THE general in May-June 1968 underbolt out of a clear blue sky. For ten years France had been General de Gaulle. While Britain was in the throes of an economic crisis and the United States was crippled by the costly war in Vietnam, Gaullist France presented a facade of total stability.
In 1968 most of France's population lived in the towns. Industrial workers represented 41 per cent OI the population; workers accounted for a further 15 per cent. Together they represented the majority class in Six per cent of the population was engaged in small-scale production, while the majority of peasants owned their own land.
Since the Second World War the French ruling class had been unable to find a stable political instrument. stability of the Fourth Republic in which the annual making and breaking of ministries had become Europe's favourite joke.
De Gaulle seized power in 1958 and proclaimed the Fifth Republic. parliament were drastically reduced; decisions would henceforth be arbitrated through the Presidency. The aloof and arrogant style of de Gaulle was an apt symbol of the new Republic.
Thus the lack _oi a political party was to be compensated by the creation of a strong state with a Bonaparte at its head. De Gaulle spoke directly to the masses through a tame mass media. The Gaullist state was not dependent on any political party.
The General was everything.
white-collar Hence the notorious inThe Dowels of stable ruling class for the Fifth The number of the sion.
was totally . It was the arrest of The sparked off the standstill.
and released the ar- below. Meanwhile a one-day flag was hoisted.
interpreted this way:
which we have always fought... with the revolution.
LUIS. lilas. democracy.
tal assault at that stage.
The PCF's leading trade union bureaucrat, Say, All the ed thi for us trades unionist call in the following means the satistaction of the demands for . "All the way" means no wage less than 600 Francs a month...' The PCF sought to defuse the political potential of the strike into wage demands.
The general strike was the result of a combination of old and new contradictions which confronted French capitalism. The transformation in consciousness affected virtually every social layer and occupation in France, excepting the bourgeoisie and the state bureaucracy. Even the conscripted soldiers were infected Without clear objectives, the strike fizzled out after three weeks. It was defused not by repression (even the banned far-lett groups re formed under new names a few weeks later), but by a combination of two interrelated facreformism and bourgeois elections which ended May 1968 Gaullism was prepared for a frontal clash, but took great care not to initiate one. Ten million workers wanted a fundamental change, but were not convinced of the necessity for a fron-