On this day in 1968

President Charles de Gaulle appeared on national television in France and made a plea to viewers for help in ending the strike by 10,000,000 workers and rioting in French cities. He announced a referendum for June and asked for voters to approve a grant of emergency power to force reforms and to halt the "roll to civil war". "Frenchmen, French women," he said, "you will deliver your verdict by a vote. In case your reply is 'no', it follows that I would no longer assume my functions." In the hours leading up to the speech, thousands of demonstrators, many from outside the city, were converging on the center of Paris, while riot police prepared to contain the violence.

en.wikipedia.org...

The overnight violence that followed brought the first reported death of these troubles, by stabbing.

The following morning, the Paris Diary of Nancy Mitford records;

I've just turned on the wireless. It seems they had another sick night in Paris. The men of General Leclerc's division have issued a statement to say that they didn't liberate Paris in order to see it destroyed from within and are ready at any time to come and keep order. Mendes-France, gloating over the riots from a balcony, said the police have got an unfair advantage. Thank God. Bertrand says the problem is democratic. There are too many young people and they are turning against the old everywhere. I've got masses of champagne and no mineral water, so if the tap gives out Marie and I will be permanently drunk.

Is it necessary to explain that "wireless" means "radio"?

A bomb exploded in a building in Cardiff, followed by a letter from "the Chief of Staff of the Free Wales Army", saying that more would follow at intervals unless negotiations for Home Rule began within three weeks. I saw a television interview (outside broadcast) with one of their representatives, giving the same message. Even while the man was speaking to the reporter, a friend standing in the background came up to him and murmured some comment, probably on the lines of "You ought not to say too much, boyo."

The French government agreed with union leaders to allow a 10% increase in wages, a 3.5% increase in the minimum wage, and increased pensions.
The deal was unsuccessful, because the workers themselves were holding out for other demands, such as the right to be paid while on strike, and a reduction of the pensionable age from 65 to 60.

The atmosphere in Paris as described by the Paris Diary of Nancy Mitford;

28 May The French wireless has asked anybody who knows of a full petrol pump to report it. I am fairly public-spirited but if I knew of a full petrol pump I should tell my friends and not the French wireless in its present mood.
Went to the town and bought a few things to hoard, a practice to which so far I have not lent myself, but I only took as much as I could carry and only things abhorred by the French like Quaker Oats.
Madame Denis told Marie that she knows somebody who has hoarded £40 worth of food and added darkly, `So if things turn out badly we know where to go'; but on Saturday she touched my heart by saying I mustn't give her her week's wages if it was awkward for me.
On my way home from the park two boys on a motor-bike pretended they were trying to kill me, following me up on to the wide footpath; but I must say when I laughed so did they, and went away with friendly waves. I do hope the over-thirties are going to be killed mercifully and quickly and not starved to death in camps.

archive.spectator.co.uk...

The iconic leader of the French students, "Danny the red", had been expelled or excluded from France. He now triumphantly re-appeared in Paris, with his hair dyed black. (The accounts of the troubles I find on Google refer to his expulsion, but tend to ignore this return)

Meanwhile De Gaulle withdrew from Paris, ostensibly retreating to his home base at Colombey.

Q. "Why does General De Gaulle live at Colombey-les-deux-eglises?"
A. "Because they worship God in the other one."
Or again;
"Now here is a word from General De Gaulle- NON!"
North of the English Channel, De Gaulle was known as the man who vetoed British entry into the Common Market. Twice. So there may have been a certain amount of schadenfreude at the discomfitures which he was experiencing.

In fact the man of "Non!" had not really gone back to Colombey, or at least not immediately. It emerged later that he flown into Germany to visit General Massu, the commander of the French army forces stationed there.

Today, De Gaulle returned from the previous day's flight away from Paris.
He addressed the nation, dissolving the National Assembly and calling a General Election.

The May crisis in France is over, though people may not have realised it yet. Nancy Mitford was living in Paris at the time. The Spectator published her Paris Diary, which I have edited down.

16 May We have heard the young leaders on TV for three quarters of an hour.
It was very tiring. There is a fat boy whose name I didn't hear; the other two are suitably named Sauvageot and Cohn-Bandit.

17 May Bertrand says that there is no revolutionary spirit. But I say there never is at the beginning. All is bonhomie at first. Tough stuff comes later. I have a feeling we may be at one of those moments in history when the authorities can't do right.

18 May The postman has made our blood run cold by saying 'tout va changer.' He comes an hour late and dumps the neighbour's letters, and I must say mine, in my box. Madame Pines said to Marie, my old servant, 'What is the General waiting for? As soon as he has gone everything will be all right.
General strike, so as I haven't got a car I am stuck here. Very good for work. The wireless has been taken over and the announcers who used to seem such dears have suddenly become extremely frightening. They rattle out bad news like machine guns. The French seem to have turned into Gadarene.
Dear M Dubois came to do some odd jobs. He is very depressing. He says the workers have all got over-excited and thinks the Communists will soon be in power. His colleagues will probably strike on Wednesday. Like my Renault workers, he is entirely against but what can one do? He installed a Calor gas cooker for us for when the current fails.

21 May The bourse, quite good yesterday. has shut up shop now and so have the banks. I can live on Marie's savings so don't need to worry. I rang up Henry. He says that last night some youths dumped a lot of arms in his courtyard saying they would come back for them later.
I came back here and saw the debate in the Chambre on television. Two excellent speeches by Poujade, who seems quite remarkable, and Duhamel. Billeres not bad but far too long. At one moment after the end of his speech he got up to answer Pompidou's observations and Marie said 'Mince alors. it revient.' It looks as though the government will win comfortably but the wireless says the General won't be allowed to organise a referendum.
Marie, who has become rather bold, said this morning in the dairy, -All these strikes are organised and the men have to come out whether they like it or not.' A young woman with a baby said 'You are quite right. There's a little factory here where nobody was on strike. They came and told the men to come out. The men went to the patron and said, "We've got nothing against you but we've got to come out":
24 May More trouble with the students last night. Cohn-Bandit is not being allowed back from Germany. A move which seems to me fatal but is wildly applauded by everybody here. I can just imagine the fun he'll have getting in—which of course he will. Lovely cloak and dagger stuff, and then how will they ever dig him out of the Sorbonne?
All night a pitched battle raged around Jean de Gaigmeron's house. I hope he's gone away. These battles are a nightmare for those in nearby houses because of the tear gas which seeps in and can't be got out for ages.

25 May The General was perfect last night. After the flood of words we've been treated to of late, it was a relief to hear something short, sharp and to the point. But I've got a feeling that he is fed up. Though he will do his duty of course for as long as he can.
I've just turned on the wireless. It seems they had another sick night in Paris. The men of General Leclerc's division have issued a statement to say that they didn't liberate Paris in order to see it destroyed from within and are ready at any time to come and keep order. Mendes-France, gloating over the riots from a balcony, said the police have got an un- fair advantage. Thank God. Bertrand says the problem is democratic. There are too many young people and they are turning against the old everywhere. I've got masses of champagne and no mineral water, so if the tap gives out Marie and I will be permanently drunk.
What a volcano this country is! Of course one knows it may erupt at any moment; but as with real volcanoes the soil is so rich and so fertile in every way that having once lived here any alternative seems unthinkable.
27 May Today I gave the whole thing a rest and only listened to the news at dinner-time. The strikers have not accepted the government's protocol. They say if they do, in a few months the country will be ruined and they will be blamed. The students are upset because they have lost the limelight..
28 May The French wireless has asked anybody who knows of a full petrol pump to report it. I am fairly public-spirited but if I knew of a full petrol pump I should tell my friends and not the French wireless in its present mood.
Went to the town and bought a few things to hoard, a practice to which so far I have not lent myself, but I only took as much as I could carry and only things abhorred by the French like Quaker Oats.
Madame Denis told Marie that she knows somebody who has hoarded £40 worth of food and added darkly, `So if things turn out badly we know where to go'; but on Saturday she touched my heart by saying I mustn't give her her week's wages if it was awkward for me.
On my way home from the park two boys on a motor-bike pretended they were trying to kill me, following me up on to the wide footpath; but I must say when I laughed so did they, and went away with friendly waves. I do hope the over-thirties are going to be killed mercifully and quickly and not starved to death in camps.

29 May I hear that the Embassy Rolls-Royce has been all round Paris delivering cards for the garden party—that's the spirit—up the old land.
At luncheon-time the wireless announced that the General has left for Colombey. Marie and I looked at each other in -terror and despair, but it seems he has only gone to ponder and will be back tomorrow. There is now a rush of politicians to the microphones —all kindly say they are ready to take over.

30 May I hadn't quite realised what a hermit I am by nature—the days go by and I have no desire to move from my house and garden. I haven't done so for three weeks now. Of course one is virtually kept going by the excitement. We live in a thrilling serial story and the next instalment will be the General's statement this afternoon. (Later.) I waited for it feeling quite sick but as soon as he opened his mouth one knew everything would be all right. France is not going to be handed over like a parcel to a regime which she may or may not want without being allowed to say 'Yes' or 'No.'
I went to the market and thought the shoppers in the streets were looking more cheerful already. Then the demonstration in the Champs Elysees, reported in full and with enthusiasm on the wireless, showed that the General has not lost his magic. I'd have given anything to leave my house and garden for that.
31 May Woke up feeling as though I had come out of a nightmare. People who went to the Etoile yesterday say it was like the Liberation. The General's ADC, hearing the noise from the Elysee, said, 'That's all for you, mon General.' To which de Gaulle replied, • 'If it were only me.' The Parisians have been bottled up for about a fortnight but it seemed much longer and the sky looked black indeed. Now they have exploded.

archive.spectator.co.uk...

Bertrand says the problem is democratic. There are too many young people and they are turning against the old everywhere.

See previous post. I've taken this statement as originally printed, but looking at it carefully I think she means "demographic".

Although the strife in France had passed its peak and workers were beginning to return to work, there were student demonstrations over the weekend at diverse points like Yugoslavia, Rome, and Oxford.

Robert Kennedy won the primary in California.
Then this happened;


It probably counts as the most vividly remembered event on this thread.

DontTreadOnMe

And then the horror of RFK.....I can remember clearly how warm the weather was that day....my mother telling me the news, as she got up early to get my dad off to work.

UnBreakable

I still remember riding my bike on a June summer day and my mother calling me inside after the death of Bobby Kennedy, as if the world was about to end. She thought it was after JFK was killed less than five years earlier.

Jansy

I was a sophomore in high school in 1968. I worked locally on Bobby's campaign and was there at my home town train station when he made his whistle stop tour through the Central Valley of California, less than a week before the California Primary. I had wanted to stay up late to watch the election results, but my mother put her foot down and sent me to bed. I hid a transistor radio under my pillow, but fell asleep for a little while. When I woke up about midnight I turned the radio on and it was just chaos. I was devastated and horribly frightened, I felt like there were assassins outside my window and that the world was spinning into destruction. I went through the rest of the week at school in a fog of sadness.

It took me a very long time to even take an interest in politics after that.

I often wonder what this country would look like if that night in the Ambassador Hotel had turned out differently.

Clearly the impact still persists.

The Spectator's analysis of the way De Gaulle survived the crisis of May;

Two forces have prevented France from falling apart during her hour of crisis. The first is a President of the Republic who chose not to abdicate. The second is a Communist party which is afraid of living dangerously. These two forces, however opposed they may appear to be, have in fact been dependent on each other. For if the Communist party had really sought a revolution, the President would not have been able to stay in office without plunging the country into civil war. And if General de Gaulle had resigned, the Communist party could hardly have failed to have been led, in spite of itself, into dangerous waters.

This is why the two most perilous days of the French crisis were Tuesday 28 May and Wednesday 29 May. For these were the two days during which doubts crept in about the real intentions both of the Communist party and of the President of the Republic. The majority of Frenchmen began to fear that, so as to avoid being outflanked on the left, the Communist party would put itself at the head of a revolu- tion which, up to then, it had done everything in its power to prevent. And the same majority opinion began to doubt the capacity of General de Gaulle to face up to events.

Three factors seemed to have conspired at a single point of time, to create an explosive situation.
First, the referendum proposed by General de Gaulle seemed, even in his own mind, to have been overtaken by events. Right from the beginning, the forces of the left insisted on seeing only the plebiscite aspect of the referendum. As they saw it, the various reforms could be implemented in other ways—and, in any case, the President seemed to them hardly the most appropriate person to implement them.

The second key factor was that the trade unions appeared to have only the shakiest hold over the mass of workers. In one factory after another, the workers voted against ratifying the agreements which had been reached between the government and trade union leaders after thirty hours of negotiations at the Ministry of Social Affairs. The most powerful of the French trade union groups, the Communist-led COT, was therefore forced to change direction- that is, to demand the resignation of the legal government without putting forward a single concrete suggestion of how to replace it. And when, on the following day (Wednesday) the COT organised massive marches through the principal towns of France —marches that were perfectly peaceful, but whose slogan was 'people's government'—the majority of Frenchmen concluded that something new was on the way. And they were afraid.

Finally, there was the third factor in the equation : M Pierre Mendes-France, the former Prime Minister, began to play the part of the man of destiny. Mendes, it was more and more being argued, was not a prisoner of the Communist party. Yet he was the only politician to have been applauded by the students. Ergo, he was the one man who could bring about the necessary synthesis—that is to say, undertake reforms while at the same time preserving order. And so one saw a thoroughly French paradox: the defenders of order were ready to accept an illegal coup d'etat. Such is the drama of a country which in two hundred years has known at least a dozen different constitutions.

This situation, however, contained within itself the seeds of its own reversal. The rallying of the party of order to Mendes-France could easily be defeated: all that was needed was for General de Gaulle to present himself as the bulwark of order. Equally, the Communist party could be persuaded to resume its stance of the previous week : all that was necessary
to achieve this was for the President of the Republic to make it clear that what was at issue was not the filling of a political void, but whether to embark on an out-and-out civil war. Finally, the ill-starred ambiguity of the referendum could be swept under the carpet: all that the General need do to accomplish this was to withdraw his text.

At half past four on the afternoon of Thursday 30 May these three conditions were satisfied. It is not necessary to attribute magical qualities to the words of General de Gaulle to understand the consequences that flowed from them. What one witnessed was simply a return to a situation in which the various political forces of France could follow their natural courses. For France is a country which cannot go off the rails unless the principal actors in the drama are overwhelmed by feelings of fear and surrender—and this includes the mass of French people when they suddenly find themselves on a course whose origins are fortuitous and whose consequences unpredictable.
The President knew very well—every French- man knew it, and the Prime Minister, M Georges Pompidou, had continually reiterated it—that the French Communist party did not want to embark on any risky adventures. But in General de Gaulle's eyes this was one reason more, and not one reason less, for indicating clearly to the party that legally elected power would not abdicate. Hence the quick visit to the army to make sure that, in the event of a 100 per cent general strike, a certain number of public services could be maintained. Hence, equally, in the quiet of Colombey, the drafting of a particularly firm speech.

We now know two unusual and significant things about this speech.
The first is that it was the President himself who chose not to appear on television, but instead to rely entirely on radio. He wanted to provide not a spectacle, but a drama. And he wanted his supporters out in the streets, not staying at home. 'What I have to say to the French people,' he confided, 'must reach them through their ears.'

The second is that General de Gaulle had not originally decided on the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly. The first version of his broadcast mentioned elections only in the context of the re-establishment of order—in other words, after the strikes were more or less over. It was M Georges Pompidou who, at half past two that same afternoon, convinced the President that immediate elections were not only possible but desirable. And so, in the last analysis, we come back to the role of the French Communist party. M Pompidou argued emphatically that the party would play the constitutional game and hence that it would not, alone, oppose the elections that all the other parties had been clamouring for. Events proved M Pompidou right. And so we were at last back again to the situation that prevailed before those two famous days, Tuesday and Wednesday, 28 and 29 May. But with this difference: that the ultimate out- come no longer hung on a referendum in which the fate of the President of the Republic de- pended on his gaining 50 per cent of the votes, but on a general election which the Gaullist party can win with only 38 per cent of the votes.

archive.spectator.co.uk...

June 5th, 1968.... Yeah, bad time for me...the Establishment Pigs arrested me for Vagrancy at the resort town of Myrtle Beach, SC

days earlier I arrived there on a Trailways Bus at Night, (some 14 hours travel from Morganton NC- to Myrtle Beach SC) immediately the local police were on me to produce ID & visible means of support (wtf was this Russia I thinked)

After the police shakedown, i walked 4 blocks to a Greasy Spoon All-Night diner, & met a guy named Valentine Burnett...

i hung around the downtown & had a $2 buck-a-day bedroom place to sleep at for the next 10 days...
this was my delayed birthday vacation some 6 weeks late, because i had to complete the Furniture Show job i had at the Drexel, NC. Plant Showroom (my 1st civiian job after Army Separation back in Feb '68)

met my Future wife there at the tourist town, but the Pig cops there in uptight Plantation Era Myrtle Beach had a hard-on to bust Hippies/Long-Hairs & the Bikers ... so their wholesome Plantation could operate un fettered by actual righteous Laws....

the
Police Chief was 'Strickland'...the City Magistrate was Judge A Holler 3rd who sentenced me to the Chain-Gang for 30 days for no other reason than i had long hair in their Plantation Town...

the Prejudiced Judge A Hollar 3rd got disbarred, left the State last i heard....the police Captain Strickland retired comfortably in the local area of SC


anyhow...5 june 1968 recalled 50 years later on 5 June 2018... significant other still here ... this once refugee and since Naturalized as Citizen has Son & Daughter who in turn have grown & nurtured families of their own...so our last name is no longer strange & unfamiliar in these parts

a reply to: St Udio
Another aspect of the year. Thank you for those memories.

A VERY BRITISH STUDENT REVOLUTION

The Spectator describes the student take-over of Hornsey College of Art;

For the last ten days Hornsey College of Art. has been subsisting upon a rare, intoxicating diet compound of sleeplessness, self-government and Nescafe. Everything from running the canteen to sploshing Harpic in the lavatories is now in the hands of the students and their Action Committee. Sweet young girls with tired make-up and wilting tresses manfully man the switchboard: 'Hornsey College of Art Student Action Committee can I help you please?' The ringing phrase serves at once as identification, challenge, apology, and revolutionary manifesto.

Pickets lounge at the front gate; a long trestle table, in the best spirit of makeshift emergency bureaucracy, distributes information, scrutinises credentials, watches you write your name in a book (even Joan Littlewood had to) and issues gay, welcoming smiles. It's a twenty-four-hour service: although Hornsey's total student power is barely 900 strong half the students are unknown to each other, and without a fairly accurate check on who's in and who's out coordination would be tricky. Meanwhile, yesterday's graphic designers are today's administrators and plainly revelling in the situation. A polite letter written to the Haringey Borough Council—erstwhile governing body of the place—pleads compassion on the grounds that 'this is the most meaningful educational experience any of us are ever likely to live through.'

Experience, certainly. Educational? Well, in the broadest sense, inevitably. But meaningful —of what and to whom? In the pub at the bottom of Crouch End Hill there was no prevarication on the matter; as far as the local worthies were concerned they seemed in no doubt that all student ructions are politically inspired and communist directed. But within the tatty edifice of RCA they take a totally different view. Of course it is unfortunate that Hornsey's decision to take action should have coincided with that more sinister affair across the Channel, but coincidence, everyone was at pains to point out, it was. They are not politically inspired, there are no leftist plots—in fact, those I talked to appeared (whether by nature or by artifice) to be almost as politically innocent as Mr Wedgwood Bean himself, though considerably less eager to shoot their mouths off about it. The aims of the Student Action Committee, so my informants claimed, are purely educational, and there seemed to be no good reason for disbelieving them—unless it was the particularly large number of students in revolt who seemed to be watching a not especially edifying movie show downstairs.

Make of it what you will, this seems to me a very proper way of conducting a prolonged sit- in. Most of the students and—or so I was told —almost 75 per cent of the teaching staff have been 'in,' except for short forays in search of victuals and sleep, since Tuesday of last week, when the students were given official permission to 'have the use' of the buildings for twenty-four hours to discuss their grievances. Effectively this discussion led to the Student Action Committee (formed clandestinely some weeks ago) taking over the reins from the students' union and hence to the present state of affairs. Since then life in embattled Hornsey has not been concerned solely with watching films. A general meeting on Friday and a non-stop series of seminars has led to the publication of numerous duplicated sheets of paper; they are beginning to add up to a crude manifesto.

The reforms it suggests are both 'educational' and purely domestic: the abolition of final exams and of GCE 'O' levels as an entrance requirement, participation in the governing of the college, elimination of distinctions between vocational and diploma courses (the latter being a more academic course and recognised as of Honours degree status), the replacement of a 'linear' division of courses by a 'network' system which would allow students to choose a variety of alternative combinations and permit them to change courses in mid-career.

Of course, if the grim guerrilla faces, sick with earnestness and self-importance, would permit, one might be tempted to laugh at the presumption of it all. But the Hornsey savants do have other, perhaps wiser, minds to guide them. At York and Bristol the English departments have abolished the concept of examining the results of three years' work in the course of a single week of nightmare three-hour papers; while as for the abolition of qualifying exams, this also is a respectable educational view (one, incidentally, which the Summerson Committee has already taken, though most art colleges still require 'O' levels).

But if the students are granted their reforms, will they go back to work or will the prospect of anticlimax be the signal for spontaneous singing of the 'Internationale' and the breaking out of red and black banners? So far, in marked contrast to student disturbances elsewhere, Hornsey's action has been entirely isolationist. Circulars gently urging support have been sent to other art colleges and goodwill deputations have been received from all manner of educational establishments; but the LSE, predictably canvassing a solid political front, has so far been given the brush-off.

At the same time there is talk, repeatedly contradicted, then as obstinately reasserted, that the SAC is aiming at a national movement. But could this be achieved? Efficiently as Hornsey is being administered (application interviews are still being held), enthusiastically as bleary-eyed girls sit poised at typewriter and coffee dispenser throughout the night, disarmingly as the press officer lights one's cigarettes and urges one not to use the word 'revolution,' the impression remains that this is one of the politest (though by no means the least successful) revolts on record. There are no leaders, either natural rouge or tinted noir, no obvious 'personalities,' no names even. Until Friday no one was very sure what the fuss was all about and some puzzlement still persists amongst those who are not exactly up to their necks in the action.
Far from a unanimous call to override authority, the Action Committee has been constantly cajoling Mr Harold Shelton, the principal, to come in and join the discussions. So far Hornsey has made no appeal to the public at large. In its genteel endeavours to appear responsible it may have taken isolationism a bit too far; if Mr Shelton won't come in, perhaps Hornsey should go out. If it did, along with other like- minded institutions and on grounds purely of educational reform, it might just get its national movement and it might just be successful.

One final touch: On Thursday I rang up and asked if I could attend one of the all-night meetings. 'Sorry, no press,' came the stern revolutionary's reply. 'We're afraid of being ridiculed.

archive.spectator.co.uk...
See also their analysis of the troubles in the University of Essex, quoted in a previous post in this thread;
www.abovetopsecret.com...

British student agitators were handicapped by having no serious political grievances of their own, living as they were under a left-wing government. They were reduced to sympathetic enthusiasm for the students in France and America, and demanding more self-government in their academic lives.

Robert Kennedy was pronounced dead yesterday.
Of course ATS has conspiracy threads on the murder; this one may be the most recent;
RFK
But this one may be more thorough;
The case reviewed

James Earl Ray was arrested in London.

After a student evading arrest was drowned last night, there was a battle in Paris between students throwing Molotov cocktails and police. In eastern France, a battle between police and car-workers resulted in two workers being shot, one of them killed.

From the BBC news.

Fierce fighting in Paris last night between students and riot police. The French government has banned street demonstrations and certain left-wing organisations. Dany Cohn-Bendit has flown to Britain.

From the BBC news.

Last night mercenaries led by Colonel Schramme took over the Sorbonne from the students, but after a fierce battle were later driven out. The French police recaptured the Odeon theatre without any fighting.
From the BBC news.

The reference to Col. Schramme is now intriguing. "Black Jack" Schramme became notorious in 1967, when he led mercenaries fighting in the Congo. (That is, the former Belgian Congo. Not the smaller ex-French territory.) In those days, the press would report "mercenaries" in local wars without attempting to discuss who was paying them. Schramme's Wiki page has nothing on his later career, and another online source I found declared that he "disappeared" after the Congo. Yet here is the BBC unambiguously (apparently) locating him in the middle of events in Paris. I wonder how many more historical details disappear from knowledge from not being picked up by digital media.

In Paris, the police moved into the Sorbonne after a student was found stabbed near the Odeon. After several hours of trying to persuade the students to leave, finally successful, more students gathered, and violence has re-begun.

From the BBC news.