Anarchy 89/Overtaken by events: a Paris journal

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Overtaken by events:
a Paris journal

ROY PRIOR

Wednesday-Thursday, May 15th-May 16th. The Paris dis­turb­ances have been very poorly re­ported in the English 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 Nan­terre, a uni­vers­ity out­side Paris, when the uni­vers­ity was close for an in­defin­ite period, and seven stu­dents were sum­moned to ap­pear before a uni­vers­ity board. The Sor­bonne started to get active, in the big main court­yard; the recteur 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 St. Germain des Prés, and the bar­ri­cades started to go up. The police use gas. It fin­ishes up with police hunt­ing stu­dents through the streets, beat­ing them with trun­cheons. On Tuesday, another long march, about 40,000-50,000 people, stu­dents and work­ers. The red flags lead the march and the Inter­na­tion­ale is sung at the 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 Trotsky­ists 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 Latin Quarter, filling the Bou­levard St. Michel up to the 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

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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 trade unions call for a 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.