Anarchy 89/Whitsun in the streets
The most revolutionary impression of Paris over the Whitsun weekend was that of the simple freedom of movement and human contact in and around the Sorbonne; a simplicity which ought to be a natural way of behaviour, but which now comes as a surprise in a modern city.
In the Sorbonne itself there is a total lack of suspicion and interference, in spite of fears of attacks by “Occident” (a tough right-
In contrast to the freedom of the Sorbonne, there is the Ecole Des Beaux Arts, which is being run like a para-
It is presumably the sheer number of people in the Sorbonne which allows it to remain open-
However, they had no clear idea as to who they wanted to form a Government (certainly neither de Gaulle, Mitterrand nor <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: Mendes-
Despite the proliferation of revolutionary ideas at the Sorbonne, as Cohn-
I have an impression that the press is trying to exaggerate the split between the CP and the more militant left, with the object of both discrediting the CP morally, and demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the remainder: a <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: France-
One of the most hopeful signs during the revolution has been the involvement of professional groups. Le Monde ran an account of a meeting on May 23rd of 700 architects in the Institut d’Urbanisme, which gave full support to the students and decided to participate through their profession in the movement towards changing the structure of society and of the professions. They have also occupied their regional council office, and intend to hold all future meetings at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. (L’Express reports that the occupation of the architects’ regional council offices was undertaken by a group of which 90% were architects and only 10% students.)
A “Commission of Inter-
Practically every educational institution in Paris has been taken over: a friend of mine at a school for interpreters, for example, has spent the past two weeks working extremely hard on the details of a new “constitution” for his college.
The main work of the students over the Whit weekend appeared to be the organising of groups to go to the factories to help persuade the strikers to continue. The seriousness had not evaporated over the hot sunny weekend. The Odéon on Tuesday was still packed with ardent debaters, speaking in rapid but ordered succession. The atmosphere was holiday, but a heady holiday which was no escape The Sorbonne so clearly stands for something, indefinable, but definitely something much more than the system of human relationships we survive on at the moment. Even when the present excitement and openness has died down, as Cohn-
It is more difficult to predict what will happen in the factories. But perhaps the whole feeling of the revolution was crystallised in the meeting we had with a group of anarchist workers when we were cooking our supper in the street in Les Halles, during the monster traffic jam on the Tuesday evening. They leapt out of a café on top of us, asked us what we thought of the revolution, declared the strike was continuing 100%, clenched fists, proclaimed; “C’est une revolution de vivre, les patrons, les ouvriers, tous les deux”, and “Les syndicats sont depassés, depassés”, leapt into a big Citroën van shouting they were off to the provinces to spread the word, and just disappeared down the street where traffic had been moving at the rate of two car-
View from the Island
Christopher Logue, poet laureate of the Left, asked earnestly what We in Britain could do: that, said Cohn- —
|