Last Coat of Paint: Graffiti As an Outline of the May 1968 Students’ and Workers’ Movement In

Last Coat of Paint: Graffiti as an Outline of the May 1968 Students’ and Workers’ Movement in

France

Augustus Guikema

Senior Division

Historical Paper

Paper Length: 2388 Words

Process Paper Length: 426 Words Guikema 2

Process Paper

I first became interested in the events of May 1968 in France when researching the history of sociology, and quickly came to realize that these events are among one of the most prominent moments in the social transformation between the post-war world and today, even though they are often overlooked. Underneath this social upheaval lies an economic and ideological one, and the graffiti seen throughout Paris during May 1968 is an interesting illustration of how the ideas of the movement were broadcasted as it carried on.

When conducting my research, I first began by contacting Ken Knabb. Knabb is one of the leading translators and archivists of the Situationist International, one of the groups that played a major role in the radicalization of many of the students and the subsequent events of

May 1968. He directed me towards a number of books and articles which could be used to help understand the background of the movement better, as this was essential to understanding much of the content of the graffiti. Most importantly, he helped me to understand the clarification that rather than being any sort of driving force, the graffiti served as a kind of mass communication derived from everybody and directed at everybody.

After reading many books on the subject, I began to take a look at some of the pieces of graffiti and could instantly understand where much of it fell into the social movement as a whole, whether serving as a reference point for ideological struggle, or as a map of navigating the different periods of the political lifespan. I began to understand how the graffiti really served as a landmark for understanding the progression of the movement.

Upon submitting the original paper at my regional National History Day competition and being awarded first place within my category, I made use of the feedback I received and implemented it to the best extent that I could. Within my original submission, I fell short on Guikema 3 examining the relation between the graffiti and the movement, as well as a solid conclusion that wasn’t just rephrasing the thesis. By reworking these subjects, as well as adding appendices which include some essential photos relevant to the subject, I was able to greatly improve the quality of the project overall.

Within the paper, I demonstrate that the graffiti serves as a unique and independent voice for the movement, which is entirely integrated into the movement itself. The graffiti is able to announce its own current events, opinions, and emotions as the decentralized body of a collective.

Introduction

While the public memory of the social movements of the 1960s is often a time embodied by peaceful protests and free love, the era sometimes had principally sharper teeth. In France, for example, the radical social movements of the 1960s are epitomized by the turbulent events that took place during May of 1968. During this time, riots and a massive general strike led by students and young workers broke out across France. For an entire month, one of the largest economies in the world came to a halt as its streets burned, and the general public brandished the threat of civil war.1 Despite this, everything was over almost as quickly as it had begun, with comparatively little political change to show for all of it.2

What remained after the tear gas had dissipated and normality reappeared, however, was the provocative graffiti that lined the streets of Paris. This was not the typical superficial kind of graffiti that we typically see within protests, but rather it was entirely integrated into the

1 Beardsley, Eleanor. “In France, The Protests Of May 1968 Reverberate Today - And Still Divide The French.” 2 Feenberg, Andrew, and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968. 3. Guikema 4 movement itself. As Maurice Brinton lays out in his journal written while the revolutionary fervor was still in the air:

[Graffiti] is an integral part of the revolutionary Paris of May 1968. It has become a mass activity, part and parcel of the Revolution’s method of self-expression. The walls of the Latin Quarter are the depository of a new rationality, no longer confined to books, but democratically displayed at street level and made available to all.3

Beyond the aesthetic endowments of the graffiti, it plays an unmistakable role in outlining the course of history and ideology of May 1968. From its origin within activist student circles to the decline within bureaucratic union headquarters, the graffiti always serves as a bulletin board for May 1968. This unique form of communication was used to set the mood around ongoing events on a large scale. When this fact is placed into a historical context, we can see how this graffiti was tied to the movement itself. Rather than serving as some sort of guiding force, the graffiti emerged as the spirit of participation as politics. As American writer Susan

Sontag once wrote in reference to the usage of posters during the Cuban Revolution, which was still fresh in the minds of many westerners, “Posters and public notices address the person not as an individual, but as an unidentified member of the body politic.”4 This idea also explains the mass use of the graffiti during the events of May 1968. By serving as a collective identification and voice for the movement, the graffiti shows the intricacies, contradictions, and prophecies of the movement.

Background

Though there is no specific cause for the events of May 1968 or even a date on which they began, it can all be traced to a general social malaise in French society. This uneasiness came from mix of discontent with the aging conservative, sexist, and homophobic government of

3 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 17. 4 Quoted in Rengifo, Alci. “The Walls Speak: Art And The Revolution In May ’68.” Guikema 5

Charles de Gaulle, which had originally stood as a symbol of the resistance during World War 2.5

The continual reform of the French education model in the vein of the American system, deemed by students as favoring productivity over learning, was also another major factor. These reforms were especially antithetical to the centuries old French tradition of students learning at their own pace according to their interests.6

These types of reforms were dispensed into all major universities in France throughout the later weeks of 1967, though most prominently at the Sorbonne. With these reforms, mass discontent quickly spread across the student body. However, at this point the students’ discontent was entirely aimed at the structure of the university rather than the general structure of society.

This would change only a few weeks later at the hands of the Situationist International.

The Situationists originally started purely as a surrealist art collective which then began to sublimate this with Marxist and Anarchist politics.7 Embracing both humanism and nihilism, they resonated with the disillusioned French youth of the time. To quote Society of the Spectacle, one of the seminal pieces of literature of the Situationists:

The loss of the language of communication is positively expressed by the modern movement of decomposition of all art, its formal annihilation. This movement expresses negatively the fact that a common language must be rediscovered no longer in the unilateral conclusion which, in the art of the historical society, always arrived too late, speaking to others about what was lived without real dialogue, and admitting this deficiency of life but it must be rediscovered in praxis, which unifies direct activity and its language.8

This viewpoint is one of the purest expressions of what the Situationist movement was: the concept of individually creating real, lived situations as a synthesis with art. The graffiti

5 Beardsley, Eleanor. “In France, The Protests Of May 1968 Reverberate Today - And Still Divide The French.” 6 Feenberg, Andrew, and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968. 5. 7 Matthews, Janette. “An Introduction to the Situationists.” 8 Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. 186. Guikema 6 which would appear was an example of art being moved back into the realm of the real as a representative of human thought, movement, and communication.

Founding members of the Situationists, Guy Debord and Mustapha Khayati, also co-wrote the pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life which was a radical critique of the general state of the educational system after the reforms, and a takedown of the existing radical student organizations.9 Together with Debord’s previously mentioned Society of the Spectacle, the

Situationists created a large campus movement of Situationist sympathizers known as the enragés (the enraged) who instigated even more political discontent across the student body and were responsible for much of the graffiti.10

Eventually, after a mass police crackdown upon a protest against the Vietnam War, the government demanded the universities to be closed down.11 Upon this, on the night of May 6,

1968, barricades were quickly erected within the Sorbonne and students occupied the campus as riots began moving into the streets (See Appendix I). The movement known as May 1968 had begun.12

Part 1 – Radical Students’ Movement

Shame is counterrevolutionary. – Inside the Nanterre13

Be realistic, demand the impossible. – Outside the Censier14

9 Knabb, Ken. “On the Poverty of Student Life.” From: Situationist International: Anthology. 319-337. 10 Matthews, Janette. “An Introduction to the Situationists.” 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Clark, Jeff. Boredom Weeps: Graffiti, Curses, Inscriptions of May 1968. 170. 14 Ibid, 100. Guikema 7

We don’t want a world where the price of not dying of hunger is the risk of dying of

boredom. – Entrance to the Sorbonne15

The passion for destruction is a creative joy. – Courtyard of the Sorbonne16

Don’t go to Greece this summer, stay at the Sorbonne. – Entrance to the Sorbonne17

These pieces of graffiti show how the first segments of the student movement took the shape of a permanent ideological festival open to the entire student body and the public (See

Appendix II). Radical ideals, which had seemingly already been kept stagnant in the heads of most of the students, were able to be expressed freely. All it took was a spark to put them into action. As the Situationists wrote in a document addressing the controversy created by On the

Poverty of Student Life, “We want ideas to become dangerous again.”18

The students had essentially created the complete antithesis to the repressive new reforms that were taking place within the French university system, as well as a revolt against the existing state of things by creating a new whimsical mode of interaction with the world around them that was simultaneously self-fulfilling and communal.

However, the project was entirely located within the school, and they could not be taken seriously by the public, let alone take power if things remained like this. As such, the enragés began to coalesce into various “occupation committees”19 which would host even more

15 Ibid, 153. 16 Ibid, 169. 17 Besancon, Julien. The Walls Have the Floor: Mural Journal, May '68. 158. 18 Knabb, Ken. “Our Goals and Methods in the Strasbourg Scandal.” From: Situationist International: Anthology. 212. 19 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 67. Guikema 8 sophisticated political debate based on real events presently occurring and organize public demonstrations (which regularly turned into riots and street battles with police).20 The enragés would also begin to organize marches upon factories with high union membership and attempt to coax the workers into revolting by means of the students’ revolutionary phraseology.21 Though these attempts might seem futile or even laughable, they ended up dovetailing into a much larger movement.

Part 2 – Radical Workers’ Movement

Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases. My father before me fought for wage

increases. Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen. Yet my whole life has been a drag.

Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them. – Factory fence near Paris22

I’d rather be killed by paving stones than by unemployment. – Street outside of the

Sorbonne23

The authorities had factories, the workers took them! The authorities had universities,

students took them! The authorities have nothing but power, we will take it! – Outside of

the Condorcet24

Never work. - Boulevard de Port-Royal25

20 Beardsley, Eleanor. “In France, The Protests Of May 1968 Reverberate Today - And Still Divide The French.” 21 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 76. 22 Knabb, Ken. “May 1968 Graffiti.” 23 Clark, Jeff. Boredom Weeps: Graffiti, Curses, Inscriptions of May 1968. 176. 24 Ibid, 136. 25 Ibid, 172. Guikema 9

Worker, you’re 25 but your union’s from last century. To change that, come see us. -

Entrance hall to the Odeon26

These pieces of graffiti, carried out by enragés and workers alike, show the blooming of student-worker solidarity within the rebellion upon the enragés getting more in touch with the radical sects of the working class. In response to the student interference with unionized factories, the Communist Party of France, which was in charge of the internal affairs of most unions,27 distributed a leaflet urging workers not to participate.28

However, many young workers, especially African emigres,29 disobeyed the Communist

Party and launched wildcat strikes in solidarity with the students (See Appendix III). This chain of events first began with the occupation of the Sud Aviation Plant in Nantes on May 14th30 with several automobile factories across the country following suit.31 As one young factory worker shouted to a crowd of students:

All the young workers like myself have had enough. What do we want? A piece of the cake. […] The old unionized workers say we are foolish, that we did not see ’36. They say, wait. Wait for the unions to give the word and things will be all right. Well, the unions control everything and do nothing. […] We saw how the students fought and what they got. It worked. […] We’d all be where we always were if it weren’t for the barricades.32

This rebellion against the bureaucratic unions, who had been the decisive representatives of the working class for decades, represented a major split in the trajectory of the movement now that the students had a large population of workers on their side.

26 Ibid, 116. 27 Feenberg, Andrew, and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968. 42. 28 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 29-30. 29 Ibid, 27. 30 Ibid, 86. 31 Ibid. 32 Feenberg, Andrew, and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968. 35. Guikema 10

Part 3 – Mainstream Movement

Labor unions are whorehouses. - Boulevard de Port-Royal33

Stalinists, your children are with us! – Outside of the Condorcet34

Please leave the Communist Party as clean on leaving it as you would like to find it on

entering. – Place du Colonel Fabien35

Reform = chloroform. - Grand Palais36

No to the Revolution in a suit and tie! – Beaux Arts37

These pieces of graffiti represent the tone of disgust that the enragés had for the

Communist Party, both as a result of the present conditions of the strike and the previous actions of the party which the youth saw as out of touch with their demands. The Communist Party garnered much suspicion from student movements when over the course of the 1960s they refused to take a stand or even defended the actions of the French government during the independence movements in Algeria and Vietnam,38 even though the party had been founded by

33 Knabb, Ken. “May 1968 Graffiti.” 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Clark, Jeff. Boredom Weeps: Graffiti, Curses, Inscriptions of May 1968. 65. 37 Besancon Julien. The Walls Have the Floor: Mural Journal, May '68. 95. 38 Nadi, Selim, and Bhaskar Sunkara. “The Communists and the Colonized.” Guikema 11 anti-colonial activists such as Ho Chi-Minh.39 However, despite these tensions, no major confrontation between the two factions took place until May 1968.

Even though millions of workers were now on strike across the country without an official order to do so, the Communist Party quickly realized that action had to be taken to shift the revolutionary narrative, otherwise their established power would slip out from under them. In a dossier released by the party in the midst of the massive strikes:

We greatly appreciate the solidarity of the students and teachers in the common struggle against the pouvoir personnel (i.e. de Gaulle) and the employers but are opposed to any ill-judged initiative which might threaten our developing movement and facilitate a provocation which would lead to a diversion by the government. We strongly advise the organizers of this demonstration against proceeding with their plans.40

Following this, the Communist Party launched a plan for a one day nationwide general strike, an act in opposition to the enragés principle of autonomous action through self-organization. Near the end of May, the Communist Party, now seen as the head of the strike in the eyes of much of the public, called for an end and sought negotiations.41 They emerged with a 7 percent pay raise for the country, increased union rights, and a new election which actually ended with the de Gaullists having a larger majority than they did before.42 These results were far from the complete and total upheaval that the students and radical workers had in mind, whether or not that would have ended badly. By June, life returned to normal, with the mangled streets and angsty graffiti serving as an exhausted reminder of what had just occurred (See Appendix

IV).

Conclusion

39 Ibid. 40Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 87-88. 41Stangler, Cole. “The Neglected History of the May '68 Uprising in France.” 42 Ibid. Guikema 12

The Situationists dissolved in the early 1970s with seemingly every member attempting to explain away their failure, and the Communist Party, with their union counterparts, hung onto the outdated Stalinist line until the bitter end, leaving their mass movement in the dust as they continually lost popularity. Even though the movement failed, and the immediate spillover into countries like Italy and West Germany failed as well, we are still left with the art and cultural changes that they left behind. The same could be said for any of the social justice movements that occured in the 1960s, especially 1968. Even though Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring, and even though Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were both assassinated, the authentic voices of their movements, especially those that collectively express themselves, will always linger.

Unfortunately, the public memory of the events, both in France and abroad, have been largely distorted. Mostly fabricated crowds of stereotypical young liberal French students clad with “tight red corduroy pants and fitted black shirts”43 protesting for the sake of protesting after the riots had died down end up being the faces most remembered in mainstream accounts.44

While this is certainly a fair interpretation of many segments and time periods of the movement, it shouldn’t supplant any traces of the radical movement just below the surface of it, let alone the sort of spontaneous mass workers’ revolt against modern conditions that occurred. By consulting the graffiti in continuity with the history, we are able to understand the historical background of the mass megaphone of frustrated, anonymous, people.

43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. Guikema 13

Appendix I

45 46

The first above photo shows a group of riot police running in front of a burning barricade in the Latin quarter on the “night of the barricades”. The second photo shows a piece of graffiti reading “long live the underworld” next to a large barricade in the Rue de Saint-Pères.

“[Paris] still carries the scars of the "night of the barricades". Burnt-out cars line the pavement, their carcasses a dirty grey under the missing paint. The cobbles, cleared from the middle of the road, lie in huge mounds on either side. A vague smell of tear gas still lingers in the air. At the junction with the Rue des Ursulines lies a building site, its wire-mesh fence breached in several places. From here came material for at least a dozen barricades: planks, wheelbarrows, metal drums, steel girders, cement mixers, blocks of stone. The site also yielded a pneumatic drill. The students couldn't use it, of course - not until a passing building worker showed them how, perhaps the first worker actively to support the student revolt. Once broken, the road surface provided cobbles, soon put to a variety of uses.”47

45 Photo from Rubin, Alissa. “May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern World.” 46 Photo from Riboud, Marc. “May 68.” 47 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 14. Guikema 14

Appendix II

The above photo shows a group of students gathered in the courtyard of the Sorbonne at the beginning of the occupation, with graffiti behind them reading “Those who make revolutions halfway only dig their own graves”.

“In the yard of the Sorbonne, politics (frowned upon for a generation), took over with a vengeance. Literature stalls sprouted up along the whole inner perimeter. […] The yard of the Sorbonne had become a giant revolutionary drugstore, in which the most esoteric concepts no longer had to be kept beneath the counter.”49

48 Photo from Romani, Jean Paul. “Leclerc Patrice.” 49 Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. 56-58. Guikema 15

Appendix III

The above photo shows a large gathering of striking students and young workers in front of an occupied factory. The banner on the gate reads “unlimited strike for our demands” and the poster depicts an object labeled “capital” being smashed by a hammer.

50 Photo from Barbey, Bruno. “Beyond the Myth: The Legacy of May '68.” Guikema 16

Appendix IV

An old couple strolling past the aftermath of the protests: a decaying propaganda poster and a piece of graffiti, once quite trite but now quite artfully ironic, reading “anarchy”.

51 Photo from Riboud, Marc. “May 68.” Guikema 17

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Barbey, Bruno. “Beyond the Myth: The Legacy of May '68.” Magnum Photos, May 1, 2018.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/politics/the-legacy-of-may-68/.

A photography collection of some of the essential moments of May 1968. This source assists in the understanding of many of the other primary sources, as it allows for a visual identification of some of the most important moments laid out on paper. This is one of the most notable original photography collections of the event, and as such contains some robust photography

Besancon Julien. The Walls Have the Floor: Mural Journal, May '68. (Cambridge: The MIT

Press, 2018).

This is a translated collection of graffiti seen throughout Paris during May 1968. The book establishes a useful index of the pieces of graffiti, which is an essential piece of helping to communicate the messaging of the movement as it progressed. Some of the translations are a bit clunky, and it is also missing multiple essential pieces, but this can certainly be fulfilled by other sources.

Brinton, Maurice. Paris: May 1968. (Raleigh: Radical Reprints, 2020).

This book is Maurice Brinton’s on-the-ground journal of his experiences during May 1968 in France. It is especially helpful in demonstrating how the movement changed over time, especially the shifting relations between the Communist Party and radical student organizations. It falls victim to over-romanticization whenever the author interjects with their own thoughts, but these moments are quite discernable from the more meaningful information.

Clark, Jeff. Boredom Weeps: Graffiti, Curses, Inscriptions of May 1968. (Ypsilanti: Black Ink,

2018).

This book is another more expansive translated collection of graffiti from across France throughout May 1968. It establishes a greater authority on the different types of graffiti, and is another essential source for tracing the movement through the graffiti. This source has a much better overall collection, translation, and formatting when compared to other similar sources.

Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. (Detroit: Black & Red, 1977). Guikema 18

This book was one of the most important pieces published by the Situationist International and is essential to understanding their ideas. Within it, the author discusses the sociology of postmodern capitalism, and how our lives are mediated by relation to images. Though not as immediately influential as The Poverty of Student Life, it still made a great impact upon the student movement and carries much more modern notoriety and theoretical prowess.

Knabb, Ken. “May 1968 Graffiti.” Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006.

http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm.

This is an online archive of translated pieces of graffiti seen throughout Paris during May 1968. Hosted by Ken Knabb, a leading translator and archivist of the Situationist International, the archive mostly focuses on graffiti immediately tied to the enragés and as such is a great resource for much of the more radical pieces of graffiti.

Knabb, Ken (editor). Situationist International: Anthology. (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets,

1981).

This book is a translated collection of the essential works of the Situationist International, and is especially useful for finding less published internal documents that help to outline the involvement of the Situationists in the events of May 1968 in France.

Riboud, Marc. “May 68.” Marc Riboud, February 2, 2018.

http://marcriboud.com/en/countries/may68/.

This source is another collection of original photography from the events of May 1968 in France. This collection has much more of an on-the-ground perspective rather than one of simple observation, and as such captures some intense moments not expressed by other sources.

Romani, Jean Paul. “Leclerc Patrice.” La Photothèque du Mouvement Social , May 21, 2008.

http://www.phototheque.org/details.php?image_id=18556.

This piece is a single photograph uploaded to a French public archive of photographs of social movements. Given that it is a single photo, there is not much to be done with it other than immediate use, but the remainder of the full archive has plenty of interesting content related to it.

Secondary Sources Guikema 19

Beardsley, Eleanor. “In France, The Protests Of May 1968 Reverberate Today - And Still Divide

The French.” National Public Radio, May 29, 2018.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/05/29/613671633/in-france-the-protests-of-ma

y-1968-reverberate-today-and-still-divide-the-french.

This is a news article which, upon the 50th anniversary of their conclusion, provides a brief outline of the events that occured in France during May 1968. It is useful as a primer on the subject, as well as for understanding the basics without ideological complication. However, in some cases, leaving out that ideological compilation results in a distortion of the motives and origins of the movement.

Feenberg, Andrew, and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events

of 1968. (Albany: The SUNY Press, 2001).

This book is a collection of essays that combine a chronological telling of the events that occured in France in May 1968, as well as establishing a reflection on the consequences of those events. It is useful in understanding some of the less discussed events, such as the school reforms occurring throughout France in 1967. The book sometimes focuses on trivial details a bit too much, but still serves as an excellent documentation with an interesting style of observative writing.

Matthews , Janette. “An Introduction to the Situationists.” The Anarchist Library, 2005.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jan-d-matthews-an-introduction-to-the-situationists.

This article establishes an introductory political history of the Situationists, mostly discussing their unique ideological contributions to the left, as well as their profound impact upon the events that occurred in France in May 1968. The piece is obviously very ideologically sympathetic, and as such leaves out many of the fairly obvious shortcomings of the organization.

Nadi, Selim, and Bhaskar Sunkara. “The Communists and the Colonized.” Jacobin Magazine,

October 29, 2016.

https://jacobinmag.com/2016/10/pcf-french-communists-sfio-algeria-vietnam-ho-chi-minh.

This article discusses the history of the foreign policy of the Communist Party of France, especially in relation to France’s colonial territories. It is useful in understanding how their lack of meaningful anti-colonial policy alienated the students and contributed to the events of May 1968 in France. While it is certainly focused on a more historical Guikema 20

perspective, the piece falls short in directly stating the implications of many of these policies.

Rengifo, Alci. “The Walls Speak: Art And The Revolution In May ’68.” Riot Material, February

16, 2018. https://www.riotmaterial.com/walls-speak-art-revolution-may-68/.

This article is an introductory analysis of the use of art during the protests in May 1968 in France. Though it is mostly focused on screen-printing and media art, there are still some mentions of graffiti and much of the overall concept of art is still applicable to the graffiti. It offers some very solid points of discussion about the meaning of art and ideology.

Rubin, Alissa. “May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern World.” The

New York Times, May 5, 2018.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/world/europe/france-may-1968-revolution.html.

This source is an article outlining another introductory story of the events of May 1968 in France, accompanied by several pieces of rare photography to go with the text. While several sources fall short in that they portray the movement nearly to the level of infantilization, this piece falls short in focusing too much on the violence without offering much ideological reasoning or analysis.

Stangler, Cole. “The Neglected History of the May '68 Uprising in France.” The Nation, August

2, 2018.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neglected-history-may-68-uprising-france/.

This article gives an intermediate explanation of the events that occurred in France during May 1968, and encourages that the legacy of the movement be found within the workers’ movement rather than the students’ movement. It is very helpful in understanding the social consequences of May 1968 and their legacy. This piece is very useful in understanding the interpretations of the event that sit outside of the immediate mainstream.