CLICK WORDS BY MICHAEL EPIS » PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 1968 DANIEL COHN-BENDIT was a sociology student at Nanterre University in March 1968, when he demanded that boys be allowed to visit the girls’ dormitories. The university’s refusal set off a train of events that led to “Les Evénements”, otherwise known simply as May 68, a moment in history when everything was up for grabs. The students occupied the university offices; police kicked them out. That was repeated at Sorbonne University in Paris. Marches followed. Workers occupied factories; police kicked them out. Marches followed. And more marches. And more strikes. By mid May, 10 million were on strike – two-thirds of France’s workforce. The minimum wage was lifted by 35 per cent. President Charles
de Gaulle was sufficiently unnerved he fled to Germany on 29 May, dissolved parliament and called elections to be held in June. May 68 was many things, but first and foremost it was a youth movement, a youth moment. The students’ actions and slogans – “Under the paving stones, the beach”, “It is forbidden to forbid” – are its most memorable signifiers. It’s a moment in history that keeps demanding analysis, which it keeps defying – it was an outburst, an overflowing, a series of spontaneous acts, without an aim, without a design, without a designer. It started with Cohn-Bendit (front, fist raised), but continued without him. He was a red-headed German Jew (his nickname Dany le Rouge – Danny the
Red – referenced his hair more than his politics), the son of parents who had fled Nazi Germany. He himself left Paris on 10 May and was deported to Germany 12 days later, prompting the chanted slogan: “We are all German Jews.” Cohn-Bendit ended up becoming a German Green, ran an “antiauthoritarian kindergarten”, was deputy mayor of Frankfurt, then a member of the European Parliament – representing at various times Germany and France. Looking back, he says (despite the excellent wage rise) May 68 failed politically – nothing structurally changed, the 68 elections increased de Gaulle’s majority – but succeeded socially, in ushering in feminism, the sexual revolution and environmentalism. In his words: “It was absolutely fun.”
THE BIG ISSUE NEXT TAKES TO THE STREETS ON… 46 THE BIG ISSUE X MONTH – X MONTH 2017
FRIDAY 18 MAY