Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #may68
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The idea that French theory is revolutionary “68 thought” is a myth whose purpose is to promote anticommunist theory as radical while invisibilizing the actual theorists and actors of revolutionary politics.🧵1/9
#Marxism
My latest in @monthly_review: monthlyreview.org/2023/06/01/the…
#Marxism
My latest in @monthly_review: monthlyreview.org/2023/06/01/the…
#Foucault didn't publicly support the 68 movement & for good reason: he had participated in the Gaullist academic counter-reform that triggered the student uprising. He was thus clearly on the opposite side of the barricades in #May68. 2/9
#Bourdieu was absent from the streets in #1968. Following the tradition of his mentor, the anticommunist CIA asset Raymond Aron, he preferred so-called “empirical evidence” to what he dismissed as the “revolutionary posturing” of leftism. 3/9
#THREAD
53 years ago today, May 3rd 1968, following conflict between students & University of Paris authorities, students protested the closure of the Sorbonne, setting off a wave of civil unrest by MILLIONS of students & workers.
"Be realistic, demand the impossible".
#May68
53 years ago today, May 3rd 1968, following conflict between students & University of Paris authorities, students protested the closure of the Sorbonne, setting off a wave of civil unrest by MILLIONS of students & workers.
"Be realistic, demand the impossible".
#May68
In the late 60s, French youth assumed they were living under a quasi-benign dictatorship.
The main opposition parties, Radicals & Socialists, had essentially collapsed, which meant that progressive political change via conventional parliamentary channels was all but ruled out.
The main opposition parties, Radicals & Socialists, had essentially collapsed, which meant that progressive political change via conventional parliamentary channels was all but ruled out.
In 1967, students at the University of Paris had staged protests against restrictions on dormitory visits that prevented male & female students from sleeping with each other. In January 1968, student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit verbally attacked France’s Minister of Youth & Sports.
One of my favourite periods of history that I studied was the May ‘68 revolution in Paris. My @UniofNewcastle lecturer Natt Perry was amazing. These socialist graffiti pictures in Rome remind me so much of the artwork from that era. Really cool. #labourhistory @historyNCL
* Matt Perry, apologies iPhone shortcomings.
This kind of thing for anyone interested #may68
THREAD/ May 10 1968: The French govt refuses to release arrested students. Full-scale riots break out in the evening. May 10 becomes known as “the night of the barricades” as fortifications are built outside the Sorbonne and barricades across the Latin Quarter. #May68
/ Riot police break into people’s homes and beat up ordinary people, including a pregnant woman. At 2am police attack the barricades. Parisians hurl flowerpots and heavy objects from their windows down at police along with water to protect protesters from tear gas. #May68
/Of 367 people hospitalised, 251 are police. The riots continue until dawn and the bad publicity given to the police provokes France’s biggest unions to come out against the government and call a solidarity strike on May 13. #May68
THREAD/ May 6 1968: Over 20,000 people respond to a call by teachers and student unions to march on the Sorbonne to protest the police invasion and closure of the university.
As the march approaches, police charge at protesters beating them with batons.
#May68
As the march approaches, police charge at protesters beating them with batons.
#May68
/In response, marchers hurl dug up paving stones and improvised gas bombs at police who then hit back with tear gas and a total shutdown of central Paris. #May68
/The battles continue until the early hours of the morning centred in Paris' Latin Quarter. Protesters are joined by the middle-classes horrified at police violence and workers inspired by their resistance. Students from universities across France pledge support. #May68
