For more great posters like this one, see Paris 1968 Posters.

"THE COMMUNE'S NOT DEAD"
French May 1968 Song
by the Council for Maintaining the Occupations (C.M.D.O.)

At the barricades of Gay-Lussac,
The Enrages at our head,
We unleashed the attack:
Oh bloody hell, what a party!
We were in ecstasy amongst the cobblestones
Seeing the old world go up in flames.

CHORUS: All that has shown, Carmela,
That the commune's not dead (repeat)

To brighten things up, the combatants,
Fucking set fire to cars:
One match and, Forward!
Poetry written in petrol.
And you should have seen the C.R.S.
Really get their asses burnt!

(chorus)

Politicized, the blousons noirs,
Seized the Sorbonne,
To help them fight and destroy,
They put no faith in anybody.
Theory was realized,
The shops were looted.

(chorus)

What you produce belongs to you,
It's the bosses who are the thieves.
They are taking the piss out of you,
When they make you pay in the shops.
While waiting for self-management,
We'll apply the critique of the brick.

(chorus)

All the parties, the unions,
And their bureaucrats,
Oppress the proletariat,
As much as the bourgeoisie
Against the state and its allies,
Let's form workers' councils.

(chorus)

The Occupation Committee,
Spits on Trotskyists,
Maoists and other prats,
Who exploit the strikers.
Next time there'll be blood spilt,
By the enemies of freedom.

(chorus)

Now that the insurgents
Have gone back to survival.
Boredom, forced labor,
And ideologies,
We'll take pleasure in sowing
Other May flowers to be picked one day.

FINAL CHORUS

Remembering
May 1968's
"Days of the Barricades"
   ''I am happy to have participated in the events of May 1968. I am an unrepentant '68 person. Many have regretted their participation, but not me. . .In 1968, there was this feeling that there was a global convergence of events. There was the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the Prague Spring, the students' revolt in Mexico, and later on, the First Quarter Storm in the Philippines."
    He thinks that feeling is coming back: ''There is a sense of new community in the fight against globalisation. The feeling we had in 1968 is emerging once again... We have learned through time that no one can tell when another mass movement like in 1968 will happen again. There are a thousand crises that can trigger it off, but which one, no one knows.''
Pierre Rousset

   ''One truly amazing aspect of May '68 was the way the protest encircled the globe: Saturday May 11, 50,000 students and workers marched on Bonn, and 3,000 protesters in Rome; on May 14, students occupied the University of Milan; a sit-in at the University of Miami on May 15; scuffles at a college in Florence on May 16; a red flag flew for three hours at the University of Madrid on the 17th; and the same day, 200 black students occupied the adminsistration buildings of Dower University; on May 18 protests flared up in Rome, and more in Madrid where barricades and clashes with the police occurred; on May 19, students in Berkeley were arrested; a student protest in New York; an attack on an ROTC center in Baltimore -- the old world seemed to be on the ropes. "
    "On May 20, Brooklyn University was occupied by blacks, and occupations took place the next day at the University of West Berlin. On May 22, police broke through barricades at Columbia University. The University of Frankfurt and the University of Santiago were occupied on May 24. Protests in Vancourver and London in front of the French Embassy on May 25. On Monday May 27, university and high school students went on strike in Dakar. protests by peasants in Belgium on May 28. On May 30, students in Munich protested, as did students in Vienna the next day. On June 1, protests spread to Denmark and Buenos Aires. The next day the Yugoslav insurrection began. In Brasil, 16,000 students went on strike on June 6, followed by a large protest march in Geneva for democratization of the university. Even in Turkey, 20,000 students occupied the universities in Ankara and other cities. The chronology just keeps going as occupations, protests, scandals and barricades continued throughout the summer in Tokyo, Osaka, Zurich, Rio, Rome, Montevideo, Bangkok, Dusseldorf, Mexico City, Saigon, Cochabamba, La Paz, South Africa, Indonesia, Chicago, Venice, Montreal, Auckland. 'What,' people seemed to be asking, 'if the entire world were transformed into a Latin Quarter?'"
Len Bracken, Guy Debord, Revolutionary

   See also, Ron Jacobs's "Columbia and Paris from 1968 to Today: Up against the Wall, Motherfucker!".
 EXTERNAL LINKS:
  • Mai 68
  • Iain Gunn's (Socialist Appeal) "May '68: France's Month of Revolution";
  • Libération's "Mai 68" special edition;
  • Le Revista's "Mayo 68" section with an article by LCR leader Alain Krivine, Pierre Rousset's (LCR) "De 3 Au 13 MAI 1968: Quand une étincelle met le feu à toute la plaine"; and
  • Alan Wald's "1968 in the United States".

    • Some Recommended Books
  • 1968, Marching in the Streets by Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins (Simon & Schuster, 1998).
  • The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968 by Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn (Verso, 1998)
  • Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968 by Daniel Singer (1970).
  • The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 by George Katsiaficas (South End Press, 1987).
  • Writing on the Wall: May 1968, A Documentary Anthology (Allison & Busby).