The LuLac Edition #3795, May 31st, 2018

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FRANCE'S RIOTS # 50

While college campuses were torn asunder here in the United States with demonstrations and sit ins, in France, one of our staunchest allies, civil war broke out. President Charles deGaulle was being challenged and was under fire We would be remiss if we did not include the issues facing France in 1968 during this challenging time. This is how it started.
The volatile period of civil unrest in France during May 1968 was punctuated by demonstrations and massive general strikes as well as the occupation of universities and factories across France. At the height of its fervor, it brought the entire economy of France to a virtual halt. The protests reached such a point that political leaders feared civil war or revolution; the national government itself momentarily ceased to function after President Charles de Gaulle secretly fled France for a few hours. The protests spurred an artistic movement, with songs, imaginative graffiti, posters, and slogans.
“May 68” affected French society for decades afterward. It is considered to this day as a cultural, social and moral turning point in the history of the country. As Alain Geismar—one of the leaders of the time—later pointed out, the movement succeeded “as a social revolution, not as a political one”.

The unrest began with a series of student occupation protests against capitalism, consumerism, American imperialism and traditional institutions, values and order. It then spread to factories with strikes involving 11 million workers, more than 22% of the total population of France at the time, for two continuous weeks.  The movement was characterized by its spontaneous and de-centralized wildcat disposition; this created contrast and sometimes even conflict between itself and the establishment, trade unions and workers' parties  It was the largest general strike ever attempted in France, and the first nationwide wildcat general strike.
The student occupations and wildcat general strikes initiated across France were met with forceful confrontation by university administrators and 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 Paris's Latin Quarter, followed by the spread of general strikes and occupations throughout France. De Gaulle fled to a French military base in Germany, and after returning 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, and when the elections were finally held in June, the Gaullist party emerged even stronger than before.
After the Algerian crisis of the l950s, France entered a period of stability in the 1960s. The French empire was abolished, the economy improved, and President Charles de Gaulle was a popular ruler. Discontent lay just beneath the surface, however, especially among young students, who were critical of France’s outdated university system and the scarcity of employment opportunity for university graduates. Sporadic student demonstrations for education reform began in 1968, and on May 3 a protest at the Sorbonne (the most celebrated college of the University of Paris) was broken up by police. Several hundred students were arrested and dozens were injured.
In the aftermath of the incident, courses at the Sorbonne were suspended, and students took to the streets of the Latin Quarter (the university district of Paris) to continue their protests. On May 6, battles between the police and students in the Latin Quarter led to hundreds of injuries. On the night of May 10, students set up barricades and rioted in the Latin Quarter. Nearly 400 people were hospitalized, more than half of them police. Leftist students began calling for radical economic and political change in France, and union leaders planned strikes in support of the students. In an effort to defuse the crisis by returning the students to school, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou announced that the Sorbonne would be reopened on May 13.
On that day, students occupied the Sorbonne buildings, converting it into a commune, and striking workers and students protested in the Paris streets. During the next few days, the unrest spread to other French universities, and labor strikes rolled across the country, eventually involving several million workers and paralyzing France. On the evening of May 24, the worst fighting of the May crisis occurred in Paris. Revolutionary students temporarily seized the Bourse (Paris Stock Exchange), raised a communist red flag over the building, and then tried to set it on fire. One policeman was killed in the night’s violence.
During the next few days, Prime Minister Pompidou negotiated with union leaders, making a number of concessions, but failed to end the strike. Radical students openly called for revolution but lost the support of mainstream communist and trade union leaders, who feared that they, like the Gaullist establishment, would be swept away in a revolution led by anarchists and Trotskyites.

On May 30, President de Gaulle went on the radio and announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling national elections. He appealed for law and order and implied that he would use military force to return order to France if necessary. Loyal Gaullists and middle-class citizens rallied around him, and the labor strikes were gradually abandoned. Student protests continued until June 12, when they were banned. Two days later, the students were evicted from the Sorbonne.

In the two rounds of voting on June 23 and 30, the Gaullists won a commanding majority in the National Assembly. In the aftermath of the May events, de Gaulle’s government made a series of concessions to the protesting groups, including higher wages and improved working conditions for workers, and passed a major education reform bill intended to modernize higher education. 
Many people feel that the riots and disorder of 1968 made France a more stronger and more modern nation. The price was a bit high to pay but to hear the French tell it, in hindsight, it was worth the uncertainty of May fifty years ago this month. (wikipedia, History.com., LuLac)