Cement is born UNER — Union Nationale des Etudiants Français. The French equivalent of NUS, nigenan nevolunon, 1924-04, Has since adopted a less miltant line VEC — Union des Etudiants Communistes, Official student organisation of the leadership because relatively more militant on political issues. JcR — Yeunesse Communiste Revolutionnaire. Militant Trotskyist group, broke away from UEC in 1966. Closely allied to the SDS.
SDS — Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund. Originally the student organisaCGT — Confédération Generale de Travail. Communist-led trade union federation.
The strongest of the three major trade union federations in France. ORTF — Organisation de Radio et Television Française. The French BBC, but not Mouvement du 22 mars — militant coalition of students formed on 22 March Led by Cohn- Bendit comes nat cvery news broadcast scems to rule our previous ana vses and nrobnicies But one thing events of May 1968 will put a few old myths quietly to sleep once and for all Ine myth that the working class in the Western countries is securely integrated into the social consensus and has lost all revolutionary potential - and the corollary inal all displays or politica militancy are the work of some subversive international conspiracy.
Tory MP Eldon Griffiths have got the message. He writes in the though more politically active. The only French organisation to support the Evening News of 21 May:
Government as unpopular wilson s ought not to kid itselt tha French Communist Party. Has been frequently in conflict with official Party what is happening in Paris is unthinkable here The most obvious thing about the Trench cents is tneir complete spon taneity. This is both the strength and the weakness of the French class movement. What has surprised tion of the German Socialist Party, broke away 1960. Organised the recent cven Ine protessional revolutionaries is acmonstranions in wermany, Duischke was the leader or the Berlin section. the speed with which the fever of mutancy spread st people remain politically сусп опашушасрелаеп, as oeen an organ or wallist propaganda situation, but because they don't believe since de Gaulle's takeover in 1938. Important weapon in his election their own actions can allect things in Many meaningful way. As soon as they world, they too are willing to take at Nanterre, the college on the edge of Paris where the student revolt began action, I nis is wnat happened in 191/. when soviets were set up in the British and French armies within a few months of their first appearance in Russia. In the modern world of radio and tele vision, militancy moves even quicker.
The French students learnt (from the American negro movement among others) that rioting is a much better form of reformism than the ballot box.
Militant action led almost immediately to concessions. Workers — industrial, agricultural and white-collar - rapidl followed suit.
But if spontaneity is enough to begin a revolution, it is not enough to carry it through. For this reason, it seem tition for membership, and must bewar of being outflanked on the left. In recent years the CETD (no longer formseems certain the ally Catholic, and gaining ground in tne tecnnological industries) has taken a more militant line over strikes than the Communis, 3GT.
Union splits mean that many workers do not bother with union membershio Only about three million are actually unionised (as against seven million in 1945). More than twice as many work ers are participating in the Dresen seems to strikes as normally pay union dues. As a result bureaucratic sell-outs are less "Any casy man in england Mr Ine hrench Communist Partv's solid electoral support (between a fifth and quarter of th electorat ever since 1945, except in 1958) shows its deer roots in the French working class based on its Resistance record. The Party lost relatively little support over working Hungary — not because French work ers supported Russian intervention, but hecause it did not seem an adequate reason for breaking up the only mass working class organisation that existed Te CP has always been ready to pul like their French capitalism's chestnuts out of the fire in time of crisis. During the strike wave of 1936, the cP carefully damped down militancy and called on workers that it is possible to change the to trust the socialist-radical coalition In 1945 the Communist Party joined de Gaulle's Government; Maurice Thorez, its leader, toured the country In the fifties, the cp fell into dormati isolation. It appased birth control as a matter or Marxist principle and insist ed, in an age of relative prosperity, that French workers lived in conditions worse than those of the Middle Ages.
It was reluctant to accept Krusche's ant-stalin report. and bad its own * personality cult; some recruiting Icanets relerred only to une rarty of Maurice Thorez', without naming the Communist Party.
The advent of de Gaulle led to complications. The cP had been in de Gaulle's Jovernment in 4: in the eart fifties it had commended his stand on German rearmament. In 1958 it totally taisely classined him as a fascist, bur failed to mobilise any opposition to his taking of power lead to revolution (if this prophecy is Since then, the Party's policy has been falsified by the time it appears in print, the search for respectability. It ha developed its alliances with the other * left' parties — with their long record or strike-breaking and colonial repres are all clearly trying to ride out the sion. In the 1967 elections the CP situation. The Communist Party ha: showed great altruism by standing down in favour of socialist candidates taken time out from attacking the on the second ballot, even where it Gaullist Government in order to warn against the dangers of adventurism", could nave won seats, and gained rep Presentation far less than its vote entitled and the Communist-dominated CGT At the same time, it has been bemused strike, leaving the decision to local by the 'progressive" features of de initiative (a superb piece of pseudo Gaulle's foreign policy — his attempt to strengthen French capitalism in relaThe role of the French Communist Party is illustrated by its attitude to the closer links with Russia non to American capitalism. and his and China student disturbances which began the present struggle. On the 5 May, (and soon, mayDe, Cuba. when L'Humanité proclaimed: Already th Kosygin in 1966 replied to de Gaulle's toast in Paris with the words: we see great mass of students, including, we are sure, some of those who have let in a strong and independent France the most important factor of interthemselves be misled. can judge the grave consequences to which political adventurism inevitably leads. On the nacional security and, primarily, Buro- pean security, he might have been giving the CP a direct hint to shut up 6 it attributed the militancy to leftist, anarchist and Trotskyist groups and shop. The outcome, in the short or long term, others, objectively playing the Govern The Communist con- may be the entry of the CP into a left. centre coalition government. This might trolled local authority of Nanterre not be displeasing to French big busideclared that the closure of the school, a few weeks from the examinations, is ness. Already the Fifth Republic has gone a long way towards integrating harming the interests of the students, especially the poorer ones, as well as the communist unions into the con teachers. Certain plan, from which they hitherto stood sultative machinery economic groups Canarchists, Trotskyists, Mao- ists, etc) mainly consisting of the child- aloof.
In all this one must distinguish betren of the upper bourgeoisie, and led by the German anarchist Cohn-Bendit, ween the CP leadership and the rank and-file militants, who are the backbone are making the Governments tallure: an excuse for engaging in actions aimed at preventing the normal functioning liberde When the French trade unions wer formed, around the turn of the century, Гагатспагу астостасу in rrance was much less plausible than in Eng- f the present strike movement. Th land. As a result, syndicalist ideas were ap would grow much wider if the much stronger. Hence the tradition of participate in a new Government. factory occupation, which reached its British Communists often look enviouspeak at the ume or me ropular rront ly at the French Party, with its mas n June 1936, and at the time of th membership and respectable image. In Liberation in 1944-45. Most middl its present strategy they may see in aged workers have memories of thi same logic that prompts their own leadership's rejection of rent strikes and Secondly, the tripartite division of the demonstrations of solidarity with th French trade union movement into Vietnamese. If the French Party enter Communist, Catholic and Socialist a coalton, tney may see the tutilty of unions is not purely a negative feature a similar perspective here. Union leaders are in constant compe TAN H. BIRCHALI
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calling for increased productivity and in end to strikes