
more workers will join us. You'll see, France is changing."
On the 16th of May, Adrienne and I visited the Odéon
Theater, which had been taken over by the university. The
theater was full of makeshift beds, but with the continual
vociferous meetings and consultations going on, I doubted
that anyone could sleep. Although well dressed, the young
crowd looked terribly dirty, as if most of them had rolled
in from the provinces, without a change of clothes or the
necessities to care for themselves. Their tired eyes and
pale, anemic faces appeared euphoric and intoxicated with
the idea of righting every wrong. The streets around the
University looked as if they had been bombed, but the
Sorbonne itself was crowded. Apparently, now that it was in
the hands of the students, it was suddenly the fashion for
people to make a visit there after dinner. In the vast
central courtyard, the walls were plastered with Peking-type
papers and posters. Makeshift tables were piled high with
Mao's little red books and cheap banners for Lenin, Mao, and
Stalin. I asked the girl behind one of the tables, "Why are
you touting that megalomaniac killer, Stalin?" She looked
embarrassed, as if she had already been asked the same
question, but she didn't seem to know why I objected to his
inclusion.
De Gaulle disappeared. Apparently, he was ready to send in
the army to put down "les chienlits" as he called us. I was
mystified by that word. What did it mean? I asked Adrienne.
She laughed and said scornfully that it was hard to
translate, but the closest was "bed shitters." Rumors were
flying on all sides. Our hero, Cohn-Bendit, worked for the
CIA, tanks surrounded Paris, etc. The authorities were
talking of unwholesome conspiracies and searching for
foreign agitators. The students had somehow caught that wind
of suspicion; a large sign hung over the door of the
Sorbonne amphitheater read, "Tourists keep out!" The guard
seemed to think that meant anyone foreign, so I had to wait
in the courtyard.
While I waited, I overheard two students being interviewed
for a London newspaper. One of the students said that at the
university, boys were banned from the girl's lodgings, but
the girls could visit the boys in their rooms. Seeing the
surprise on the journalist's face, the student said, Chassez
la nature, elle revient au galop. The journalist's puzzled
look made me wonder if he understood the expression, "If
your suppress nature, it comes galloping back." "We're not
Anglo-Saxons, you know," the student added condescendingly.
"Nature has its laws, which are better acknowledged than
forgotten."
Anglo-Saxon culture was different in more ways than he
perhaps realized. I'd just read La Société du Spectacle by
Guy Debord, the most vocal of the Situationists. From Guy
Debord's insular and left wing perspective, the youth
culture was an invention of merchandisers, "Likely to create
the potential for open revolt because under-privileged youth
could not afford the offered merchandise." His theory, based
on the past, was correct. However, history was not just the
past; it was also something about to happen.
In the present conflict, the middle-class youth of developed
countries in Europe were generating open revolt precisely
because they wanted more from life than possessions. In his
favor, it must be said, the next and present generations in
the U.S. and Europe have turned out to be wildly
materialistic. More surprising was Debord's astonishing
ability to see into the near future. We did not have
computers then; we didn't even imagine having them, but
today they give us exactly what Debord preached against,
"the desire for abbreviated information." He claimed it was
the opposite of thinking awareness, and would turn us all
into sleepwalking zombies.
Back in the street I saw what looked like footage of WWII
mass migration from Paris. People were carrying suitcases
and cardboard boxes, and pushing carts full of packages. It
was a minute before I realized that they were not leaving,
but hoarding food and other items in fear of future
deprivations. Around the next corner in a relatively
undamaged street, I saw a young man handing out anti-student
fliers that read, "Unite and save the country from anarchy."
What courage, I thought, to infiltrate our militant enclave.
At the same time, I was angry. "A world empty of oppressive
rules is not anarchy," I shouted at him.
By the end of the week, ten million workers were on strike.
Without airplanes, transport, gas, or telephone lines,
ordinary life was at a standstill. Finally, on the 23rd of
May I managed to get a lift to Beauvais and from there a
plane back to London. I had enjoyed that brief time in Paris
and I had loved the French being so un-French. Instead of
asking, "What is this going to cost us," which was their
usual response in times of crisis, they asked deep questions
like, "Who will we be when this is over? How will it change
the minds and spirits of our children?" Later, with the
handouts and concessions to the workers, and the
acknowledgement of the justness of students' complaints, the
movement disintegrated. The visionless old guard stayed in
power; just the figurehead changed. The same French people
who had been asking deep questions about how the revolution
would change our minds and spirits seemed relieved because
they thought the fabric of their society had not changed.
Yet, in fact, underneath, it had. With the May '68
rebellion, France caught up with England, and in some ways
surpassed it. The French installed national nursery care,
improved all levels of education, gave women the right to
abortion, and signed the bill of rights for women.
Unfortunately, since the incredible events of the May 1968
revolution, France has hardly moved forward and remains
today a democratic country where democracy is only skin deep.
· · · · · ·
About the Author
Karen Moller is the author of Technicolor Dreamin': The
1960's Rainbow and Beyondand a fashion designer who lives half time in
Paris, France, and the other half in Venice, Italy.
