France 1968

France 1968 photo gallery

Photographs of the uprising and general strike in May 68 in France.

Football to the footballers!

In the insurgent Paris of May 1968 when millions of workers were on strike, the students had occupied the universities, the president had fled the country and France seemed on the verge of revolution, the footballers were not to be left out. Footballers occupied the headquarters of the French Football Federation and issued a communiqué:

"We footballers belonging to the various clubs in the Paris region have today decided to occupy the headquarters of the French Football Federation. Just like the workers are occupying their factories, and the students occupying their faculties. Why?

Catastrophism, disaster management and sustainable submission - Rene Riesel and Jaime Semprun

In this book first published in 2008, Jaime Semprun and René Riesel examine the attempt by predominantly First World governments and NGOs to utilize the specter of an environmental apocalypse as an alibi to save “industrial civilization” by imposing a rationed form of “survival”, justified by a terroristic propaganda campaign based on fear, enforced by an expansion of the state’s coercive powers, and facilitated by the mass conformism and resignation that “industrial society” has induced in the population by creating an “anxiogenic environment” of “insecurity and generalized instability”; “[f]or the fears proclaimed by the experts … are in reality nothing but orders”.

Catastrophism, Disaster Management and Sustainable Submission – René Riesel and Jaime Semprun

“Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.”

Étienne de la Boétie
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

Preliminary Clarifications

Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement

May 68

This work was written collectively by the Situationist International in the immediate aftermath of May 1968. It comprises their own account of the Situationists' contribution to the Movement of Occupations that took place throughout France during the largest wildcat strike in history.

Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations (Paris: Gallimard, 1968)

Translated by Loren Goldner and Paul Sieveking (New York: Autonomedia, 1992)

Foreword

'Terrorism or Revolution' An Introduction to Ernest Coeurderoy - Raoul Vaneigem

Ernest Coeurderoy

In this introduction to the work of Ernest Coeurderoy written in 1972, Raoul Vaneigem offers his first published look back at the events of May '68 and what he considered to be the new grounds of the contemporary revolutionary struggle.

SYNOPTIC OUTLINE OF PARTS I AND II

History of ten years - Encyclopedie des Nuisances

Analysis of the outbreaks of class struggle in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Poland that took place between 1974 and 1984, published by the Encyclopedie des Nuisances in 1985.

History of Ten Years – Encyclopédie des Nuisances

Outline for a Historical Depiction of the Progress Attained by Social Alienation

Paris 68 posters

Image gallery of dozens of posters from the uprising which began in May 1968 in Paris, with English translations. Most of these posters were created by a collective of radical artists based at the occupied art school dubbed the "Atelier Populaire" ("popular workshop"). More posters coming soon.

Pond Hopping

tale of exile by frog

I DREAMT OF ESCAPING PARIS for five long years. While I finished "growing up," I went daily from place to place between rows of heavily armed cops. May'68 had failed and martial law was in effect.

The Ideology and Practice of Contestation seen through Recent Events in France - Richard Gombin

Richard Gombin writes on class struggle and the libertarian movement in France in the aftermath of 1968.

The new forms of social conflict in France and the ideologies underlying them pose some formidable questions to the historian and the sociologist of the workers' movement.

May-June 1968 - A Situation Lacking in Workers' Autonomy

Mouvement Communiste's detailed history and analysis of the movement of May-June 1968 in France.

Focussing primarily on "the May-June 1968 worker", the authors argue for a critical approach to some of the "myths" surrounding the events, providing an overview of the strike movement and first-hand accounts by participants. Published in 2006 as May-June 1968 : An occasion lacking in workers’ autonomy