Chapter 31 A well-fed rebellion——Reflections on the French "May Storm"

In May 1968, a magnificent social movement hit France.It not only swept across French universities in a very short period of time, but also quickly expanded to the working class, triggering a nationwide strike, which eventually led to a re-election of the Congress and the resignation of the Prime Minister.And all this seemed to happen without warning.A "classical revolution" that political observers thought was impossible in the West broke out under improbable circumstances, and this time again in Paris. A group of young people who grew up after the war rose up against a thriving society.This is people's rough impression of the "May Revolution".As for the meaning of this "revolution" and what happened in that May, for forty years, even the "six or eight elements" who experienced it at that time have different opinions and cannot agree.Criticism and memory of this "revolution" have broken down to a certain extent.

France in the mid-1960s was in the middle of the post-war reconstruction of the "Glorious Thirty Years (Les Trente Glorieuses, 1945-1975)".In the 1950s, the "European Economic Community" cut tariffs and expanded its market. France became the fourth largest exporter in the world and entered unprecedented prosperity.The currency is strong and the economy is growing around 5% a year.The country has ended colonial wars and reversed its backwardness in industrialization and urbanization, and the exodus of rural population to cities is nearly complete. However, under the appearance of "economic prosperity and political stability", France is also facing a crisis of "material growth and faith decline", as if the society has lost its ideals in the ignorant affluence.At the same time, the thoughts of Malraux, Camus, Sartre, Foucault, etc., Godard's film narrative, etc. are full of tension, and all inquiries about the meaning of human beings have also laid the foundation of "rebellion" for this social movement. color.In short, the catastrophe that came to an abrupt end in 1945 is in stark contrast to the current affluence. When the grand narrative about human destiny gradually gives way to the daily necessities of life, this generation of French people has shown a great deal of respect for the current mediocre life. There was an unusual uneasiness.On this point, one month before the "May Revolution" was about to happen, de Gaulle even confided on different occasions: "Now there is nothing to deal with, and there are no more heroic achievements to be made. On the contrary, I think boring."

It is undeniable that France has unparalleled creativity.In many aspects, such as scientific inventions, humanitarianism, freedom, equal human rights concepts, France deserves to be the source of human progress.However, despite the many revolutions in French history, "give me liberty or give me death" is not enough to describe the characteristics of the French people.In my opinion, a more accurate generalization would be "give me or give me death".Because of this, France will show a maverick style of behavior at any time. It is obviously not the character of the French to be content with rich clothes and good food and follow the trend.Utopia will never fade away on this hexagonal land. When the search for the meaning of life and life begins to ferment, a resounding slogan immediately becomes popular - "Either die now or never die."

History has given this task to college students.This is a group of people born between 1944 and 1950 who have never experienced hunger, poverty, or "fighting to nothing".However, they are extraordinarily keen due to their abundant energy, indomitable idealism, and constant shuttle between the constraints of family, society, and school. In the 1960s, which was a period of stability and prosperity, children from all walks of life were more and more attracted by the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination. Coupled with the rapid growth of the French population after the war, the number of college students increased from 200,000 in 1958 to 1968. 500000.However, university education is deaf to the expansion of student resources and does not think about reform, so that in the eyes of students, university has become a social structure that "talks only about existence, not about meaning", an "automatic distribution of useless knowledge" machines” and “diploma manufacturing plants”, this kind of cramming education made them suffer from “knowledge sterility”.

Such a dangerous situation, as early as 1964, the philosopher Paul Ricker issued a notice in the "Spirit" magazine: "If the country does not take appropriate measures to solve the problem of university development, it will attract university students that will cause national disasters. Explosion." And the fact that the students are preparing for it - not to say that the world is bad at the moment, sometimes it is even good, but, for a better world, a world where there is bread and roses, France needs a movement. In May 1968, the student unrest spread from Nanterre to the Sorbonne. Angry students occupied the University of Paris, which led to police intervention, and then formed a cycle of "resistance-repression-resistance" escalation.It should be admitted that, regarding this event, the government initially acted a little too confidently, so that people ridiculed it to be more like a "deaf-mute regime" when the storm came.It sticks to the rules, hesitates, wants to calm the situation but does not want to give in to "street pressure", and even whimsically arrests a few troublemakers to divide and rule the students.By mid-May, the movement turned into a national crisis, the general strike was extended to all sectors, and by May 24, France was paralyzed.De Gaulle's speech became deaf to the ears of the people, and now it was the turn of the rebels to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and all rational voices were drowned in the festive sounds of the movement.

Indeed, there seems to be no better moment than this.Young people are immersed in the unity and friendship woven by "same hatred and hatred", and charge forward together in the web of illusions.Facing the bullish street movement, many people who were hesitant at first also joined it.Just like those Chinese who can't stand the enthusiasm of their companions, they will generously and generously enter the stock market when the stock index exceeds 6,000 points. In May 1968, many young French people believed that if they didn’t go for a walk on the street and pry up a few paving stones in the alleyways of the Latin Quarter, their lives might be bleak—the French were not afraid of missing opportunities to make money, The fear is that we will miss an era that will change the world.

"Students, run forward, and the old world will be left behind." As for where to run, people don't know.The streets extending in all directions are divided into stages by barricades, like giant treadmills.Obviously, what is really going on here is more like a revolutionary drama, which gives everyone a chance to believe that they will be on the cusp of the times.If we were a mediocre group in the past, now everyone can be called "great" and "indomitable".Jacques Bennett described it in "Red and Black Spring": "From now on, we have festivals to celebrate, time to create miracles, and the right to speak freely... People transition from the Neolithic Age to the Athenian Democracy, less slaves, but more thousands of squares! Drive away the night, conquer power, life will change, and finally you can live in freedom, equality, fraternity, happiness..." And, compared to During the French Revolution, Robespierre's "You don't want to be free, force you to be free", "May Storm" seems to be a bit noble and self-admired; Meaning." "Don't come to liberate me, I am responsible for liberating myself." The famous French thinker Raymond Aron offered his own criticism in Le Figaro: "Students and workers will once again be concerned about the Strikes, festivals, marches, endless discussions and riots leave fond memories, as if the annoyances of everyday life, suffocated by technology and bureaucracy, needed a burst of catharsis from time to time; ) psychodrama to relieve loneliness."

Of course, the factual value is not all that bad.Anyway, it's just a bunch of Republic kids.They have enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility, and hope to create a beautiful society that can coordinate law and freedom, labor and equality through their own efforts, a beautiful society that truly enjoys fraternity and no hierarchy, a system without rigidity, neither prisons nor prisons. A better society without the mentally ill. Throughout French history, revolutions have always brought to mind those wet heads rolling in the streets of Paris.However, people today know that the bravery of a revolutionary lies in going to death rather than in killing, and that what is gained by the sword will be lost by the sword.

Although people are used to referring to the social movement that occurred in this year as "May Storm" or "May Revolution", however, in France today, people are more inclined to use the term "Mai68" (May 1968) A neutral time scale marks this history.Indeed, compared with previous "storms" or "revolutions", it has been completely reborn.One of the most important manifestations is that from the government to the society, whether they are participating in the movement, those who oppose the movement or those who maintain order, they all maintain a tacit understanding - rejecting violence and bloodshed is the "May Revolution" common bottom line.In this sense, we can say that May 1968 can be seen as a new starting point for the French Revolution if France is to continue its "revolutionary" tradition.In other words, the "June 8 bottom line" is the most precious legacy left to the world by the May 1968 movement.To put it another way, this seemingly violent but actually peaceful social movement is also a way of "farewell to the revolution".

As for the students, Cohen Bendit, one of the leaders of the student movement, has no preference for violence. What people see in him is the pursuit of Athenian democracy.Regarding the sporadic violent incidents, Bendit believes that "the violence was not decided by the person in charge of the movement, but the students spontaneously chose to resist, and we have no responsibility" "Although everything is a bit excessive, it still abides by the scope of democracy Inside". "Enough actions, enough words." This is a landscape in "May Storm". "Have your love, but don't put down the gun", "The most beautiful sculpture is the sandstone of the paving stone, the most critical stone is the one that hit the policeman in the face" "Under the paving stone is the beach" etc. , everything is more like a romantic lyric, a freewheeling creation.When all the clouds are clearing and the sun is rising and the sea is calm, it is not difficult to find that although those slogans are full of incitement to violence, they are more of an aesthetic catharsis of violence.For many, the aesthetic of violence is complete when slogans are invented.I have said that there will be no uprisings in the lips, there will be uprisings in the streets.The movement that took place in France is obviously not a violent revolution or a violent street uprising, but an out-and-out "street uprising".

Although the government at one point seriously miscalculated the situation and even believed that France was on the "brink of civil war"; despite the students' exaggeration and portraying the police as club-wielding SS soldiers, things were not so bad on the whole.On the one hand, the students did not have the whims to attack the government; on the other hand, the government also knew that the occupation of the University of Paris and the barricades that divided the Quartet were only a symbol of resistance, not a military method.Statistics show that in May and June, more than 2,000 people were injured in Paris, 200 of whom were seriously injured. In addition, 5 people died, but they were not caused by police shooting.The leaders of the Revolutionary Communist Youth League found it strange that the policemen marked with "88" (SS) by the creators were not hideous. They were happy to discuss with the students and were willing to understand.The hero behind the scene, of course, was Maurice Grimaud, Director of the Attorney-General's Office, a cultured humanitarian.From the beginning to the end of the campaign, he did everything in his power to avoid bloody tragedy.Therefore, people not only saw him often discussing with demonstrators in the Latin Quarter, but when the police began to become rough and were about to lose control, Grimaud also personally wrote to each policeman: "Shocking a demonstrator who falls to the ground is Attack yourself and the professional image of the police." As Jean Goff said in "May 1968, A Legacy of Helplessness": "The historical situation at the end of the sixties was extraordinary. The bloody riots of the past, the horrors of World War II, the repression during the Algerian war, Cruelty and massacres are still in people's minds, but the country has entered a new era. It has ended colonial wars; class struggle has not disappeared, but it is no longer a life-and-death struggle." In fact, French society has maintained its rationality throughout this campaign.When someone not only pried away the paving stones, but also uprooted the few trees in the Latin Quarter and began to burn the residents' cars, the citizens finally ran out of patience.The storm was brewing, and soon, the sympathy for the students in the media visibly weakened. The president of Le Monde, Bove Mery, criticized: "Although the students have received generous solidarity, they will also destroy themselves because of blindness. Whether it is right or not, which government will tolerate the streets of Paris full of barricades "Bild" began to mobilize: "We have no right to let the police and their water guns alone undertake such a big event." Soon, "opponents of opponents" also began to take to the streets, demanding "to clean up the Sorbonne." ’, ‘France wants to work’, ‘Communism won’t work’.These Parisians, unwilling to live forever in the echoes of "chaotic poetry", began to say no to French anarchy. Opinion balances the world, truth fades violently. The "aftermath" after the ebb tide of the "May Storm" is also an indispensable part of our recall or sorting out this social movement. Like many parts of the world, when the "May Storm" occurred, Paris was immersed in the revolutionary mood of Guevara.Regarding the "Cultural Revolution" that just happened in faraway China, the ultra-leftists in Paris can feel a hazy beauty of mutual connection. Although compared with China's "Cultural Revolution", which was actually a "political revolution", the "May Storm" has more connotations of cultural innovation, but it is obvious that there is an echo between the two.At least the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" attracted many French intellectuals and young students - for them, the "Cultural Revolution" seemed to be a struggle to deny the current regime and oppose individualism and a bourgeois world outlook, "in practice Beyond Stalinism in China" is the only way to avoid a repetition of what happened in the Soviet Union.Unfortunately, due to historical limitations, these people are ignorant of the "instrumental" and other "dark sides" of this movement.Of course, this ignorance also includes this generation of French people's misunderstanding of utopian experiments in other parts of the world. In the mid-to-late 1970s, the revolutionary ideals of the extreme left officially ebbed in France, relying on the presentation of a real world.During this period, the French edition of the works of Soviet writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn came out, and the real details of Stalin’s dictatorship shocked the whole of Paris; The Cultural Revolution”; in 1978, the tragic genocide of the Khmer Rouge gradually became known to the world.All this is enough to make the "six and eight elements" who were active in those years fall from hope to disappointment and "walk to the end of despair". The "Solzhenitsyn effect" is the "effect of truth" in the final analysis. With its unique cruelty, history makes those who sincerely want to promote social progress bear a "logical sense of guilt."As early as ten years ago in 1958, Edgar Moran, who had changed his beliefs, lamented in his book "Self-Review", that "the source of faith in the past" is now "a stranger."Echoing China's Cultural Revolution, the ultra-leftists in Paris once believed that the "Little Red Book" could solve "all the problems encountered by human beings". However, the facts tell them that heaven cannot be moved to the earth in this way.The interrogation of Claudy and Broyelle in the book "The Stone of Happiness" is meaningful: Although those extreme "six or eight elements" have no time, no strength, and no desire to show their vitality with blood-"this Very good! But the treaty of complicity in atrocities, didn't we sign the same?" The years are ruthless, and the high-spirited young man has now entered the twilight years of his life.Reflecting on this movement, there are no more than two mainstream attitudes: some people hold a negative attitude, and some even simplify the movement as an acute attack of "smashing, smashing and looting" and an "ideological disease"; Suffering from nostalgia, May 1968 was just a distant dream in their lives.As for the officials who were impacted by this movement, although many elites among them were "eggs laid by '68'", no one would give that group of people who "the more revolutionary they want to have sex, the more they have sex the more they want revolution" Talented scholars and beauties awarded medals. There is no doubt that May 1968 changed France.As mentioned above, this is not so much a "failed revolution" as a "successful improvement".After going through the extensive self-blame and loss in the 1970s, when history entered the 1980s, the results of the "May Revolution" were only vaguely revealed.The rigid social relations of the past disappeared, and the symbolic hierarchy was not obvious, replaced by the income hierarchy brought about by the rapid increase of wages. The "May Revolution" has changed the historical fashion of contemporary France with its unique way of resistance.In the words of a French scholar, life in France after the May Revolution became sexy. Since then, "dialogue" and "discussion" have become a norm in French politics.Statutory procedures, categorical orders, and divine instructions no longer reign so high. In its unique way, "May Storm" objectively accomplished a kind of counterbalancing or decentralization of social forces against political forces, indicating the political connotation of this cultural revolution. Hundreds of years ago, Tocqueville once pointed out that one of the roots of the French Revolution was that the French peasants were greatly reduced in shackles and their living standards were significantly improved. With the removal of handcuffs, the remaining shackles often become a hundredfold. intolerable.This shows that revolutions or group chaos do not always occur when a country's politics and economy are going to collapse.The "May Storm" that happened in 1968 also has this connotation.The difference is that this "revolution" is not like usual, but has shed its fangs and claws. Furthermore, each era has its own problems. Revolutions do not only occur in poor, backward or conflicted areas, and solving the "problem of food and clothing" does not mean solving the "problem of revolution."The French "May Storm" took place amidst the social transformation of singing and singing, and this "revolution" was also the first time in human history that it was not initiated for bread, but for roses. In 1968, France was in the mixed period of France's strong transformation from an ancient agricultural society to an industrial society. The trendy ideas that were about to become popular in the 1980s and 1990s coexisted with the patriarchal society in the 1920s and 1930s.This mixture of old and new is also manifested in those young people who demand innovation - they shout the revolutionary words of the beginning of the twentieth century and lead France into a new era. What is certain is that whether it is the reform appeal of "Give me or die" in 1968, or the political dilemma of "Whoever reforms, whoever steps down" that France encounters today, the logic behind it is that French social forces have a strong influence on political operations. profound impact.Perhaps it can be said that the "May Revolution" that began in 1968 has not really ended, and the dialogue or confrontation between political forces and social forces has never stopped.It is the existence of dialogue that avoids conflict and instability between societies and states. The world is never perfect, and conflicts continue.Looking back at the almost romantic "revolution" that occurred 40 years ago, it is not difficult to find that for any country, when a crisis strikes, the most important thing is that social forces and political forces must abide by their own boundaries and hold the bottom line together , watch together.