France 1968: The Beginning of the End

Author: (French) Anqi Lou Quatrocchi / Tom Nairn
Translator: Zhao Gang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: In the 1960s, a wave of protests swept across developed capitalist societies in Europe and America. A young generation, historically prosperous and affluent, grew impatient and disdainful toward the rituals, conventions, and values of capitalist society, technocratic bureaucracy, and patriarchal society. They demanded radical participation in democracy and alternative lifestyles through action. This book provides a firsthand description and analysis of the events of 1968 in France. Although the revolution was short-lived, the hopes and setbacks it brought hold profound historical and cultural significance. The "postmodern" in France since the 1970s can likely only be understood within this historical context, such as the ideas of Foucault, Lyotard, and Baudrillard. In a fundamental sense, they are all in dialogue with 1968. (Recommended by Southern Weekly!)
The May 1968 uprising in France was a challenge by the younger generation to the bourgeois lifestyle and the spirit of the entire era. They believed that universities should not be mere vocational training centers, work should not be just about earning a living, and life should not mean selfishness, greed, mediocrity, or self-repression. This was a general outburst of the spiritual crisis faced by the post-World War II generation in France. The war left ruins, reconstruction triggered a new round of rapid economic development, and it also brought the suffering of the older generation and the spiritual rupture of the younger generation. Kant once said that such a phenomenon in history would never be forgotten, as it revealed the germination of something better in human nature and the ability to achieve it. The May 1968 uprising is a reenactment of this prophecy. —Excerpt from Southern Weekly · Smelling the Book
Act I: The Bourgeoisie Has a Kind of Joy That Belittles All Pleasures
Let’s rewind the timeline to Nanterre. A contemporary fable begins here. 1963. A Wednesday. A routine cabinet meeting. A new university campus is needed (progress, you see). Ideally, in the suburbs of Paris (planning, you see). At the time, the Minister of Defense, Messmer, told the Minister of Education, Fouchet (later the Interior Minister in May 1968), "I have a piece of land in Nanterre on the western side of Paris. If you need it, take it." (Politics, you see). It was an air force storage depot, located in a desolate village. The tide rose in Nanterre in 1968. A concrete and glass campus. Built for the children of the middle class in the 16th and 17th arrondissements—Paris’s opulent mausoleum. There were also parking lots; a plethora of parking lots built specifically for the young hooligans who lived at home and commuted to school in their mothers’ cars (family, you see).
Around the campus, the village of Arabs and Portuguese remained desolate. Underdeveloped teenagers played football all day at the edge of life (their women! Their language! Theirs!). chimneys, cheap public housing, wastelands. Spray paint on the walls: "Urban, Clean, Sexy." Twelve thousand students. One thousand five hundred living on campus. A dance every week, two movies, and the rest of the evenings watching television. Television, the opium of the masses, but also the self-inflicted punishment of intellectuals (culture, you see).
On one wall: "Like insects smashing against the window, then rotting." Dormitory rooms were well-equipped and disinfected, with large glass windows overlooking the Arab slums. "Foreigners" were not allowed inside, nor were they permitted to rearrange furniture or have fires. No politics allowed within the dorms. On the outer wall: "Freedom stops here." Girls over 21 or with parental permission could visit the boys’ dorms. But boys were not allowed in the girls’ dorms, because—as the minister said—nature has its laws, well, admit it, don’t forget it. And—the minister said—"Girls don’t really want boys invading their feminine world" (ethics, you see).
A small group of Maoists, Trotskyites, Anarchists, and Situationists; there was also Cohn-Bendit (extremists, you see). This was the calm before the storm. The students of the sociology department were active. But these activists only operated in a vacuum. Their sole demand: Vietnam. Most were alienated and disconnected, with only a few awakened—the myth of the left, you see.
There was a blacklist with the names of some activists. Dean Grappin—a good father, a liberal (formerly an anti-Nazi occupation activist)—denied the existence of a blacklist. But strangers in black trench coats kept appearing on campus. They were definitely the same people investigating the "Vietnam Committees" active in Paris. The trench-coated strangers took photos of "extremist" students. The students retaliated by taking photos of the strangers and posting them on bulletin boards. The corridors’ bulletin boards read: "(Vietnam) National Liberation Front (FLN) victory," "All reactionaries are paper tigers," "Vietnam in Vietnam."
Students demanded that the sociology professor play Chris Marker’s film about the Rhodiaceta factory strike, but he was refused. Students demanded a discussion of William Reich’s book on repression and desire, but it was also refused. Students began questioning the professors. "Professor Emeritus, who is Charlemagne?" Charlemagne was a great king who fought for Christianity. "Professor Emeritus, what do workers eat for lunch?" They eat what they can. My child, let’s focus on the spiritual instead of these trivial matters, because a great future awaits you. You must discipline yourself and learn to be tactful.
An anonymous person wrote on the wall: "Professor, you’re old." Things began to go wrong. The walls started cracking. The soul stirred. A few troublemakers stirred the waters. The administrators were thrown into disarray. Minister Missoffe arrived in grand style to open a new swimming pool. He had written a book about youth, as had every minister in charge of youth. Flashbulbs. Lecture hall. The minister said, "Students, listen." Student Cohn-Bendit interrupted the speech: "I’ve read your book. Six hundred pages of nonsense. You didn’t even touch the issue of sexuality." The minister flew into a rage. Lost his cool: "Well, it’s clear from your face that you have such problems. Dive into the pool and swim!"
The newspapers started covering it. The fact that the media would report it itself sent a strong message. Mass media pointed students toward self-awareness. The iron fence of respect for teachers had long rusted. Doubt was the. This university, or this knowledge factory, faced its first wildcat strike. Professors were being stripped bare by one question after another. Laughter, this immediate, carefree profanation of art. Soon, all the professors became naked kings.
A noisy procession of dissenters marched, occasionally joined by new members. The professors quickly hid. It became a big news story. Italian students learned how to cut bus tires, how to throw sand at the police (flics) chasing them...