All language subtitles for a.film.like.any.other.1968.720p.bluray.x264-ghouls

who sews men's shirts at Seligman's
for 1.14 francs an hour.

Reason: singing while working.
What's in a name?

We wonder about this as children,

writing this name
which we forget is ours.

James to Paul, writing
on the ears of his dog:

"I wrote your name, Liberty,
with the blood of a comrade

"tortured by the Gestapo."

The people of oppressed nations

must not stop fighting
for their emancipation.

Persevering in the fight
is the way to succeed.

I'm embarrassed to say
I give moral support and that's all.

We know that our capacity
to fight is limited,

but we'd like to fight
as much as we can

and to only give moral support
seems rather weak to me.

Could you explain?

You mean the presence,
during the strike,

of students supporting workers?

Yes, that's it.

That's...
That's important, but it's not...

It's very important, but it isn't
what we need to discuss.

Of course we'll be there,
that seems obvious,

but where do we go from there?

What is to be done?

We can do what we did last time,

or we can do more, for instance...

It's a case of thinking it over

and deciding when to call
a second general strike

and organising it better
than the last one,

even though the last one
wasn't a total failure

because we did learn
a lot of things.

December 1967.

The head of Lycée Condorcet
expels a pupil for trade union activity

after a strike organised to protest

against the resumption
of classes on a Thursday.

First, then second demonstration.

High-school pupils clash
with the police for the first time.

The Russian working class
is decimated by the civil war.

In his fight against Stalin

Trotsky is supported by the Red Army
and young students.

He hesitates to unleash them
against the Party apparatus

which Stalin has taken in hand.

It was a reconnaissance mission.

If, for instance,
we wanted to work in Flins,

we'd need to go to Flins.

In order to help the workers in Flins,
we'd need to go to Flins

to try to get a job at a factory,

preferably at Renault
because it's a tough sector,

and find out and learn
what's going on at the factory.

December 1967,
Le Figaro and I Express

rebel against the prohibition on campus

of free movement
between boys' rooms...

...and girls' rooms.

"The main task of the theatre
is to explain the story

"and communicate ideas by means
of appropriate distancing effects,"

explains Bertolt Brecht to chemists
at a photographic products factory.

Despite the civil strife,
which adds to the horror

civilised life resumes
at the start of spring

in the territories liberated by Tito.

The partisans have put
the railways back in service.

Classes have resumed
in some rural schools.

So, for example, the minimum...

It would have been possible
to manufacture and bring out cars...

-...and give them away or...
- Or exchange them.

Exchange them for other things,
or something like that.

And to make red cars
rather than black cars.

It's not our tragicomic achievements

that have paved the way
for revolutionary progress.

At best, only by giving rise

to a compact and powerful
counterrevolution,

by creating an adversary
and fighting it

can the party of subversion finally
become a truly revolutionary party.

Political class awareness

can only be given
to the worker from outside,

that is, from outside the economic fight,

from outside the sphere
of labour relations.

If we had a job like that...

Do you think
it's important or not?

- It's a way of...
- I think it's important.

It's a way of putting the strike
in the service

either of propaganda
or of information or other things.

For example, if cars
were coming out of Renault

spokesmen with loudspeakers
could be used

to talk about what was happening
in the factory and on the picket lines.

These are small details.
However, it's very important.

It shows the workers
don't need a boss

to get a factory running
on their terms.

- Yes, but it hasn't been done.
- No, it hasn't been done. Why not?

I don't know,
but you shouldn't see it as a failure.

The way to look at it is...

the general strike was a step
in the right direction.

It took the struggle to a higher level.

We couldn't solve
the problem of organising

the means of production
to serve the strikers, it's true.

That's the next stage.

The next stage is when, say,

we can provide food

using contacts with the countryside
with the cooperatives, etc.

It's not just the contacts.

Farmers are chucking away tomatoes
and stuff several times a year

and that's not good.

It's feasible as long as,
for example,

we stay in contact with them
and provide explanations.

For example,
we explain to the farmers...

what the strike at Flins means
for the workers at Flins

and we tell them that now...

The important thing is
for people to feel connected.

So we say, for example,
to a cooperative,

"You're going to send supplies
to the strikers at this factory

"and we're going to explain
what's going on at this factory."

Similarly, we can say...

to workers in the factory,

"This is the situation.

"This is the situation in this place

"and this is why they feel
solidarity with you.

"They have demands too."
That's how we do it.

What did you mean
when you said it wasn't a failure?

I mean, it was a failure,
it was a failed revolution, sure.

But it wasn't a failure...

December 1967, IFOP poll.

37% of the French believe
that before the year 2000

there will be another world war.
19% have no opinion.

72% think the problem
of unemployment won't be solved.

58% think that in France
they'll drink more wine than now.

Prison bombed,
police station blown up,

perceptions blown up.

Where? In Quimper, in Rennes,
in Saint-Brieuc, in Plouzevédé.

When? In January 1968.

To check if a youth is revolutionary
or not, there is only one criterion:

does he feel solidarity
with the workers and farmers

and is he fighting for their cause?

If he wants it and does it,
he is a revolutionary.

If he stops doing it tomorrow,

then he'll be non-revolutionary
or counter-revolutionary.

February 1968.
In Caen the workers fight.

The police disguise
the number of deaths.

...the same bonus for everyone.

- The bonus?
- The same for everyone.

The same for everyone.
What does it depend on?

The bonus depends
on the rate of work,

on the output the factory achieves.

If the output is down,
we don't get a bonus.

No doubt this year...

The output agreed by the unions
hasn't been reached.

The employer tried to get us
to reach it anyway...

- What is the maximum output?
- The output is...

- It's unlimited.
- The output is decided...

If the employer determines a ceiling,

that ceiling must be reached.

What is it?

- We know nothing. You don't know.
- No, we're in the dark.

Do you think it would help you
to know, for example...

You realise...

We must attack with non-violence,
and defend with violence.

22 March, 1968,
in protest against the arrests

at demonstrations organised
by Vietnam Day Committees,

600 Nanterre students
occupy lecture theatre B1

and rename it "Che Guevara".

At the CFC in Alés,
after a 48-hour strike,

the enamel workers
obtained a 15-centime pay rise.

The colour workers immediately
began to strike for a pay rise too.

Say they were a number of cars
short on the assembly line yesterday,

that number would have
to be made up tomorrow morning.

But they don't tell the workers that.

They just think there was
a shortfall in the output.

For example,
two and a half years ago...

when the R16 first came out...

the painting came to a halt, I think.

A car fell into a vat.

That blocked the entire assembly line
and they were forced to raid the stock.

History so far has found
no other way to advance humanity

than to oppose the violence
of the condemned classes

with the revolutionary violence
of the progressive class.

Anything can happen right now.

We could almost say
everything has happened.

If our story is not believable today,
it may be tomorrow,

thanks to scientific research,
which is the way of the future.

Then no one will dare consign it
to the realm of legends.

It's about destroying
the enemy, not judging it.

In villages liberated by the column

they assembled the peasants,

asking them to point out the fascists
and shooting them on the spot.

The next revolution will go
the same way, serenely.

We know there will be
no one to judge us.

The judges will be gone forever.
We will have eliminated them.

In Flins we know the whole region
geographically now.

We know the Renault factories
and the roads.

We know the people,
we know where to stay, etc.

If anything happens in Flins,

we'll go into the factories,
no problem, because it's home.

We'll circulate in Flins.

If there are actions
like the ones we led...

that infamous Friday, Saturday
and Monday in Flins,

we know where the roads are
and how to attack

and that, in the short term,
is extremely important.

We've been observers, I agree,
but there's nothing to prevent us

from staying much longer in the factory
so we can stop being observers.

As you know,
since we work together,

as soon as we spent
four months at the factory

and got our cards...

For what it's worth,

we decided to get CGT cards...

1 May. The usual march organised
by the CGT from République to Bastille.

A mixture of red and black flags.
Students join in.

They get beaten up
by the police for shouting,

"Long live the CGT
for the class struggle!"

The scrambling of B-52s
based in Guam,

although it costs $30,000
to take out the aircraft.

Each plane can transport
over ten tons of bombs

and a formation of 50 bombers
flying at an altitude of 7,000 metres

can saturate the region.

It's almost impossible to do
the same job with ordinary fighters.

Friday the 3rd. A student
throws the first paving stone.

...if you like, a combativeness,

an animosity even,

and a more general idea
of having a strike,

of stopping work
and starting something else,

which is also extremely important.

The issue is not staying for ten days

and then returning to the factory
when it all kicks off.

The issue is not staying
for three months

and forming a kind
of action committee

for direct action.

The issue, at least
as far as I'm concerned,

is ending the privileged conditions
of students and intellectuals

and ending them completely.

In this society...

In this society
the condition for students

- is one of privilege.
- We can't escape the class struggle.

- Students always escape it.
- No, they never escape it.

They never escape it.
That's what...

- You said...
- That's the Stalinist angle.

- Student are students, end of.
- Student conditions are privileged

in this society.

What we want is a society

in which conditions for students
are not especially privileged,

in which conditions
for managers are not...

privileged conditions.

But wanting to change
those conditions doesn't mean...

We just get out and say,
"For now it's a privilege.

"I no longer want to be a student.
I want to be..."

That depends what you mean.

I mean, there's an enormous
amount of intellectual work

to be done in the middle classes.

It depends what you mean
by conditions for workers.

The proletarian is...

labourers and factory workers.

Then there's what sociologists
are calling the new strata.

The new strata.

People who work in supermarkets
or in Galéries Lafayette.

The thing is...

With respect to this 15%,
I don't agree.

Workers in France represent
over 15% of the active population.

That's certain.
I don't have the figures.

I don't have the figures
but it's true.

But I don't understand...

Wait, you raised the issue
of management just now.

It's an experience, if you like.

The student is destined...

The main criticism
workers have of students is

their Simone Weil approach,

except that they don't know
who Simone Weil is,

but they read...

They think,
"You're very nice, you're with us,

"but when your studies are over,
you'll become the cops."

Friday the 3rd.

The PCF denounces
false revolutionaries,

composed of sons
of the well-to-do

and led by a German anarchist.

Saturday the 4th.

Daniel Legros, a pastry chef,

is found in possession
of a bolt and a switchblade

and sentenced to three months
in jail or a fine of 500 francs.

Sunday the 5th.
Order to strike.

The police occupy
the Latin Quarter en masse.

A University Action Movement
pamphlet calls for...

Monday the 6th.

Around 9.30pm, fighting stops
in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

The police give chase to the groups
remaining in the Odéon area.

Tuesday the 7th. Calls by the Union
of Communist Marxist-Leninist Youth.

"Let us brush aside
reformist slogans

"and those who unite
to try to prevent

"the masses
from joining the revolution."

I don't know if they worked
in a different way

to the other sociologists
they were working with.

Anyway...

I think there's a way people can
take action in their own field.

I'm convinced of it.

I think a school teacher...

maybe...

He might not give up
being a teacher,

even if he's teaching privately
and earning 200,000 per month.

He can teach certain things

to the girls and boys
who go to the school

and fight the system that way.

It's not about completely rejecting

this situation under the guise of...

Your reasoning is correct

in a completely static context.

Static how?

Or in a climate
that's not at all insurrectionary.

The climate is insurrectionary.

- It's insurrectionary now?
- It's not insurrectionary.

There are strikes
every day in the region.

But that's not an insurrection.

Sorry, it may not be an insurrection

but nevertheless
it's an insurrectionary climate

and it feels like one.

Right, OK,
but the questions you pose

are completely crazy questions,
because if you say

that the situation must move on
and change drastically

by the autumn,
so in two or three months,

then in four or five months' time

the questions we have to ask

will be concrete questions.

What do we students today,

who have taken to the streets...

I don't know how many.
30,000 to 40,000.

What happens to all these people?

What can we do to help?

How can we fight
alongside the working class?

What should
these 40,000 students do

to fight alongside
the working class?

You're a student.
What do you think?

How do you envision it?
You're a student.

I can't answer that.
I'm not a student.

How are you not a student?

No, I've never been a student.
I've always worked.

I've studied for myself,
without taking any exams,

but for ten years now
I've rejected

the notion that I'm a student.

It's always offended me deeply.

It's nothing new but it's definite.

I'm proletarian,
I work like a proletarian,

or like a revolutionary
if I join the guerrillas,

but anyway, the question
doesn't arise for me.

I don't take the pill of knowledge
in any form whatsoever.

That's a misunderstanding.

It's a misunderstanding
of the practice of students.

I don't think it's particularly
interesting to know

how we define ourselves
in relation to the class struggle,

since...

Everything's interesting.

But I mean, not right now.

How do you see
the students helping, Nicolas?

How do you see
the students helping?

- That's the problem.
- In several ways, naturally.

Firstly, they can educate the workers.

That's one way.

We're counting on the students

to help us and inspire us.

They can teach us things that we...

that elude us at the moment.

- And secondly...
- What things, for example?

Because this discussion,
I've had it with an intellectual,

a student who showed up
from time to time...

Wait, allow me a brief digression.

And he said that the workers needed
to be taught class consciousness.

Analysing the recent past

is an imperative task
for revolutionaries.

Yes, we talked about that.

We said, try to know
who we are and how we function.

Yes, that's it.

Wednesday the 8th.

Mass movement of people
in nine regions in the west.

Some 10,000 strikers.

Powerful strike action in the PTT

organised by the General
Community of Transistors

and the French Democratic
Transistorised Company.

Then secondly,
as I said this morning,

they can help create
stronger ties between us.

We can hold meetings with students

and workers
in the same room and discuss...

Among others. Fourth.

Also, an example
of what happens here

is that when we talk to people
about what happened

during the strike in Nantes

nobody knows what happened.

- Very few people are aware.
- Very few people are aware, yes.

And this is very important.

Nantes and Cléon...

This week some guys
from Cléon and Billancourt met

to discuss problems
at Billancourt and Cléon.

A girl from Cléon came
and a guy from Billancourt.

I raised the issue and said,

"What happened?
How did you stop work?"

We knew absolutely nothing about
what had happened inside the factory.

The guy replied...

"We stopped for half an hour."
Or perhaps it was an hour, I forget.

He said there were certain demands
they wanted met,

hence the half-hour strike
which turned into an indefinite strike.

We said, "We weren't aware.

"We knew there was a strike

"but we didn't know exactly
what had happened."

We didn't go on strike
because Cléon was on strike.

We went on strike
because we too had demands.

Conveniently, they were the same.

Even with the trade unions,
there is a lack of information...

given to workers.

There hasn't been enough liaison
between factories:

Cléon, Creil,
Sandouville, Billancourt.

If you think about it,
it's happening in a fairly limited area

but there was no point
in doing it on a limited scale.

Doing it on a national scale
was about establishing a precedent.

That way we could pass
to a higher level of relations,

so-called relations of dual power.

Against the power of the state

there is the power of the workers
who are organising in the factories

which is a relatively centralised power

that isn't necessarily bureaucratic.

It's more of a centralisation
or a dissemination of information,

with everybody giving their experience
of what they've done.

Then we can coordinate,

once we know exactly what's happened
at such and such a site

and say to people,

if we want to get
the factories working again,

"At this place they need this.
Let's make that happen.

"And there they need that."

Once you pass to that phase,

you hold a power
which opposes the power of the state

and the state can't do anything about it.

We needed an organisation

which had absolute authority,
free of tradition,

and which would assemble workers
who were dispersed and unconnected.

This organisation needed
to be a confluence

of all the revolutionary currents
inside the proletariat.

It had to be capable of initiative
and automatic self-governing.

The main thing was to get it
off the ground in 24 hours.

Are there many who want
to take over the power at Renault?

Not to take over the power,
but would it interest

someone who makes an R16

to decide whether to make
an R16 or an R8?

You, for example?

It's hard because first
you have to know about cars

and how to make them.

We're not able to do that.

No, I agree,

but it would interest you,
like the students?

Yes, I'd like to say...

I'd have a model in mind
that I wanted to create.

I think that would be great.

And discuss it with...

Yes, discuss it
with the management.

- The management!
- Not the management, but...

It would still be under management.

I was going to say comrades
and you said management.

- The comrades, then.
- The comrades' management.

Or to say, for example,

we don't need cars.

There are comrades who have
devised shortcuts at the factory.

There are comrades who have
devised shortcuts at the factory.

They have found a new way
of making one small part

which saves us a bit of time
and earns us a bit of money.

We do that anyway
but theoretically we're not allowed to.

Do you see? It saves us time.

Say you see a hole that's redundant
and will never be used,

instead of putting adding putty,
you don't.

The car will run just as well.

It will be worth the same.

Do you think it's desirable
for these things to be linked

to protest strikes, or not?

Or not right away,
or it depends?

Once we have taken over the factories.

In my opinion,
it's the basis of everything.

Until now, people
have been made to believe

that the basis of everything
wasn't that,

but...

being able to decide
what to produce...

For us, cars are useful,
because basically...

In the end, the slogan
"Don't make cars, make buses,"

is true.

When we go to work
in the morning,

when we go to the university
in the morning at nine,

at a time
when everyone's going to work,

it takes much longer
than if we were going there...

People start work
at 7.30 not nine.

In the factory, yes,
but all the office workers

and department store employees,
who work hard too,

they start work at nine.

I'm talking about Paris.
When we see the number of cars...

If you make buses instead of cars,
there'll be buses everywhere.

The traffic would circulate better.

There are traffic problems in Paris.

Look at the problem
in the USSR, for example.

People in the USSR

wanted to set about making cars.

People wanted cars.

In fact...

if you want a service to get
around the city, for example...

if you set up
a public transport service

and organise it
in an intelligent way,

you can get very good results.

It costs much less
and allows you to do other things,

instead of everyone
plonking their arse in their car.

Why do people want
to have a car for work?

Because taking the metro
at eight in the morning or six at night

is completely disgusting.

It's exhausting. You're not paid to do it.
On the contrary, you pay to go there.

Students and intellectuals

can always write books to try to...

They've seen what's going on
and it doesn't satisfy them at all.

They want implementation

and implementation
isn't achieved like that.

It's done communally,
with the mobilisation of everyone.

I think one of the demands,
like you said,

should be the right to influence
what you produce.

Today we want to say,

"We want to produce
this much per day.

"We want to work
this many hours.

"We think this is the way to work,
in these working conditions."

These are demands
that don't arise now

but they are demands
that should arise later.

Because, for example,
when you demand...

Let's take the example
of social security

and prescriptions, which...

The bourgeoisie likes nothing better
than to eradicate everything.

It wasn't enough
to imprison free love

in the sordid appropriation
of a marriage contract

and release it at set times
for adulterous needs.

It wasn't content with jealousy
and lies to poison passion.

It has managed to separate lovers
from the embrace of their actions.

That's how it was done.

There were cases of sickness

which were troubling,
and had to be resolved.

They could afford
to spend a certain amount

on their workers' health

because that affected
the company's health too.

Now they're talking
about a deficit in social security,

because people are taking
better care of themselves.

And it's too expensive.

It's expensive
and they no longer want to pay

because health is considered
to be something which...

People can be healthy enough
for 400 francs.

There's no need
to spend 800 francs.

Spending 400 francs on health
will suffice to produce cars.

"Mr Bukharin, I ask you once again,
here before the proletarian court..."

"Will you confess to the world
which espionage service hired you:

"German, Japanese or English?"

- Bukharin:
-"None?

We may not agitate in the same way
but we can maintain a presence,

a constant presence, right?

We're counting on it.

Do you think
that would give you a plan

to resume the strike
in the factories, etc?

Yes, I think so.

Because my idea is,
if there are many doubts,

if there are many doubts...

and if the situation is repeated
in the universities...

it would provide an impetus
for the masses to strike again.

Don't you think they would say,

"Oh, those students,
those leftists, those agitators,

"they're still stirring things up
and causing a nuisance"?

- Instead of really...
- Yes, a little...

Don't you think, on the contrary,
it would be a wake-up call?

Thus the circle closes.

As a deterrence...

- Mao Tse-Tung's thinking outlines...
- A strategy of fight to the death.

- The sources are the same.
- Behind Lenin, Hegel.

The consequences reversed.

The atom bomb is not a condition
of universal order.

- But of universal illusion.
- A paper tiger.

Saturday the 11th at 2am.

The Interior Minister wants
the streets cleared.

It takes over three hours...

...for riot police
to clear Rue Gay-Lussac.

- Ten times...
-...they encounter barricades.

- Ten times they are forced back.
- Despite the tear gas.

Despite incendiary
and other grenades.

We need workers to explain
the problems in factories to students.

I think the takeover of the university

has led to direct contact
between workers and students

and if that contact continues,
we can take things further.

I think we would feel
even more united

in the face of problems
arising with the government.

First, there is the fact,

whether we open in January or not

and it seems it may be better
at the end of November,

that we'll still have the premises,
which is very important.

That way, when the faculty returns,
we can take it over, no problem.

I think there'll be plenty of interest,
as long as we explain...

Perhaps students aren't used
to demonstrating,

to spending the month of May
in the street, walking around.

That could pose problems for us,
agitating...

Sunday the 12th.

De Gaulle's government responds
to the university with bloody violence.

- Daniel...
-...Cohn-Bendit is a werewolf.

Here Radio Pravda,
transmitted from the station,

tells of the long wait.

- Daniel...
-...Cohn-Bendit at 5am

calls on trade unions and asks them
to organise a general strike.

Second paradox.

Kennedy offers Soviets
what he has just refused them,

to limit conflict
over the Cuban missiles crisis.

Despite allusions to Berlin,
Khrushchev agrees.

Sunday the 12th. The trade unions
decide to defy the government

and call a general strike of 24 hours.

We can't do that.
We can only agitate.

All we can do
is occupy the premises.

That's possible.

It's clear that terrorism in the cities
can play no decisive role

and at the same time
it endangers political order.

But if it's subordinate
to the main struggle,

from a military point of view
it has strategic value

since it ties up the repressive apparatus
in futile protection efforts.

We should lead a protest
in the universities.

That would keep us
on the battlefield for a while.

What sort of protest?

For example, a protest for us

might be going to a class
where a teacher is talking bullshit,

a history teacher, for example,
talking bullshit about the Popular Front,

and saying to him,
"Sir, you're a stupid idiot!

"You're full of crap. Get out!"
and forcing him out.

I think that's logical in a sense.

But there are other kinds of protests.

There are also explanations
at meetings, etc.

But to start again from here...

I'm not sure, I think...

launching attacks
with Molotov cocktails

isn't the right way
to achieve anything.

No, I agree.

It can help,
and it has helped.

It always helps,

but to resume a protest
of the kind we saw in May...

I think the demonstrations in May...

No...

This organisation of language
must be poetic

because it reflects
what makes language possible.

What makes language possible is
what separates sounds from shapes

and organises them into propositions.

Say you sow unrest...

Say you sow unrest at the university
and we sow unrest at the factory,

I think that would be good.

Yes, sowing unrest means upsetting
the functioning of the university.

Stopping it or blocking it.

Yes, or modifying it a bit,
because“.

Yes, modifying it.

Yes, but in the system...

Without that surface which stands out
from the mass of shapes,

that line separating things
from propositions,

the sounds would stick to the shapes
and propositions would be impossible.

The organisation of language

cannot be separated
from the poetic discovery of surface.

It's a question of going back up
to the surface and discovering...

After three months
they'll realise that we mean business.

There is one thing.

A demonstration of workers
and students at the start of term...

Monday the 13th.
The first red flags fly again in Paris.

The bourgeoisie sees the red Sorbonne
transformed into a blackboard.

Say things get out of hand
in your faculties

and the riot police
stop you from working,

that would all lead to serious unrest.

Yes, but before that...

What I'd like to happen before that,

as soon as the summer holidays
are over,

is for meetings to be held
between students and workers

where we can hold lengthy discussions

before stirring up any shit,
before embarking on anything.

Yes, no one's going to be starting
anything on their own this time.

No, no fooling around,
like we have been doing.

After those meetings we can say,
"We have made a plan.

"This is what we're doing.
Now we can begin."

You young people say your thing
and we'll say ours

and we agree on a point
and off we go.

We don't start from a vacuum.

I think that would be good

but we must be able to connect
and hold meetings together.

- You entered the Cafe Terminus?
- Yes.

The bomb was in the waistband
of your trousers?

No, in my coat pocket.

Why were you
at the Café Terminus?

First I went to the Café de la Paix

but there weren't enough people
so I went to Terminus and waited.

- Why?
- Until there were more people.

- You despise human life?
- No, bourgeois life.

- You did all you could to save yours.
- Yes, to start again.

Anyway...

about our demands...

Our demands are never valid.

At any rate...

As far as the demands made
are concerned,

what made them interesting

was that the employer
couldn't accept them.

- He couldn't.
- We knew he wouldn't accept them.

He couldn't accept them and so saying,
"We want this and we want that"

was like saying,
"We want nothing from you."

Six or seven months ago
we asked for a pay rise.

Say I'm in a small business and I ask
for seven francs, I'll be granted five.

We know that if we ask for eight francs
the boss will give us five or four francs.

We know they won't give us
a 20-franc or a 10-franc rise.

Yes, it's a pedagogical strategy,

to say, "We want this and that."

It's a way of rallying the workers,
or rather the team,

without saying,
"We want a socialist society"

and starting a big 15-page definition
with flowery language.

It's saying, "This is what we want."

We realise this society
isn't capable of...

Even in that respect it's not capable
of satisfying our demands.

Because“.

This is related to the fact
that the social demands...

the social demands made
by the unions are not political.

They're only political
in the sense that,

even if the powers that be
wanted to concede anything...

Say they had the will
to meet those demands,

they'd be unable to do it.

And proving
that they're unable to do it

by making such strong demands

that they're unable to meet them

shows that we've had enough of them
and then it becomes political.

To reject the powers that be
is political.

Yes, when the team said
100,000 francs minimum per month,

that meant...
that meant, "Get lost!"

But there are still
lots of people for whom

saying "100,000 francs per month"
doesn't mean...

It doesn't mean the same.

- That needs to be explained.
- That's true.

That needs to be explained at length.

The workers' demonstrations...

At the last big demonstration
by workers

we called for Pompidou to get out.

What does getting
Pompidou out mean?

It means the government
will be replaced by another.

It's not...

No, but...

It was a way of saying...

But take the slogans, for example.
There were things...

How the slogans started,
how they were taken up...

Because some strange things
happened with us.

At our demonstrations

we didn't have slogans.

We went to the demonstrations
without any slogans.

And I don't know how, but we came up
with the most interesting slogans.

- There was a sorting process.
- So it was a choice.

Yes, the guys launched into something,

some completely stupid slogan.

There'd be ten guys screaming it,
then it fizzled out.

Then someone launched
another slogan.

The ten people in the front row joined in

and five minutes later
10,000 people were repeating it.

With the slogans...

We sensed the Communist Party
had been overwhelmed at one point.

It was when they started to talk
after some demonstration or other,

maybe the one on the 13th,

when...

At Rhodiaceta the management
posted a notice on the door

threatening a lock-out
if the workshops stopped work.

- 13 May.
- Fraternisation.

I'm convinced
that the shouts of "French Algeria"

will lead to a historical movement

as important as the Chinese Revolution.

Sud Aviation workers in Nantes

take over the factories
and kidnap the boss.

The ruling class won't give up power
unless there is violence.

Every workers' struggle
that wrests social power from this class

should expect to face
the most ruthless repression.

Insofar as this protest takes
the form of deeds and action.

That's what I was saying.

For 30 or 40 years

only the Communist Party
and the CGT have defended them.

Even if they feel it doesn't work
and has gone to hell

they don't know what to do.

Unless they are offered
replacement formulas

and organisational frameworks
that are serious

and won't break down
after two or three days

these guys won't
necessarily follow.

I don't agree. I'd like to return
to the problem of spontaneity.

I also think...

the first round, so to speak...

I agree with you.

Wednesday the 15th.

The CGT asks workers
to meet in their workplace

to determine their demands.

Wednesday the 15th.
The Movement of 22 March

calls for the formation
of revolutionary action committees.

Wednesday the 15th. "Comrades,"
shout protesters at Odéon

to the bus drivers
trying to block their way.

"When will you stop identifying
with those who oppose you?"

One and the same text,
or even one and the same letter,

both constitutes and represents
subconscious desire.

The analysis questions the common
and convenient distinction

between a term of reality...

I work with Séguy.
I am behind him.

I support the policy of the CGT.

- We voted him in.
- It means something.

20 years of trade unionism,
of political life.

The only thing in life
that interests me is politics.

"When you're a little less excited,
we can talk."

If you like, it mobilised
a certain number of people.

It gave them a certain confidence.

That's just it, the revolt...

The events of May-June
have served that purpose.

The first round served the purpose
of demystifying the CGT.

It wasn't decisive. It was...

- It wasn't decisive...
- It was a good blow.

It was more than a good blow.
People are still with the CGT.

They've just learned certain things.
In my opinion, the CGT can't change.

It tried to change
after the Grenelle Agreements

but the party, or rather
Waldeck Rochet, forbade it.

We still haven't heard
the last word

on what went on between
Waldeck Rochet and Séguy.

In any case, Séguy lost.

The Communist Party really commands
and will continue to command the CGT.

The CGT can't move anymore.

As for the workers,
there's been a kind of rupture

and while there's a kind
of former allegiance

in the next action,
this fidelity will be totally gone.

That is, in the October action...

We face this type of difficulty.

The language spoken
uses certain turns of phrase.

A method for conveying
political or poetic knowledge

can only be established
by increasing...

...make the figures speak
to bring language alive.

Friday the 17th.

The strike, with factory sit-ins,
extends throughout France.

Thousands dead and injured
in Barcelona

where Stalinists and bourgeois attack
the exchange occupied by anarchists.

Saturday the 18th.
Steelworkers, textile workers,

shipyard workers,
petrochemical workers...

Two million strikers greet De Gaulle
on his return from Romania.

A former French cultural colony.

Marx introduced not only
a revolutionary method to the Far East

but also conceptual problems
which were left unresolved

and contributed to bloody failures
in the Chinese Revolution until 1935.

Monday the 20th, Citroen workers
occupy their factory for the first time.

We must criticise people

but we must do it
based on their conditions.

There are guys who still rely
on the Communist Party or the CGT.

No, that's not true.

- Yes, it is.
- I don't trust the CGT anymore.

There is a minority
that still blindly follows

the CGT slogans,
which aren't the same anymore.

Now it's about recovery, etc,
and during a protest...

Our train arrived in Odessa
at ten at night.

I watched from the window
those places I knew well.

I had spent seven years
of my school life in this city.

Our carriage was hitched
to the locomotive.

It was freezing.

Even though it was night,
agents surrounded the platform.

...form a less politicised part
of the population.

It's because of them
10 million workers went on strike.

I don't think these people
will ever follow the CGT.

They will take another kind of action
which is really more effective.

If there is self-management
or something like that,

there'll be completely new ideas,
maybe...

something more concrete...

There are now
10 million strikers in France.

The Popular Workshop will occupy
factories, warehouses and building sites

and show striking workers

how to form the rearguard of the struggle
they are in the vanguard of.

In Venezuela there was a surprising
underestimation of the guerrilla force

and the armed struggle in general,
which was intended to be

not a mass instrument for liberation

but a means of applying pressure
which allowed politicians to play at war.

This isn't laboratory work.

Foreign or French,
the workers proposed slogans,

talked to artists and students,

criticised posters
or distributed them outside.

The hallmark of this new phase is

the Viet Cong no longer withdrawing
from cities after each battle.

For example, 25 days in Hué
and 30 in Saigon

during the Tet Offensive.

How to work? The projects
made after a critical analysis

of the events of the day
or discussions in factories

were proposed democratically
to the general assembly.

He takes the floor
the day of the attack

at a meeting in Detroit

organised by the Afro-American
Broadcasting Company.

Despite the fire and smoke,
Jack had to attend this meeting

which the local press
had refused to attend.

...by the union in 1950
and then by the CFDT.

You don't have to go through
all the conceivable stages.

You can skip some.

Obviously a 20-year-old kid
who's worked for two or three years,

if he joins a group,
if he takes part in a protest,

he'd choose one for self-management
and power to the workers

rather than a union protest
or a trade union meeting

with representatives, delegates,
a central committee, etc.

So this is a stage skipped.

He's jumping stages in a way.

We shouldn't delude
ourselves anymore

about what they may represent
for the revolutionary movement,

these jumps, this youth,

and what these housewives who tell us
to avoid politics may represent.

It's just a power struggle
based on fear.

"Avoid politics because it's dangerous.

"Avoid joining a union,
especially the CGT."

Do you see?

Tuesday the 21st.

"Let's build in our workplaces,

"independently of the employer
and the state,

"organs of a popular counter-power,"
proposes the JCR.

"No wages below 700 francs,"
demands the CFDT.

"If the bourgeoisie passes up
this opportunity,

"there will be no time to lose,"
writes the Communist Party.

To avoid a police charge

Paolo takes refuge
in the Maspero bookshop

where he opens a book
by Rosa Luxemburg,

The Mass Strike, The Political Party
and The Trade Union.

"History does not wait patiently
until the backward countries

"have caught up
with the most advanced

"so the whole mass can move
symmetrically forward

"in a compact column.

"Explosions are inevitable
with the vanguard so exposed.

"In the storm
of the revolutionary period...

"within days or months
lost ground is recovered."

- "Inequalities are corrected."
- "Social progress..."

"...implemented in one go."

The masses will obviously follow.

After a hard day's marching
along the river and rock climbing

Che and his comrades
arrive at Rio Rosita.

It's a larger river
than the Nancahuazu

and smaller than Massacre River.

Its waters are reddish.

Wednesday the 22nd.
Cohn-Bendit is denied residency.

In Peking 700,000 Red Guards
chant in front of the French embassy,

"We are all German Jews."

An excessive concern with legality
and social-democratic nuances

stops the working class from using
its essential weapon, the strike,

to make headway
from its unique position of strength.

They can't wait
to become revolutionaries

simply to spread fear.

They have a uniquely negative utility.

They also form part
of the occult forces,

though they defend themselves
against them.

They frighten part of the electorate,
but in a negative way.

People say: "if they ever take power,
will it be a dictatorship?"

They were defending themselves.
They put up posters.

They were for a democratic
and social republic

endorsed by the Communist Party.

- The Democratic Union.
- Exactly.

They aren't red, they're pink.
It's the movement of the teachers.

"I arrest you in the name of the law."

"And I suppress you
in the name of liberty."

Thursday the 23rd.

Nuclear plants,
department stores, state education,

Paris taxis,
banks and insurers, booksellers,

all of France has stopped work,
except the cinemas.

- Stalin is too rough.
- It's a detail.

No, that detail
could have an influence.

Just now we were...

When it came to understanding
the state of affairs,

people sought laws to explain it

so that the why and the how were clear,

but once the state of affairs
had been understood

and the laws
had been interpreted

they realised
they had understood all along.

...non-politicised student elements,
or badly politicised,

or insufficiently politicised
and then...

Do you remember?

I was saying that this was
the minimum that was needed

and...

Saturday the 25th. Waldeck Rochet
dresses in black to look like a cop

and to condemn anarchy
and the black flag on camera.

Due to the rainy season

Lake Popovo Polje, normally dry,
was completely full and muddy.

The partisans
led their captives ashore

and forcibly drowned them,
holding their faces in the mud.

Lethal war from materialism
to idealism.

Language is no longer driven
by a person towards truth

but arrives as the vibration
of a massive thrust.

The surface is
no longer thought of...

...as an elevation to heaven,
but as a limitless incline.

"Heaven away!"

Lenin's phrase cuts
through Hegel's text like an arrow.

I thought it was like that, but it's not.

Already it's something...

If things aren't really
nationalised at all, then...

They're nationalised
to some extent

because there's something
quite incredible at Renault.

How long did you say?
In 48 hours the factory...

I forget the time frame
but in a certain time frame

the factory transformed itself
into a factory for making tanks

- and things like that.
- That's true.

- And how do you know this?
- How long did you say?

I think it was 48 hours.

But how do you know?

We know this because...

They had the parts.

The parts and machinery
were already there.

There is material there
which is secret.

It's stored there, ready for use.

Where necessary,
the factory works for the state.

It's like in 1940
when Renault at Billancourt

made tanks and even bombs.

It made bombs in 1940.

Is that how you know
the factory was nationalised?

Is that how you know
the factory was nationalised?

Because it is possible
to make tanks there?

In 1945 the Communists surrendered
to the bourgeois state.

In May 1968 ten million
French workers went on strike

over the 40-hour week
they had obtained in 1936.

Since then the workers' struggle
has taken the form of wildcat strikes,

spontaneous and massive explosions
of a long-repressed resistance,

direct actions with workers
taking over the fight

and abandoning unions and bosses.

Saturday the 25th.

"We will not be giving orders
to return to work,"

- says the secretary of the CGT.
- Georges Séguy.

"We never gave orders
for a general strike."

The class struggle is the struggle
of one word against another.

- True democracy.
- Power to the workers.

- Genuine republic.
- Occupied factories.

Wednesday the 29th.

At Charléty, in response
to the 100,000 leftists,

the CGT moves 100,000 demonstrators
from the Bastille to Saint-Lazare.

Guy Debord to Raoul Vaneigem.

"In societies where modern
working conditions prevail,

"life is one long accumulation
of spectacles.

"Everything directly lived
has become representation."

Raoul Vaneigem to Guy Debord.

"When a theory escapes the makers
of a revolution, it turns against them.

"The theory developed
by the armed masses

"now strengthens those
who disarm them."

Leninism is also the revolution
explained with guns

to the Kronstadt sailors
and Makhno's partisans.

An ideology.

Ideology is the lie of speech.

Renault had collaborated
with the enemy.

- Yes...
- No.

It was seized by the state.
It was seized by the state, but...

It was run by the state.

It was administered by the state.

The Renault family is still there.
The children are still there.

- Yes, but it's a joint-stock company.
- Yes, OK.

- So it's still a joint-stock company.
- Yes, of course.

With the state as
the main stockholder.

That proves, if you like...

It proves that...

For example,

take the demands
of the Communist Party.

When the problem
of nationalisation arises,

it poses a problem of management
of the capitalist economy

but the question
of conditions never arises,

working conditions.

They approach the problem
from a capitalist perspective,

saying,

"The economy could be better run.
The workers could be more satisfied.

"They could be paid a bit more.
The factory could be better managed."

So what we propose is
to put new shoes on capitalism

to make things better.

They don't take
these criticisms seriously.

They don't want to consider
the problem as it really is:

the problem of the working
conditions in our society.

That's what raises
the level of consciousness,

when the workers
come home exhausted.

They just say, "When we're in power
things will get better."

But I don't know
why we should trust them

given what happened
during the events.

It's what we were saying earlier
about the role of unions.

The union has these issues.

It has these issues to consider,

the issues
of living conditions for workers,

which should be
of primary concern to them.

We know what it means
to earn 80,000 francs

or whatever per month.

We know it's difficult.
Everyone says so.

But we believe they live like we do,
just a bit less well.

In fact a worker doesn't live
less well than a bourgeois.

He lives totally differently.

- It's not the same at all.
- It's not just about the amount.

Monday the 30th.

We've lost our voice.
We can't sink any lower.

"Renault to work," a pitiful slogan
chanted on the Champs Elysées.

"Safety first. Renault to work.

"Cohn-Bendit to Dachau.
France for the French.

"Renault to work. Workers to the line.
Misery to the unemployed..."

Guy Debord to Raoul Vaneigem:

"The spectacle is not a supplement
to the real world,

"an additional decoration.

"It is at the heart
of the unrealism of real society.

"In the spectacle
of the ruling economy

"the goal is nothing
and development is everything.

"The spectacle's only goal is itself

"and beneath spectacular oppositions
lies the unity of misfortune."

Raoul Vaneigem to Guy Debord:

"An analysis of revolutions
past and present shows

"lacking the will to resume the fight
more coherently and effectively

"plays into the hands of the enemy."

Except that we, too, have learned,
or rather we're learning...

- Everyone's learning.
- Yes, in their own way.

It's easy for you to learn

because you're more educated
than some of the workers.

For example, I can't know
nor will I ever know

what life is like for a worker.

I can show up
and have a look around.

I can look,
but I won't see clearly.

And...

The issue you raised earlier
seems true to me.

Namely, the demands
and how they have been made.

They've been made
in the following way.

We made demands.

We like to think we're Marxists
or revolutionaries of whatever tendency.

And then we said...

Thursday the 30th.

Workers are called upon
to form action committees.

The French Communist Party
rejects a popular government

and shelves it along with
the sliding scale of wages

and the repeal
of social security prescriptions.

How to know what vision
has assaulted you in the night?

White or black, Harlem or Dallas?

Which is the worst of the two
and which is in the wrong?

How to know? Reflect, America,
on past experience.

Perhaps you'll understand
why we're in Vietnam.

This is champion disc-jockey DJ

who spoke to you about the shambles
of America and Vietnam.

Guatemala.

The far right has made Régis
a traitor to his class and his homeland.

"None of this bothers me.
I represent all that produces horror:

"insecurity, unsociability, instability.

"It couldn't be easier to condemn me
on behalf on the Third World

"and to forget that above all
this is a political struggle.

"Dear comrades, don't let them
make me something

"different to what I am
and what I want to be:

"a revolutionary fighter.

"Hasta la victoria siempre. ”

Michéle Firk.

It's helping the workers,
first and foremost.

I don't know whether all the students
have grasped that.

No, it's not just that.

Because I think
we're in a perspective...

I don't know,
that doesn't satisfy me

to the extent that to me
it seems too close

to what my Marxist-Leninist
comrades say.

As for the students,

it's true that they're favoured
compared to...

compared to the proletariat,

to the workers.

But they have demands which have
nothing to do with being as student.

For example,
as a student I can say

I want to earn 200,000 francs
per month for studying

and then as an executive
or whatever,

but we also have
intellectual demands.

There are things
which don't satisfy us

and that's how we take steps,
not by saying,

"I'm a student
and in my university I want

"better conditions for students,
more teachers, etc."

There are things
that aren't working for me

and I know that...

my interests
and the interests of...

the interests of...

of the working class
are the same.

That's precisely
why the workers...

It's why we asked you to take the floor,
because we believed...

that what you had to say
was basically the same...

Wednesday, 5 June.
Railwaymen, postmen, textile workers,

RATP, food industry workers
and AGF insurance agents

return to work victorious and united,
according to L'Humanité,

while the ORTF calls on
an army of private technicians.

"Citizens, apparently
plots are being hatched

"among the king's men
who are proving insolent in defeat.

"Perhaps they have renounced
their project to get rid of us.

"We'd have to be insane to believe it.

"It's time to listen to those
who show common sense

"and to those who give
harsh advice...

Something is happening here
and there's no common language.

But who... What is it for?
Not what is it for, but...

For whom and for what?

Who are community arts centres for?

Everyone?

In principle, everyone, yes.

But in reality, very few people.

- No one goes there.
- It's like restaurants.

7% of workers go at best.
Most people who go are bourgeois.

It's exactly the same problem...

You can't expect someone who does
10 hours of physical labour a day...

- You can't expect them...
- To want to go and watch a play.

As well as reducing the working day

we need to change
the way theatre works.

In community arts centres...

Something has to change.
It's not possible otherwise.

Some films are classics.
You get good films and bad films.

French television should show
only good films,

films which aren't intellectual poison

designed to keep people in a state
of passivity and contentment.

For example, there's a programme
called "Au theatre ce soir"

about light comedies.

It's enough to make you weep.

That wouldn't be of any interest
to the workers.

- Yes it would.
- I'm not so sure.

Look at the movies
we see every night on TV.

They're not films to make you weep.

Well, they're stupid movies.

And yet Jacqueline watches them,
you watch them and I watch them too.

Because there's nothing else to do
and I'm bored.

- We watch them without thinking.
- Exactly because of that...

In these arts centres...

We don't realise what we're watching.
We just sit there, glued to the screen.

I bought a TV because
I was bored at home.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

It's not normal for you
to be bored at home.

- It's not normal?
- No, it's not normal.

I don't mean you're sad,
but it's not normal...

to have a job which leaves you
feeling bored at home.

As soon as you're not working.

Yes, I agree.

Yes, as soon as I finish work,

like on Saturday,
I don't know what to do with myself.

If I have household chores,
I can distract myself.

But that's no fun.

I realise that, but I prefer it
to getting pissed off,

because I get so bored at home.

I get pissed off when I'm bored.

That's not healthy.

I know but that's what it's like.
I have to work to distract myself.

I need distractions.

I have children who are small

so I can't go anywhere with them.

I can't take my children
to the movies.

If I did, people would say,
"Just stay at home."

That's why I paid for a TV.
When they scream, no one bothers me.

The trouble is that...

In the end, the only thing
you know how to do is work.

Yes, and I paint.
I pick up a paint brush.

Wednesday, 5 June.

Water, gas, electricity, petrol,
supplies, price controls.

In Nantes the inter-union committee
is still sitting in the town hall

and practically running the city.

These six months of victory have seen

strong coordination
between the different zones

of the People's Liberation
Armed Forces,

particularly the artillery,

and all the South Vietnamese people.

Previous revolutions
needed historical memories

to hide their content
from themselves.

The social revolution must let
the dead bury the dead

and liquidate
all superstition about them.

To realise its goals,
it must take its poetry from the future.

In the past form
overwhelmed content.

Now content overwhelms form.

What's the point in planting lettuces?

There's no point in planting lettuces
when they're so expensive to buy.

It's the influence
of the bourgeoisie.

The culture we endure
is essentially a bourgeois culture.

We talked about cars earlier.

If you work in the car industry
and you take an active part

in creating and developing them,
it's not boring at all.

After your work,
you should try...

Or if aeroplanes interest you more

you can go to work in aviation
where you can build planes.

We've come back
to the system of exchange again

between overall creation
and individual participation.

The work you do,

despite being specialised and limited
in terms of the overall creation,

is a part of a whole.

When you're responsible
for the bigger picture,

you participate much more.

So, from the moment
that there is participation,

you see things
completely differently.

Workers should be able to say,

"I have one day off per week
or a half-day off per week.

"I'll go to the pool.

"I'll stop at noon
and go to the pool."

And then there are these arts centres

where we can go
for the day or the afternoon.

How is that going to work?

What can we offer at the moment,
supposing it were possible,

so that a worker can have
one free half-hour per day of his choice

to go to cultural events?

What can we offer?

I know I've burned bridges
and I'm going nowhere.

It bugs me.

Workers are cultured.

You could play football.

Let's just say...

- I was appalled.
- Me too.

- That's not right.
- The struggle teaches you nothing.

Right.

The struggle is
a cultural phenomenon in itself.

The political struggle...

the free platforms like those
at Odéon or the Sorbonne

have been cultural phenomena
of truly great importance.

I don't know. Did you participate
in the discussions at the Sorbonne?

- No.
- No?

I've walked past the Sorbonne,
but I've never been inside.

- But you've been in the art school.
- Yes.

Actually, we went
into the Sorbonne together.

You said, "I've never been inside.
I've walked past it for 14 years."

No, when I was with you,
we walked past.

- It was the halls of residence, no?
- I've never been in the Sorbonne.

- I went inside, where was it, Censier.
- That's Nanterre.

You said it was the art school.

I've been in the art school
and in Censier.

I've never been in the Sorbonne.

I'd walk past it
almost every Saturday.

But I never went inside.

Why? Because I felt my life
was inferior to that of the students.

I think if a student
walked past a factory,

until now he would never have said,
"Hey, I'll talk go and talk to a worker."

When I was...

It's precisely because of that.

Perhaps it's an inferiority complex
that makes you say we have to...

create the right environment,
for example...

Sunday, 9 June.

Appeal from the 153rd regiment
of mechanised infantry.

"We give you a gun, take it.

"Long live the solidarity
of workers, soldiers and students.

"Long live worker democracy.

"Long live joy, love
and creative work."

The house was under siege
until four in the morning.

The local phone operator
regularly cut communications

between the house
and the SNCC offices.

Sacrifice and death
are commonplace.

I personally would have
nothing to do there.

That's why we need...

Monday, 10 June.

The workers entrenched
themselves in the paint shop.

There were 700 or 800 of them.

They fought hard.

The police threw tear-gas grenades.

After a while
half the comrades passed out.

Achilles: "Patroclus, why do we men,
in order to give ourselves courage,

"say, 'The worse is over,'
instead of, 'The worst is yet to come'?

"There will come a clay
when we are all corpses."

Patroclus: "Achilles,
I don't know you anymore."

Achilles: "But I know you.

"At night I know there is no difference
between us and the cowards.

"Everyone experiences the worst
and the worst comes at the end.

"It comes last and it smacks you
in the face like the earth's fist.

"It's always good
to remember what you've seen

"but isn't it strange
that the hardest thing

"is the one we can't remember?"

I'm talking about the people
who worked hard

and made a real effort for May
and the months leading up to it.

What's the point of the guys
going into the faculty

and listening to so-and-so talk
and then going home and saying,

"What he said might
not be entirely true,"

and taking notes on slips of paper

and saying
they've heard a radical critique

of bourgeois knowledge

and returning the next day
to listen again?

How do you see it?

The way I see it,
you could try to block it.

Meaning?

Meaning, you can impede
the normal operation of the university.

You can impede the dissemination
of a knowledge it wants to present

as the only truth.

By talking to the lecturer?

- No!
- I'm not saying that.

- That was a question.
- Not necessarily by talking.

By impeding, I mean...

We can... We can bring terrorism
into the universities.

We can do two types of work.

We can educate students
politically...

Monday, 10 June.

A Marxist-Leninist student is drowned
by the police who sow disorder in Flins.

Among these ruins,
men raise the red flag ten times.

They say we must organise supplies.

We students...

Among these ruins
men raise the red flag ten times.

Ten times it is shot down.
How many are there at noon?

100, because at night there are
100 corpses at the main barricade.

...and try to contact the farmers

so that if there is a strike,

general or otherwise,

we have provisions
for the strikers and their families.

I think if we managed
to do something like that,

they couldn't tell us...

We'd be helping the working class
to win their strike...

to win the struggle.

Given that fact, it's stupid to say,

"Yes, but these guys,
when they get their diplomas,

"they'll be executives
who don't care about conditions."

What counts is what they do...

during the strikes.

That's why the Communist Party's
condemnation is ridiculous.

Instead of condemning people,
they could put them to good use.

- That's the theory.
- But the Communist Party...

This is a response to give
to people who tell you,

"Yes, later."

Later if there are failures.

Later they may be obliged to do it.

But it's up to each individual
to make sure there are no failures.

There's no need to speak

as if it were impossible
to change the situation.

In the Rue Crozatier
they were dead.

They were dead too
in the Rue d'Aligre.

In the Rue Crozatier an artilleryman
had joined the people on 18 March.

"We are going to shoot you,"
cried the soldiers.

He shrugged.
"We can only die once."

Further on, an old man struggled.

The officer, out of pure cruelty, wanted
to shoot him on a rubbish heap.

"I fought bravely," said the old man.
"I have the right not to die in the mire."

During all the events of May

we were convinced
we could do extraordinary things,

that we could go further,
and people followed.

That was important, for people
to follow and have confidence.

Now they may bail out
because they've lost confidence.

All historical movements
have been carried out by minorities

or for the benefit of minorities.

The proletarian movement is
a movement by the vast majority

for the benefit of the vast majority.

It seems it was necessary for Lenin,

in order to escape spontaneity,
to establish an institution.

A revolutionary organisation
for training people.

- Today...
-...we have the reverse.

- Ironically...
- Leninist spontaneity is found

in the French Communist Party
and the trade union movement

and the Leninist
revolutionary vanguard is...

How do you expect things to change?

The Movement of 22 March
had that purpose,

not to organise the proletariat
or revolutionary forces,

but to display spontaneity.

...at last year's elections

I think everyone
more or less agreed

that if one day we see change
in this French society...

it certainly won't come
from putting a ballot in a box.

I think people,
even if they never say it,

understand this deep down.

Because when they voted...

massively to the right
for De Gaulle

it was because the Communists
had nothing original to offer.

They simply asked people to believe

that once they were in power,
things would get better

but they gave nothing precise,

no specific objective at all.

Whereas the students...

I agree that now...

there has been a lot
of excitement in the street...

Tuesday, 11 June.

- Peugeot managers...
-...call the riot police.

Two workers dead,
shot in the street at Sochaux.

- According to Le Monde...
- Appropriation of a situation.

Palais des Sports.

Politburo merges the Internationale
with the Marseillaise.

- Police arrest pupils coming out...
-...of the metro at night.

- All night...
-...on the Left Bank...

...countless barricades
to protest against repression.

Shakespeare says men get involved
in history in three ways.

Some create it
and fall victim to it.

Others think they create it,
but also fall victim to it.

The rest don't create history,
but they, too, fall victim to it.

The first group are kings,

the next are kings' confidants
who execute kings' orders

and the last are
simply citizens of the kingdom.

As we said this morning,

we agreed it's not a real failure
but rather...

Sorry, but that's quite possible.

We're still in a utopia

but the arrival on the labour market
of a mass of 500,000 students...

More like 50,000.

All right, 50,000 students,
but the boycott of universities...

You don't boycott the universities,
you empty the universities.

It's a minority that fucks things up
in universities.

So you empty the universities
and you let...

You let the bourgeoisie carve out
a niche for itself in the university

and you do your work,
because you think it's important,

You take your politics to the factory.
This presupposes that those 50,000...

Let's say this truly is a utopia.

Let's think about this rationally,
since we have a moment to spare.

These 50,000 students...

have no training
and are unable to intervene.

Or you pretend...

- You know where the problem is.
- It's in your own sphere,

in whatever activity you do
that you must first be revolutionary.

For the students that means
not accepting, for example...

It means contesting

a certain type of class
and no longer putting up with it...

Excuse me...

Excuse me, but that is still
in the area of reform.

- No, it isn't.
- We'll reform peacefully.

We won't accept the didactic course.

We'll talk to the boss
and when this is over,

when the university is reformed,

we'll take up the position
of guardian of the worker.

Not at all, because if we see
the dispute through to the end...

- That's just it.
- If we have these requirements...

Firstly, like I said
at the start of this discussion,

if we want the university
that we're claiming to want,

we have to question the workings
of the country's economy.

That's the bottom line.

It's obvious.

When you start to get politicised

it's the first argument
you give people.

The guys at the university
are unhappy about working conditions

so you tell them it's a political problem,
an economic problem.

You're told the university
is a public service

but it's not at all.

It's the bottom line
so don't try to tell me

if I stir things up politically
at the university,

if I see things politically,
as I claim to see them,

that reform will be achieved,
because it won't.

I see my work as an agitator
at the university

as a way of passing on information

and agitating on a social level

in the world of industry or agriculture.

That's where
the reformist mission ends,

in the liaison between agitations.

At first, the crossover would occur
only in the relaying of information

but at least people will have
to come and have a look.

Maybe we could participate
more often in direct action

and have exchanges,

because if we agitate
in the university

we can start by saying

that the university
is open to everyone...

Wait, there's something
I don't understand.

I don't know...

There's something bothering me.

There's something bothering me.

We're talking about the university.

We're talking and...

Neither place should be closed off.

The university should come
to the factory

and the factory
should go to the university.

The politics of Wall Street
rule in the end.

Imperialism
as the only world system

must be made to appear
as such worldwide,

especially in the Third World.

Five men form what is known
as the Oujda group.

Educated at schools of politics
rather than in resistance movements

they see Ben Bella
as a symbol of revolutionary purity

but not as a strong head of state.

Faced with reality,
they shift their hopes

to the only force to survive
the vagaries of independence

and grow stronger in the event
of difficulties: the army.

When clouds darken the sky

we've noted that this darkness
is only temporary

and the sun will shine again.

Tuesday, 18 June.

15,000 workers return
to Renault after...

-...a quick tour...
-...of the streets of Billancourt.

But where do these subsidies
come from?

- From capitalism.
- Quite simply from the budget.

From you and me.

Miehn Lai said,

"if the silkworm spun silk
to prolong its life

"it would be a real wage earner."

Yes, but a worker
who goes to the university...

needs money to live on.

At university you just have your...

But you can go to university
just like you can go...

- No, but...
- After work?

Not after work.
Definitely not after work.

Why don't they show movies
at the university

rather than at the cinema?

You go to the cinema
sometimes in Paris.

Say there's no work on Tuesdays
and people can go to the university.

- That is a utopia too.
- It's a utopia.

History, which threatens
this twilight world,

is also the force which can
subjugate space to time lived.

The proletarian revolution
is a critique of human geography

through which individuals
and communities

must create places and events,

no longer just for their work,
but for their whole history.

It's best to leave it at that.

What I was saying
is that we have to ask...

Monday, 24 June.

Return to work at the ORTF
after a total failure of the strike.

Unlike those at the CSF

who made walkie-talkies in Brest
for their comrades,

audio-visual strikers in Paris

have been unable
to call an active strike

and make their voices heard
in a language that is distinct

from the government they reject.

He was quiet for a while
before speaking again.

"It's good that they didn't shoot him.

"He had others hung
so he should be hung."

He took great strides
around the room and asked me...

"Did he recognise Nicholas?

"Did he realise
he was judging the workers?"

"I think so?'

"We must cover his face,
cut the rope and cover it."

Once he had done that,
Rutenberg said to the workers,

"Goodbye, comrades, remember
what you have seen and heard"

"We will remember," they said.

While art, now independent,
depicts its world in dazzling colours,

a moment of life has grown old

and it cannot be rejuvenated
with dazzling colours.

It is true that art is in the vanguard,
in the vanguard of its disappearance.

When you came to the factory,
there was a union official there.

When union officials
are approached by students,

they say, "No students here."

But that's the job of the workers.

The workers have to do the job
of getting union officials to shut up

so that when there is a strike
at the factory, the students can come

and visit the factory
with the workers, etc.

That's the workers' job,
not the students' job.

It's not the students' job to say
to the union official in the factory,

"Let us into your factory.
We have a right to come in."

Do you understand?

I don't think...
It's not the student's job.

The job of the student is to say,

"Let's open the university to workers."

Similarly, the worker should say,
"Let's open the factory to students."

July 1968.

Publication of Bulletin 1, a self-criticism
by Marxist-Leninist groups.

The Girondins had declared war
but feared that appealing to the people,

essential for fighting
the aristocracy and the coalition,

would end up compromising
their own influence.

Roland reinstated
the free trade of grain

after Barberou denounced the fanatics
who were burning carts.

They told us,
"Rally around the red flag."

"Years of effort
and days without food."

"Each tome of Marx
we'll open anew."

"Like the shutters of our own houses."

I mean, at the same level
of practice as ours...

Unless...

I mean learning new things,

the way the intellectuals
are learning new things.

Why can't they profit
in the same way?

My brother-in-law earns
3,000 francs a week as an apprentice.

These are the sorts of problems
that can be...

that should be considered.

These are problems of organisation.

I'm more interested in problems
of cooperation or reform.

Calling the workers
to the university restaurants

is a reform problem?

- This is social democracy.
- Everything is social democracy.

That's what social democracy is.

I mean...

It's not just a question of opening
university restaurants to workers.

That's true...

It's just a question
of providing the means

for them to meet one another
easily like that.

Before being Marxist-Leninist meant

going to the factories
and saying to the workers,

"We're leftist revolutionary intellectuals.

"We want to fight a revolution
on behalf of the people."

The guys are left open-mouthed,
thinking, "Really?

"If you eat with those people 15 times,

"maybe one day, on the 15th time,
you might be able to talk to them."

July 1968. The police
appear at the art school.

Art students take to the streets.

It is the poor who create language
and constantly renew it.

The rich crystallise it to make fun
of those who don't speak like them.

They'll come.

August 1968.
At the Avignon festival

the Théâtre National
and the Théâtre de la Monnaie

joined forces with rugby team A13

to prevent the Living Theatre
performing in the streets.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution began
with the abolition of epaulettes

and hierarchical distinctions
in the army.

August 1968.

Russian Soviet tanks occupy
socialist Czechoslovakia.

Do you have to pay to join the party?

No, it's just ideas.

You say you belong and that's it.

When there were strikes...

only one organisation
didn't ask for money.

All the others asked
for 100 francs or so.

All CGT workers automatically
purchase a newsletter subscription.

- All of them?
- Without exception.

September 1968.
A Bulgarian policeman cuts the hair

of a young Italian worker returning
from the Youth Festival in Sofia.

The same day in Mexico
a paratrooper cuts the hair

of an American student
distributing leaflets.

Well, money is big issue
for organisations.

The unions have many problems,

for example, the problem
of petrol at Renault.

But we've talked about it before.

I'll come back to it.

September 1968.
At the Fete de l'Humanité

Mireille Mathieu rubs elbows
with Coca-Cola and General Motors.

Peking and Tirana
call on Eastern Europe

to join the fight
for freedom and socialism.

Plaza de las Tres Culturas.

The Mexican army opens fire
on the demonstrators,

men, women and children.

September 1968.

Unable to purchase Skoda,
Fiat makes do with Citroen.

Proposition 1.

The weapon of criticism cannot
replace criticism of weapons

but theory becomes a material force
once it grips the masses.

Variation 26.
Possession is condemned.

"We let husbands and wives
live or die,

"sons and daughters, fathers
and mothers, brothers and sisters,

"but no one can say my or mine."

Theory 3.

Eroticism is the luxury of sexuality
just as leisure is the luxury of work.

In the Interior Minister's office

the only map of France on the wall

is not a map of prefects or elections

but of where security forces
are stationed.

Self-criticism 3.

Students and workers,

if violence leaves the streets,
it must return to words

because violence is still clone to us,

even if only with the spoken language.

Proposition 27.

Construct millions of carparks

so children can play marbles
in the gutters.

Banality 11.

The law is a justification
of existing structures.

Existing structures find
justification in the law.

No one can deny this contradiction.

Self-criticism 7.

To assimilate or replace
economic needs with sexual needs

or vice versa is to speak
of the same nothingness.

Need is the most reactionary face
of necessity.

Banality 15. Universities
can only be transformed

if class relations
are radically transformed.

Sub-class,
privileges of every kind.

Violence doesn't always
get you what you want.

There will come a clay
when you have to stop your violence.

Yes, OK.

Proposition 22.

Give your child seven blocks
with the letters...

B-E-R-L-I-Y-T.

They will rewrite it as...

L-I-B-E-R-T-Y.

...was against violence
to fix certain problems.

When it comes to fighting
repression in France

are you for non-violence
or for violence?

Against non-violence.

- Against non-violence?
- Yes.

Because I think we shouldn't...

As soon as...

- For me it's the opposite.
- No, why?

There are guys who are...

They've been making us promises
for ten years and we have nothing.

I'm against non-violence
and for violence.

If we have to smash things up to get it
then that's what we have to do.

You don't always have to...

Imagine if De Gaulle
was in power right now

and he was against the workers,
which he would be,

It's not killing him
that will get you what you want.

It's the same for those
in government now.

We'd have to get rid
of everyone in government.

But that means a civil war.

And you're against it?

Why a civil war?

- Just because...
- Think about it.

The problem lies in removing privileges
from those who have them. Agreed?

But they won't let that happen.

And if we continue the fight,
a time may come when...

But it's the masses.

Take the strikes
that have been going on.

Say the strike had continued
throughout France,

do you think the government would
have charged at workers with tanks?

- It's possible.
- I don't think so, no.

- I don't think the soldiers...
- I think they would.

- I think they would.
- I can't see an army conscript...

Wait, not a conscript.

- Not a conscript.
- A soldier by profession.

- We'll have to fight, then.
- All the unskilled workers.

I don't know how many there are.

During the first days of May
when the situation was already heated

national service conscripts
were sent overnight

to do manoeuvres
in the countryside.

National service recruits
wouldn't shoot, we know that,

but it's possible that the police
whom we've seen in action,

the cops and the professional army

are there to serve the bourgeoisie.

So if we had continued the strike,
they couldn't have done anything,

but it was a desperate attempt.

A desperate attempt
to try to regain control.

Using strong repression
in certain places.

Dreyfus calling the CRS to get people
to return to work is a violent act.

Yes, it is a violent act, but...

The two who died at Sochaux were...

- They were shot.
- Yes, they were shot.

Yes.

In Latin America, for example...

But it's not the workers
who are going to resort to violence.

No, but...

At some stage workers will have
to respond to violence with violence.

There are times when you have
no choice but to fight back.

That's precisely
what worries the workers.

Because they have responsibilities.

For example...

Fighting is all very well,

but you have responsibilities
to your children.

As soon as you sense or you know...
Say there's a strike...

It's about knowing
how to decipher straight away

what belongs to idealism

and using the appropriate discourse
after a series of transformations

aimed at putting brute, dumb forces
to work in a field,

so that, instead of giving them

specific, provisional, staged sanctions,

you alter them poetically,
preventing their eventual dispersal,

synthesising them, sublimating them,
and giving them a bourgeois head.

This head, rather than creating
the false stench of culture,

stinking of the rot it comes from,

wants only to lift itself up
by a movement which is not its own.

It dreams of sexually exploiting
the proletariat,

giving it back in words
what it has been given in strength.

The link between
revolutionary intellectual practice

and the proletariat's struggle
should be viewed in this light:

as a deadly war waged
by idealists and imperialists.

Then we'd be forced...

We'd be forced
to resort to violence.

Then you don't reject
the principle of violence.

Dare to act, dare to think,
dare to fight, dare to conquer.

No one to deceive,
no one to seduce.

Blows received, blows given.

Educating people in ideologies

is the key task
if we want to unite the party.

Educating people in ideologies

is the key task
if we want to unite the party

in view of these great
political struggles.

The constitution
of a communist nucleus

is a long-term job,

a difficult undertaking,
an unremitting process.

Skipping a step is damaging.

See that you don't skip one too.

The filmed image belongs
to those who watch it

as well as to those who make it.

I think now we're looking
to go further than a common strike.

We're looking at an active strike,

a strike that is
a continuation of the work

but in a completely
different circuit.

Yes, but isn't it...

Isn't it easier
to hold this type of strike

instead of resorting to sabotage?

Meeting the demands
isn't the problem.

Yes, for now, as far as
the workers are concerned,

what interests them
is having their demands met.

There's a revolution but mainly
they're interested in their demands.

Of course. I get that.

Not just as a worker
but as a revolutionary

I think the first thing to do
is to get our demands met.

The workers at Renault think
of their demands and nothing else.

They didn't obtain
the 600,000 francs they wanted.

The 40-hour week that was voted on
long ago hasn't happened.

And then there are the events of May
which were unsuccessful.

I don't think
if they strike in September

it will be because
they want a revolution.

Far from it.

They just want their demands met
because once they're met

then everything goes up in price:
coffee, bread and everything else.

Exactly, if the guys make demands,

either about the hours
or the wages,

it's all the same, no problem.

There's always
some sort of payback,

such as increasing
the pace of work

if they move onto a 40-hour week
instead of the 45 hours they were doing.

They may get a 40-hour week,
but the payback will be work

that is more intense,
more alienating and all the rest.

If they get 100,000 francs a month...

In the United States...

The United States
is a different story.

We don't have Latin America
to use as our slaves.

How come in the United States

they can have a 40-hour week
and pay 150,000 francs a month?

Because they have Latin America.

In Latin America they get
their raw materials for half the price.

That affects profits.

You need to look
at what happens Latin America,

whether it's copper in Chile,
or tin in Bolivia.

It is a class made of log seats

and tables made of small branches
tied with fibres.

A blackboard leant against a tree.

Of 40 students
25 are girls, aged about ten.

Half a dozen can read
and write fluently.

Others read slowly,
making many errors.

The uniformed teacher,
a gun in her belt,

asks them the meaning of the words
of the national anthem.

In the distance, the sound
of bombers and explosions.

In one girl's notebook we find
a Portuguese propaganda leaflet

where we see
some half-naked guerrillas

looking dejected,
with the caption:

"These are the savages
who live in the forest."

The row of girls laughs
on seeing us read the leaflet.

We show them the image.
"What do you think of this?"

"It only benefits the Portuguese."

Amilcar takes the floor.

"Long ago we told
the Portuguese government

"we were taking up arms,
and that made them laugh.

"Now they're not laughing.
That's what's changed."

The most interesting issue
with trade unions is,

the first step throws up the problem
of who's in charge in the company.

The demands can vary.

The demands can vary.

There are immediate material demands

which are of interest
and shouldn't be neglected, obviously.

It's the age-old problem between
qualitative and quantitative demands.

One leads to the other.

Yes, but not necessarily.

The issue of quantitative
and qualitative demands,

for example,
a company's position on unions,

is important,
there's no denying that.

In my opinion, it's worth
more than a 10% rise.

I don't know.

I think that...

there is enough fighting spirit
among the workers.

The people are sufficiently resolved

to make claims
of a purely quantitative kind,

namely higher wages
and a reduction in working hours.

That's fine
but in the midst of a strike

one can directly raise
the issue of power

inside the factory.

That's a question we can address
by raising the issue of structural reform.

For example,
if they grant us a pay rise,

if the government
grants us this or that

with no modification
of the structure,

it's worth precisely nothing.

Anything we get will be gone
in two or three months.

As if it never existed.

As far as I'm concerned
the benefits...

It's already happened.

The benefits obtained by the unions

don't represent quantitative
or qualitative change,

least of all qualitative.

The way I see it, the union
is a legal tool in the struggle.

It acknowledges implicitly

the existence of an employer
and of employees.

The problem lies
in removing them both.

Anyone can acknowledge...

At least, I acknowledge
the existence of the employer.

Legality is something else.

My fight against my employer
isn't a question of legality.

No, it's a question
of acknowledging its existence.

Yes, it's real
and my struggle attempts...

My actions are determined
by its existence

and the steps I take
to make it disappear.

You won't succeed
within the limits of the law.

That doesn't mean
that to take political action

you are always obliged
to resort to illegality.

You can exercise...

Part of your political action
can take place within the law,

assuming the bourgeoisie
is stupid enough.

Assuming the bourgeoisie
is stupid enough. Right.

But the union will automatically
be limited in its action

by its legality.

It is recognised and legal.

Nothing will change until it is dissolved,
which it doesn't want.

It doesn't want
to tackle the issue of itself.

It will be automatically limited
by this legality.

So for me, anything gained
through trade union action

inside a factory
is relatively negative.

That's debatable
because the union is a tool

which has served
the workers' movement.

Discussing the union
as an organisation

and saying that as soon as
it is recognised it is rotten

is false.

It is the pollical angle
of the organisation

which should be analysed,
not the organisation itself.

An organisation
is not something abstract.

Recognised organisations
are not necessarily reformist.

There aren't equations like that.

There is a rather obvious parallel.

You can make parallels,
but that's a bad method.

Declaring from one clay to the next
that you're going to do something illegal

doesn't mean
you're doing valid political work.

That's no longer true.

If you can, for example
through a trade union,

agitate and spread
political propaganda

in factories

about social and cultural problems

and create...

There were meetings in every factory,
every school, every college,

every administration, every station,
and every neighbourhood.

The police, however fierce,
were powerless.

It all comes down to aesthetics
and the political economy.