It is May 1968. The world, flabbergasted, discovers that France has gone crazy. A general strike, affecting everything except electricity and the press, brings the country to a halt.
No developed country has ever known such a situation. Yet it isn’t a revolution. There is little violence, and no attacks on government buildings.
A few thousand cars do burn, but three years later, the police – who wanted to undermine the support that the public gave, almost unanimously, to the movement – will own up to being responsible for far more of them than the demonstrators. Then, after a month, everything goes back to normal. What happened?
It is 23 years since World War II’s end. People remember that the Great Depression of 1929, which made 20 million unemployed in six months, had brought Hitler to power. Capitalism is to blame for the war.
Because it is vital to prevent that situation from recurring, an unwritten agreement has been forged to regulate capitalism: social stabilization through generalization of the welfare state, financial stabilization through Keynesian policies, and economic stabilization through high wage policies throughout the West.
And it works. In this spring of 1968, France, like every developed country, has experienced 23 years of fast and regular economic growth of 4.5-5 percent per year. Sheltered from any economic crisis – because wiser capitalism has eliminated financial crisis – France has full employment. It’s an incredible period. Nuclear deterrence ensures global peace. Economic growth has never been so fast over such a long period. Full employment has never been maintained for so long.
Charles de Gaulle has governed France for 10 years. France’s largest party, the Communists, dominates the opposition. The Socialist Party is paralyzed, ossified, and powerless. The opposition can’t win. Nothing changes, and it seems that nothing ever will change in this quiet country where money rules.
Regulated capitalism is a triumph everywhere. Economies appear to be on a stable, upward path. Success is measured by one’s salary. Philosophers, notably Herbert Marcuse, denounce the venality of this way of life. People are bored; they think it’s immoral that money should become the world’s main reference. Students protest, sometimes alongside trade unions, against the consumer society.
Such debates enliven many American and French campuses. At the beginning of May, there are incidents at Nanterre University. The Sorbonne’s students, supporting those from Nanterre, occupy their ancient university.
There are protests on American campuses. In June, students will occupy the University of Stockholm. In the fall, there will be incidents at German and Italian universities as well. Nineteen sixty-eight is going global, fueled by doubt among university youth about the world that is being built.
In Paris, a tired and awkward university rector asks the police to clear protesters from the Sorbonne. When the king of France created the Sorbonne in the 13th century, it was granted special privileges, one of which was maintaining order by itself; the police were not allowed to enter the university’s grounds. Only the Gestapo, during the Nazi occupation, had ever broken this rule.
The consequences of the rector’s decision are huge. All the students, in Paris and in the provinces – there are over a million at the time – feel insulted. Some of Nanterre University’s leaders are jailed. All French universities go on strike to defend them. People don’t understand how the government could have made this mistake.
The “Latin Quarter, the student district in Paris, sees a lot of protests. There are fights with the police. But nothing can prevent the movement from spreading. A huge march shows the trade unions’ support for the student movement.
On May 15, without any instruction from trade unions, some workers spontaneously decide to strike and occupy their factories at an aeronautics plant in Bouguenais, and at a Renault factory in Cléon. Strike committees, composed of young – and often non-union – workers, question hierarchy, demand respect, and want a “right of free speech, but never mention wages – or even request negotiations.
Trade unions don’t know what to do. The CGT, close to the Communist party, fights the movement as vigorously as it can. The CFDT, formerly Christian but secularized in 1964, understands the movement better and takes on its ideas. The strikes spread.
There is still no violence. At first, the movement surprises the French public, which sympathizes with it. People help each other. It’s a celebration of speech. Some ministers resign, but there is no attack against institutions. France is dreaming and having fun.
On May 27, the government organizes a meeting with trade union leaders, who have little to do with the strikes, and employers’ organizations, who have nothing at all to do with them. An important salary increase is decided, although it was never sought. Little by little, people go back to work.
Prime Minister Georges Pompidou persuades de Gaulle – whose first speech, on May 24, had no effect – to dissolve parliament on May 31. An election campaign will keep the French occupied. The election at the end of June brings a big victory to the right-wing parties.
The social consequences of May 1968 are nonetheless huge. It marks the beginning of the feminist movement. Everywhere outside Paris, calls for decentralization and regionalism grow. Trade union groups are, at last, officially recognized within businesses, as is workers’ right to speak out about their working conditions.
The French have treated themselves to a month of crisis – more playful and poetic than social or political – to express their refusal of a world where money has too much influence. Much of an entire generation in the West feels the same way.
Michel Rocard,former Prime Minister of France and leader of the Socialist Party, is a member of the European Parliament. This article is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate, www.project-syndicate.org.
