Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 89/Overtaken by events: a Paris journal"
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− | '''Wednesday-Thursday, May 15th-May 16th.''' The {{w|Paris dis­turb­ances|May_1968_events_in_France}} have been very poorly re­ported in the {{w|English|England}} press. First, the dis­turb­ance may have arisen out of com­plaints about the Uni­vers­ity sys­tem, but it has gone far beyond that now. It started with a row at {{w|Nan­terre|Paris_Nanterre_University}}, a uni­vers­ity out­side {{w|Paris}}, when the uni­vers­ity was closed for an in­defin­ite period, and seven stu­dents were sum­moned to ap­pear before a uni­vers­ity board. The {{w|Sor­bonne|Sorbonne_University}} started to get active, in the big main court­yard; the ''{{w|recteur|Rector_(academia)}}'' called in the police to clear out the stu­dents who had gathered to dis­cuss mat­ters. The police carted the stu­dents off and there were demon­stra­tions against this action, and against the police. The Sor­bonne was closed, and the uni­vers­ities pro­posed to strike on Monday, May 6th, demon­stra­tions all day long, fin­ish­ing with 20,000 march­ing. The police charged the march at {{w|St. Germain des Prés|Saint-Germain-des-Prés}}, and the bar­ri­cades started to go up. The police use {{w|gas|Tear_gas}}. It fin­ishes up with police hunt­ing stu­dents through the streets, beat­ing them with {{w|trun­cheons|Baton_(law_enforcement)}}. On Tuesday, another long march, about 40,000-50,000 people, stu­dents and work­ers. The {{w|red flags|Red_flag_(politics)}} lead the march and the {{w|Inter­na­tion­ale|The_Internationale}} is sung at the {{w|Arc de Triomphe|Arc_de_Triomphe}}. More demon­stra­tions on Wednes­day, when the left wing parties, hostile hitherto, jump on the band­wagon. Thurs­day, the Sor­bonne is to be re­opened: the police are on the scene, and the stu­dents de­mand with­drawal of police, open­ing of all the col­leges again, and the free­ing of the ar­rested stu­dents. The {{w|Trotsky­ists|Trotskyism}} hold a meet­ing where the whole af­fair begins to open out into a re­volu­tion­ary move­ment. On Friday comes the ex­plo­sion: thou­sands of stu­dents on a demon­stra­tion march are stopped by a dam of police: the stu­dents re­tire into the {{w|Latin Quarter|Latin_Quarter,_Paris}}, filling the {{w|Bou­levard St. Michel|Boulevard_Saint-Michel}} up to the {{w|Luxem­bourg|Jardin_du_Luxembourg}}. They spread out and start erect­ing bar­ri­cades to fight the police if they charge. At 2 in the morn­ing, the police at­tack, using gas {{p|201}}gren­ades, tear gas, trun­cheons … fight­ing goes on until 5 | + | '''Wednesday-Thursday, May 15th-May 16th.''' The {{w|Paris dis­turb­ances|May_1968_events_in_France}} have been very poorly re­ported in the {{w|English|England}} press. First, the dis­turb­ance may have arisen out of com­plaints about the Uni­vers­ity sys­tem, but it has gone far beyond that now. It started with a {{w|row|Movement_of_22_March}} at {{w|Nan­terre|Paris_Nanterre_University}}, a uni­vers­ity out­side {{w|Paris}}, when the uni­vers­ity was closed for an in­defin­ite period, and seven stu­dents were sum­moned to ap­pear before a uni­vers­ity board. The {{w|Sor­bonne|Sorbonne_University}} started to get active, in the big main court­yard; the ''{{w|recteur|Rector_(academia)}}'' called in the police to clear out the stu­dents who had gathered to dis­cuss mat­ters. The police carted the stu­dents off and there were demon­stra­tions against this action, and against the police. The Sor­bonne was closed, and the uni­vers­ities pro­posed to strike on Monday, May 6th, demon­stra­tions all day long, fin­ish­ing with 20,000 march­ing. The police charged the march at {{w|St. Germain des Prés|Saint-Germain-des-Prés}}, and the bar­ri­cades started to go up. The police use {{w|gas|Tear_gas}}. It fin­ishes up with police hunt­ing stu­dents through the streets, beat­ing them with {{w|trun­cheons|Baton_(law_enforcement)}}. On Tuesday, another long march, about 40,000-50,000 people, stu­dents and work­ers. The {{w|red flags|Red_flag_(politics)}} lead the march and the {{w|Inter­na­tion­ale|The_Internationale}} is sung at the {{w|Arc de Triomphe|Arc_de_Triomphe}}. More demon­stra­tions on Wednes­day, when the left wing parties, hostile hitherto, jump on the band­wagon. Thurs­day, the Sor­bonne is to be re­opened: the police are on the scene, and the stu­dents de­mand with­drawal of police, open­ing of all the col­leges again, and the free­ing of the ar­rested stu­dents. The {{w|Trotsky­ists|Trotskyism}} hold a meet­ing where the whole af­fair begins to open out into a re­volu­tion­ary move­ment. On Friday comes the ex­plo­sion: thou­sands of stu­dents on a demon­stra­tion march are stopped by a dam of police: the stu­dents re­tire into the {{w|Latin Quarter|Latin_Quarter,_Paris}}, filling the {{w|Bou­levard St. Michel|Boulevard_Saint-Michel}} up to the {{w|Luxem­bourg|Jardin_du_Luxembourg}}. They spread out and start erect­ing bar­ri­cades to fight the police if they charge. At 2 in the morn­ing, the police at­tack, using gas {{p|201}}gren­ades, tear gas, trun­cheons … fight­ing goes on until 5.30, around about 60 bar­ri­cades: many stu­dents are in­jured and seven are still miss­ing, no one knows where. On Satur­day, tension: the {{w|trade unions|Trade_union}} call for a {{w|gen­eral strike|General_strike}}. The stu­dent milit­ants oc­cupy an annex of the Uni­vers­ity, and use the premises for dis­cus­sions and de­bates. On Sunday, the unions dis­cuss and pre­pare their demon­stra­tion. On Monday the strike takes place, and work­ers and stu­dents march to­gether to demon­strate against the police and the gov­ern­ment. On Tues­day the gov­ern­ment gives in, and says that the stu­dent de­mands for as­soci­a­tion in the organ­isa­tion of the Uni­vers­ity will be met: and the news­papers give the im­pres­sion that this is what it is all about. |
− | {{tab}}So it was, per­haps, in the first in­stance, but things have changed. The stu­dents have taken over the Uni­vers­ity com­pletely. The lec­ture rooms are crowded with com­mit­tees dis­cuss­ing the whole move­ment{{dash}}for it is a movement: the whole struc­ture of western so­ciety is being called into ques­tion. The groups of the left are of course very pro­min­ent in this ques­tion­ing: {{w|Mao­ists|Maoism}}, {{w|Trotsky­ists|Trotskyism}}, {{w|Com­mun­ists|Marxism–Leninism}} and Anarch­ists have plas­tered the Sor­bonne with posters, de­clar­a­tions, ex­hort­a­tions; a flood of bro­chures, leaf­lets, pamph­lets and broad­sheets, as well as im­pro­vised news­papers, pours out. The great court­yard of the Sor­bonne is crowded with people: stu­dents and work­ers, and some bour­geois, argu­ing, form­ing groups where people stand and dis­cuss, dis­pute, bellow, dis­agree, create an atmo­sphere where one feels that they are awake! This goes on twenty-<wbr>four hours a day, while people pass in and out of the build­ing, the lec­ture halls wit­ness con­tinu­ous meet­ings and com­mit­tees and in the court­yard people go on argu­ing. Around the court­yard are the pla­cards and pro­clam­a­tions, people sell the news­papers and hand out the sheets: {{w|trestle tables|Trestle_table}} along the walls are oco­cu­pied by vari­ous groups selling their lit­er­ature{{dash}}Trotsky­ists, Com­mun­ists, Mao­ists: I haven{{t}} run across the Anarch­ists yet but I know they are there: their posters are edged in black. Walking out across the {{l|Place de la Sorbonne|https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Sorbonne}}, you can see the same thing{{dash}}groups, dis­cus­sions, every­where per­fect strangers join­ing argu­ments, ex­chan­ging views, in an atmo­sphere of charged ex­cite­ment which is im­pos­sible for me to com­mun­icate. The level of dis­cus­sion is re­mark­ably high, on the whole, and if you can imagine the sort of energy the French put into an argu­ment be­tween two drivers whose cars have col­lided, trans­ferred to an argu­ment about the organ­isa­tion of the Uni­vers­ity, the class strug­gle, the whole organ­isa­tion of our so­ciety, the pos­sibil­ity of re­volu­tion: all this con­ducted by a free-<wbr>float­ing crowd of liter­ally thou­sands of people, in the Sor­bonne, in the street, in the cafes{{dash|this all going on day and night}}then you may get some idea of the Quartier Latin at the moment. | + | {{tab}}So it was, per­haps, in the first in­stance, but things have changed. The stu­dents have taken over the Uni­vers­ity com­pletely. The lec­ture rooms are crowded with com­mit­tees dis­cuss­ing the whole move­ment{{dash}}for it is a movement: the whole struc­ture of western so­ciety is being called into ques­tion. The groups of the left are of course very pro­min­ent in this ques­tion­ing: {{w|Mao­ists|Maoism}}, {{w|Trotsky­ists|Trotskyism}}, {{w|Com­mun­ists|Marxism–Leninism}} and Anarch­ists have plas­tered the Sor­bonne with posters, de­clar­a­tions, ex­hort­a­tions; a flood of bro­chures, leaf­lets, pamph­lets and broad­sheets, as well as im­pro­vised news­papers, pours out. The great court­yard of the Sor­bonne is crowded with people: stu­dents and work­ers, and some bour­geois, argu­ing, form­ing groups where people stand and dis­cuss, dis­pute, bellow, dis­agree, create an atmo­sphere where one feels that they are awake! This goes on twenty-<wbr>four hours a day, while people pass in and out of the build­ing, the lec­ture halls wit­ness con­tinu­ous meet­ings and com­mit­tees and in the court­yard people go on argu­ing. Around the court­yard are the pla­cards and pro­clam­a­tions, people sell the news­papers and hand out the sheets: {{w|trestle tables|Trestle_table}} along the walls are oco­cu­pied by vari­ous groups selling their lit­er­ature{{dash}}Trotsky­ists, Com­mun­ists, Mao­ists: I haven{{t}} run across the Anarch­ists yet but I know they are there: their posters are edged in black. Walking out across the {{l|Place de la Sorbonne|https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Sorbonne}}, you can see the same thing{{dash}}groups, dis­cus­sions, every­where per­fect strangers join­ing argu­ments, ex­chan­ging views, in an atmo­sphere of charged ex­cite­ment which is im­pos­sible to under­stand there in {{w|London}}, and which is im­pos­sible for me to com­mun­icate. The level of dis­cus­sion is re­mark­ably high, on the whole, and if you can imagine the sort of energy the French put into an argu­ment be­tween two drivers whose cars have col­lided, trans­ferred to an argu­ment about the organ­isa­tion of the Uni­vers­ity, the class strug­gle, the whole organ­isa­tion of our so­ciety, the pos­sibil­ity of re­volu­tion: all this con­ducted by a free-<wbr>float­ing crowd of liter­ally thou­sands of people, in the Sor­bonne, in the street, in the cafes{{dash|this all going on day and night}}then you may get some idea of the Quartier Latin at the moment. |
{{tab}}The moment being 2.15 in the morn­ing (Thurs­day), and the place being a crowded (at this hour!) cafe in the Place de la Sorbonne. If I were rather younger and a great many il­lu­sions richer, I might be tempted to be­lieve in the re­volu­tion­ary atmo­sphere all around me. For {{p|202}}the atmo­sphere, if not the situ­a­tion, is cer­tainly one of re­volu­tion{{dash}}it reminds me a little of ac­counts I have read of the so­ciety in {{w|Spain}} in the first days of the {{w|re­volu­tion|Spanish_Revolution_of_1936}}, feel­ing of ex­cite­ment, of ten­sion, of all sorts of pos­sibil­ities for the future, the il­lu­sion that these people might, just might, put a really big crack in the struc­ture of the so­ciety which they are ques­tion­ing so fiercely. In the spec­trum of opin­ion you can re­cog­nise the pos­sible chrono­lo­gical pat­tern of hypo­thet­ical re­volu­tion, from re­form­ists whose ideas are lim­ited to the grant­ing of cer­tain con­ces­sions within{{dash|well within}}the format of the set-<wbr>up as it is, through others who advo­cate a far greater degree of change in the status of the stu­dent, those who look for the fall of the pres­ent govern­ment without think­ing much further (even those who would be satis­fied with the resig­na­tion of a few min­is­ters), those who want to see the stu­dents de­clare their solid­ar­ity with the work­ers, aban­don­ing their pres­ent privi­leged posi­tion as those who are des­tined to be the bas­tions of cap­it­al­ism, through to those who look to a total de­struc­tion of cap­it­al­ist so­ciety and the estab­lish­ment of a so­cial­ist so­ciety of one sort or another, and those who talk as if the re­volu­tion were sched­uled for to­morrow, or the day after at the very latest. Here it all is, in words at least. | {{tab}}The moment being 2.15 in the morn­ing (Thurs­day), and the place being a crowded (at this hour!) cafe in the Place de la Sorbonne. If I were rather younger and a great many il­lu­sions richer, I might be tempted to be­lieve in the re­volu­tion­ary atmo­sphere all around me. For {{p|202}}the atmo­sphere, if not the situ­a­tion, is cer­tainly one of re­volu­tion{{dash}}it reminds me a little of ac­counts I have read of the so­ciety in {{w|Spain}} in the first days of the {{w|re­volu­tion|Spanish_Revolution_of_1936}}, feel­ing of ex­cite­ment, of ten­sion, of all sorts of pos­sibil­ities for the future, the il­lu­sion that these people might, just might, put a really big crack in the struc­ture of the so­ciety which they are ques­tion­ing so fiercely. In the spec­trum of opin­ion you can re­cog­nise the pos­sible chrono­lo­gical pat­tern of hypo­thet­ical re­volu­tion, from re­form­ists whose ideas are lim­ited to the grant­ing of cer­tain con­ces­sions within{{dash|well within}}the format of the set-<wbr>up as it is, through others who advo­cate a far greater degree of change in the status of the stu­dent, those who look for the fall of the pres­ent govern­ment without think­ing much further (even those who would be satis­fied with the resig­na­tion of a few min­is­ters), those who want to see the stu­dents de­clare their solid­ar­ity with the work­ers, aban­don­ing their pres­ent privi­leged posi­tion as those who are des­tined to be the bas­tions of cap­it­al­ism, through to those who look to a total de­struc­tion of cap­it­al­ist so­ciety and the estab­lish­ment of a so­cial­ist so­ciety of one sort or another, and those who talk as if the re­volu­tion were sched­uled for to­morrow, or the day after at the very latest. Here it all is, in words at least. | ||
− | {{tab}}And what will come out of it? Not much perhaps: in fact, my guess would be, con­ces­sions in words from the gov­ern­ment, soothing noises, a few re­forms, a scape­goat or two{{dash|the {{w|Préfet|Prefect_(France)}} {{w|of Paris|Paul_Delouvrier}}, for in­stance, who did not want to send the police in to the Sor­bonne in the first | + | {{tab}}And what will come out of it? Not much perhaps: in fact, my guess would be, con­ces­sions in words from the gov­ern­ment, soothing noises, a few re­forms, a scape­goat or two{{dash|the {{w|Préfet|Prefect_(France)}} {{w|of Paris|Paul_Delouvrier}}, for in­stance, who did not want to send the police in to the Sor­bonne in the first place}}and then, nothing. For a while, the ques­tion is: is the feel­ing under­ly­ing this re­volt so strong that it will break out again? I be­lieve it is: this is abso­lutely not a ques­tion of mild stu­dent dis­con­tent within the frame­work of the edu­ca­tion sys­tem, although it may ap­pear that way, and may have started that way. It looks to me like a deep-<wbr>rooted dis­con­tent and dis­like of the whole struc­ture of so­ciety together with a total dis­trust of the dis­cred­ited lead­ers of the left. Those of the right are scarcely men­tioned, even {{w|de Gaulle|Charles_de_Gaulle}} and {{w|Pompi­dou|Georges_Pompidou}} are not names one hears often, and when one does it is in tones of dis­missal. There is no need to at­tack them in words: they are there, that{{s}} all. In fact, there is a very re­mark­able lack of names{{dash}}plenty of ini­tials of left wing parties, but no names. No {{qq|Leaders}} in the old sense: no­body{{s}} lead­ing. |
− | {{tab}}4.10 a.m. {{w|Les Halles|Les_Halles}}, always a sight worth seeing{{dash}}Paris{{s}} belly, {{w|Zola|Émile_Zola}} called it, with its almost blocked streets, its furi­ous activ­ity, its enor­mous {{w|arti­cu­lated lorries|Semi-trailer_truck}} bring­ing in fish from {{w|Brittany}} and the {{w|south-<wbr>west|South_West_France_(wine_region)}}, cheese from {{w|Normandy}}, milk from all over the place. How very far from the atmo­sphere of the Sor­bonne: the stu­dents may ex­press solid­ar­ity with the work­ers, but how much solid­ar­ity do these work­ers feel for the stu­dents? A cer­tain amount, per­haps, since one of the stu­dent griev­ances{{dash|not one that is well pub­li­cised however}}is that so few chil­dren of the work­ing class get to uni­vers­ity. | + | {{tab}}4.10 a.m. {{w|Les Halles|Les_Halles}}, always a sight worth seeing{{dash}}Paris{{s}} belly, {{w|Zola|Émile_Zola}} called it, with its almost blocked streets, its furi­ous activ­ity, its enor­mous col­lec­tions of fruit and veg­et­ables, its stink­ing fish market with the enor­mous {{w|arti­cu­lated lorries|Semi-trailer_truck}} bring­ing in fish from {{w|Brittany}} and the {{w|south-<wbr>west|South_West_France_(wine_region)}}, cheese from {{w|Normandy}}, milk from all over the place. How very far from the atmo­sphere of the Sor­bonne: the stu­dents may ex­press solid­ar­ity with the work­ers, but how much solid­ar­ity do these work­ers feel for the stu­dents? A cer­tain amount, per­haps, since one of the stu­dent griev­ances{{dash|not one that is well pub­li­cised however}}is that so few chil­dren of the work­ing class get to uni­vers­ity. |
{{tab}}9.20 a.m. This morn­ing I have been with Sor­bonne stu­dents ef­fect­ing li­aison with the med­ical stu­dents, who are not so enthu­si­astic or so {{p|203}}well organ­ised. In fact, the Sor­bonne people were on picket duty, per­suad­ing the med­ical stu­dents to keep up the strike and not enter into dis­cus­sions with the teach­ing staff. It is re­mark­able to see: dis­pute, argu­ment, per­sua­sion, but never the faint­est sug­ges­tion of a fist raised in anger. If in normal times Sor­bonne stu­dents went to the Fac­ulty of Medi­cine and dared to try to tell them what to do, they would be thrown out, but now the stu­dents must above all stay to­gether, other­wise the move­ment is done for. | {{tab}}9.20 a.m. This morn­ing I have been with Sor­bonne stu­dents ef­fect­ing li­aison with the med­ical stu­dents, who are not so enthu­si­astic or so {{p|203}}well organ­ised. In fact, the Sor­bonne people were on picket duty, per­suad­ing the med­ical stu­dents to keep up the strike and not enter into dis­cus­sions with the teach­ing staff. It is re­mark­able to see: dis­pute, argu­ment, per­sua­sion, but never the faint­est sug­ges­tion of a fist raised in anger. If in normal times Sor­bonne stu­dents went to the Fac­ulty of Medi­cine and dared to try to tell them what to do, they would be thrown out, but now the stu­dents must above all stay to­gether, other­wise the move­ment is done for. |
Revision as of 19:51, 13 April 2018
a Paris journal
So it was, perhaps, in the first instance, but things have changed. The students have taken over the University completely. The lecture rooms are crowded with committees discussing the whole movement—
And what will come out of it? Not much perhaps: in fact, my guess would be, concessions in words from the government, soothing noises, a few reforms, a scapegoat or two—
4.10 a.m. Les Halles, always a sight worth seeing—
View from the Island
On Saturday the Students’ Union held its defiant demonsration. Boycotted once more by the communists, dismissed as pointless folly or crazy adventurism by many well- |
I am writing this in the courtyard of the Sorbonne. I look up to the roof, and there flying in the wind is a sight I have never seen before: a flag with no decoration, no addition, no national symbol: a plain red flag. And I can’t stop myself from shedding tears.
8.45 p.m. Saturday, May 25th. I ought to have kept a detailed day-On Friday, I did a little work at the Bibliothèque Nationale, very unenthusiastically. On Saturday, however, I got very interested in a particular edition of a novel which seemed matter for an article, and worked madly all day. I was at the Sorbonne again that evening; that was the night I went on to the Odéon.
The Odéon Théâtre de France was taken over by students, including drama students, and was thrown open 24 hours a day as a free forum for discussion. It is a remarkable sight, the house packed with people, and three or four organisers in the centre aisle trying to direct the discussion. I say trying, because it is an appallingly difficult task. What happens roughly is that everyone is invited to put forward his views, and at any given moment, in a crowded theatre, a number of people would like to air their opinions, whether from delight in hearing their own voice, pleasure in showing off before a large audience, violent disagreement with the last speaker or the one three before him, disagreement with some other aspect such as the whole idea of a free forum unless it allows only the expression of the correct views, disagreement with the handling of the proceedings, desire to beat the last speaker’s head in, wish to break up the proceedings, desire to help along the argument, or a wish to silence everyone who is making such a racket and spoiling the whole affair for everyone, and why do all these people yell so that you can’t hear the speaker, so you bawl at the top of your voice “SILENCE”.
And yet there is— Then I slept on Sunday till nearly midday, got up and went to the ménagerie at the Jardin des Plantes. I fed peanuts to the elephant, admired the alligators, crocodiles, turtles ant tortoises, flamingoes, saw a just-
I continued to the Bois de Vincennes, and there, in search of some green and perhaps a goose or two, failing which, a mallard, I passed through quite the largest functioning fairground I ever saw. Well, it was marked green on the map. However, I got to the other end and found green—
I stopped near a rather short middle aged man who, at a spot where the grass had been swept away to allow the gravel path to go to the edge of the water, was complaining bitterly. It appears that the gentleman was feeding the ducks, and had thrown bread near one of two cygnets. When a duckling had gone after it, one of the swan parents had attacked him—
On Monday I went to the BN, but they were short-
Wednesday morning I called on J.P., who seems to be quite a pleasant fellow. I worked there from 10 till 1, poking by nose in that time into all twenty-
View from the East
France is the first Western country to demonstrate that the social mechanism created two centuries ago does not correspond to the needs any more. The revolutionary action that has served notice that the idea of a workers’ self- |
But the CRS have made their first appearance, having shown themselves sinister, bulky, black, black, medium long shot, a brooding presence which we know we shall see more of; so, we shall leave them. They will be heard from. To be continued in our next.
On Thursday morning I went again to J.P.’s flat, and confirmed that the ms. was indeed part of the “unfinished” novel. When I told J.P. this he was incredulous, and we decided I should look through the documents for the ms. of the published section; it was missing, and I could not find it. The new ms. is about 30,000 words long, and I estimated that with the already published section we had at least 80 per cent of the novel. I left a note for J.P.—
(From a literary point of view we are doing well; we have two good plots going, one social and political, one academic and personal. Will the sinister CRS destroy the valiant anarchist forum by asking them questions they can’t answer? Is our hero’s find really the long-
Coming back from J.P.’s flat, I had something to eat (I had not stopped all day) and then walked through the Place St. Michel on the way to the Sorbonne. It was about six o’clock, and the usual strollers were around. There was no disorder: yet a squad of CRS had just formed up at the end of the Pont St. Michel, across the whole width of the road, blocking the bridge, carrying their large black shields, ready for action. There was not the slightest need for this: no demonstration had been called for that evening, and none was taking place. If the authorities felt the CRS were necessary to keep order (which seems unlikely, since the effect of their appearance in this way served exactly the opposite purpose), they could have stayed in their coaches, parked nearby, as they had done before, ready to intervene if needed.
I went to the Sorbonne and had a talk with some people I had ment, two couples, one an elderly railwayman and his wife, all anarchists. I don’t know what time it was when I left them, but we had heard that there was already trouble at the Place St. Michel, and I headed back there.
That was the flashpoint of Thursday night’s riots. The police barrier had attracted a large crowd, many of them students, and insults had been hurled at the CRS. It is farily certain that many of those who hurled the insults were “provocateurs”, intending to start trouble; it is less easy to say whether they were extremists from the left wing or the right, or even, improbable though it sounds, working for the government, The CRS had four enormous lorries side by side across the whole width of the Boulevard, advancing slowly uphill. Night had fallen, and the tear gas was so thick that it was difficult to see even if your eyes were not streaming tears. Through the haze came flashes—
I was very frightened. I do not think I am a coward. I think that given a rifle and preferably a little training, I could fight. If they are over there with rifles and wee are over here with rifles, I do not think I would run. But to stand your ground with no weapon, no protection—
It was not attacked. I tried later to leave, and found that nobody was allowed to go out. The reason I was given by the students’ service d’ordre was that the CRS outside were clubbing down anyone seen leaving. When I was allowed to go, at about two a.m., I was told that I did so at my own risk. I soon discovered what this meant. There were four CRS men at the corner, and as I came down the steps and across the square on the opposite side of the road to them, they shouted insults at me with the obvious hope that I might answer back. I proptly decided that I could not understand a word of French, and went on. I felt relieved that I had developed the habit of always carrying my passport, arguing that for a foreigner the worst that could happen was a severe beating-
J.P. and I were anxious to find the missing manuscript and work on this mystery, but because of the strikes we were badly hampered. One man who might well know something of what had happened to the ms. after its publication lived in Tours, and we did not have his telephone number. Finally we decided I should hitch-
I got there at about five-
At about eleven he drove me back into Tours, and I went into a café to sort out my notes and drink a final beer. Hearing a transistor radio going I went to listen: riots in Paris and most bitter fighting!
It was as if one of those grenades that were flying one hundred and fifty miles away had hit me, not in the leg, but in the head. After de Gaulle’s speech, I had totally forgotten Paris, buried in talk about work; now I realised that with a shock that further rioting had been inevitable. I tried to telephone to London, which was impossible, and then tried H. in Paris, she was not in. Useless. In between attempts to telephone, I walked up and down by the fountains. Anguish at the thought that in Paris the CRS were out again at the massacre, fear for my comrades, unhappiness at being stuck here, in the provinces, powerless, horror that the people I knew at the Sorbonne might attribute my absence to cowardice. I found that I was whimpering.
When I got back to Paris on Saturday afternoon, the devastation in the Latin Quarter was remarkable; according to statistics published on Monday, in Paris a total of nearly thirteen thousand square feet of pavé had been torn up in great chunks, and as much again in scatterred patches, and seventy-
View from the Island
Nothing could be more foolish than for us and the Americans to smirk to see the French President in trouble with his syndicalist students and workers. These present discontents run vastly more widely. We are not all Socialists now. We are all syndicalists now, in a new sense. We have to have a real say in our own affairs. It is a crisis, not just of affluence, but of democracy— It is in their responses to all this that all the rulers are now about to be tested. Not just President de Gaulle. Not just Mr. Wilson. Not just the abdicating President Johnson and the contestants for his crown. Not just the creaking regimes of Eastern Europe. All of them. —
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That night I had the dream I have from time to time, after which I always wake uneasy and disorientated. It is so vivid, and I so much want to stay in it, that when I wake, it is as if I came from reality into a distortion and caricature of the real. The unreality of that day could be put down to this, and perhaps to the awful solitude of a Paris Sunday. That day the usual Sunday afternoon outing of the Parisian bourgeois family took the shape of a walk around the principal battle fronts to gape at the debris, heads shaking at the devastation. The Latin Quarter was more crowded that afternoon than I have ever seen it. From the beginning of the affair, there had been a certain amount of tourist attraction quality about the Sorbonne and what was going on there, and no doubt a great many people came along to see the wild men, as they would have gone to see the gorillas at the zoo. Moreover, the student revolution in Paris, at least, was the biggest and most exciting “happening” one could imagine, and I had reflected that in fact this heightened vividness with which we lived was surely one of the things which had to be kept, or at least remembered. But on this afternoon, it was no longer a question of people participating to some degree in what was going on. This was spectator passiveness again. you sit in front of the one-
On Monday the details of the agreement reached between government and unions were published; and the workers who were to ratify the agreement refused to do so. I was amazed and cheered. On Tuesday the search for the ms. continued, and I nursed by cold as I waited to see how de Gaulle would react to this defiance. We all waited. In the Salle des Anars at the Sorbonne, I looked at the books. The room had been—
On Wednesday, as it began to seem more and more likely that an interim government would be formed and general elections called, J.P. and I went to see another man who might give us information, but again without success. But on Thursday morning we discovered that the ms. was at the publisher’s, where it had been ever since publication; the strike, of course, was the reason why we had not been able to establish this in the first place. I arranged to work on the new ms. when it had been copied, at some more propitious time, and since I could do little more now, I decided to pack my bags and try to get a flight back to London. Skyways told me that if I wanted to come to their terminal, I could take a chance on getting a vacancy, and I did this, and waited in the lounge for the chance to get away. De Gaulle, who had disappeared the previous day to think over the decision he had to take, and thus given rise to great speculation, mainly on the lines that he was going to resign, was to speak on the radio at four-