Project: Revolution!

Adam Mays

3/9/06

History of Paris

Revolution as a Final Project

We were just finishing dinner when Theo, my conversation assistant, got a call.

“I’m sorry, I have to go. There are some problems at my fac.”

He explained, in French, that students had occupied the Sorbonne early that day. A demonstration outside that afternoon was broken up by the police, and so there was now an even bigger protest growing outside the Sorbonne.

I knew that it had to have something to do with the CPE—the controversial new law passed that day which allowed companies to fire young workers without explanation. There had been student protests for weeks, but I hadn’t heard of anything this drastic happening. (It was, as I found out latter, the first overnight occupation of the Sorbonne since 1968)

“Can I go with you?

He and the other American students there laughed.

“No, really, I want to go.”

“I don’t know. You don’t have an ID card…there might be trouble.”

“Will it really be that bad?”

He shrugged.

“Comme Soixant-Huite?”

He laughed.

“Not really. What you most likely have to fear is being bored.”

---

We waited for Laurent, his friend from lycée who had given him the call.

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“Definitely. Don’t worry, I’ll leave as soon as things start looking bad.”

He nodded.

“Well, OK. But…” he paused, looking at me, concerned.

“What?”

“Well, if you get stopped by the police, in France you can say ‘Je ne rien a déclare’. Just say that, and don’t say anything else. Not your name, not anything. Wait for a lawyer. And they may try to make you sign something—don’t sign anything. Wait for a lawyer.”

I nodded.

---

Theo went upstairs to change, and I looked around his living room. His father had a collection of Soviet military hats—about a dozen. I was only then that I realized that Theo was the son of a Parisian, and his father’s father was a Parisian, all the way back—he had told me that his family had always lived in Paris—that this was the hereditary revolutionary spirit of Paris, being passed down from generation to generation. This was how Paris could function as a part of French government, as we had talked about in class, how it fulfilled its duty to rise up, for all of France, against injustice. Theo and his ancestors—this is how they lived, ready at a call to go to the streets.

After I first read about Soixant-Huite in my history class, I had asked Theo if his parents had been active during the events.

“Yes. My father was a Nanterre.”

I was impressed. Nanterre was where some of the precipitating events had begun, and where some of the most influential leaders had come from. (Reader, 7)

“Chouette. Did he know Daniel…Cohn…Cohn-Ben---“

“Daniel Cohn-Bendit. No, he didn’t know him, but he was there.”

Cohn-Bendit: the leftist student who, after a minor spat with a minor government minister, had become one of the most powerful symbols of the 1968 events. I thought of the posters we had seen in class with his face on them, put up after he had been deported and degraded as a Jewish German, proclaiming “We are all undesirables” I admired him, because he was exactly what was needed to make the May events as successful as they were: he was unaffiliated with any leftist group or union—he was in fact derided as one of the “agitators with rich daddies”—and that is exactly what allowed him to be the fresh face needed to spark revolution.(Reader, 9) And here I was, with an young Parisian student—could he be the next?

---

Theo’s friend Laurent, who had called him, came to the door. They had been friends since lycée—in fact, all of Theo’s friends were childhood friends. They had all grown up in the same neighborhood, gone to the same schools. These are the neighborhood networks that are so important to the social fabric of Paris. (Higonnet, 50) These networks serve to spread information and create solidarity, close ties that allow Parisians to organize resistance—whether against the Louis XVI, Hitler, or de Gaulle.

---

We took the Metro from Jourdain to Chatelet. I sat across from them, trying to understand as they chatted about school and friends. We got out at Chatelet and walked south across the Ile de la Cite. Two paramilitaries stood in front of the gates of the Palais de Justice, submachine guns slung across there chests. Theo and Laurent walked by, talking about the protest. I gulped. Were they there in response to the protests? If they had submachine guns here, on the calm of the heart of Paris, what kind of weapons would they have at the Sorbonne?

As we passed Place St. Michel, Theo took something out of his pocket and handed it to Laurent. It was a handful of small plastic vials. I asked Theo what they were.

“Serum. Pour le gas” he said, motioning to his eyes.

“Can I have one?”

He looked at Laurent, then at me.

“You shouldn’t need it,” he said, quickening his pace.

---

We walked uphill along the Boulvard St. Michel. As we turned left at Cluny, we saw a line of white police vans, blue lights twirling, blocking the entrance to the Sorbonne. We turned right. A mass of students crowded the narrow street along the side of the school. We pushed our way through the throng. Expecting angry shouts, all I could hear was conversation and laughter. Friends passed around bottles, and happily greeted newcomers. It was a social gathering, a party, a “‘jeu-kermesse’ – at once game and popular fair” (Reader, 3) Theo and Laurent met a few of there friends, who were standing right across the crowd from the doorway. A cordon of armored police men, shoulder to shoulder, shields and batons raised, blocked the entrance. They glared, nervous, angry, and bored. The students milled about, occasionally jeering the officers. Above the door, the words “La Sorbonne” engraved in stone, reminded me that this was “France’s oldest university, at the heart of Parisian student life”. (Reader, 10) The occupying students hung out the window, waving banners and cheering at the students below. Every so often, the crowd would start up a chant, yelling support of the students and against the CPE.

“Well, this is it. Perhaps you should go now,” Theo said.

“No, that’s alright, I’m enjoying this.”

“Well, then you should have this.”

He handed me one of the vials. I smiled.

“A souvenir. I hope.”

---

A student leader came out and spoke into the microphone. The crowed booed.

“He’s trying to tell us to disperse,” Theo explained.

The crowed grew louder. The occupiers jeered at the police below. Suddenly, up the street, a line of riot police marched across, baring any students from going further uphill. The crowed was being pushed down the street. Students went and formed their own chain, blocking the police from moving any further.

Theo grabbed my arm.

“You must go maintenant.”

I nodded and shook his hand.

“Bon courage.”

He turned and wrapped his scarf around his face. I finally realized why everyone in Paris wears scarves—it isn’t a fashion statement; it’s a revolutionary one. As residents of the Center of Revolution, the students and Parisians must always be ready to go to the streets—and they have their scarves, their protection from the police with them at all times. When wrapped around their faces, it renders them both anonymous and instantly recognizable, a uniform of the revolutionary mob.

I walked quickly down the street, away from the mob and the police. Further away from the door, people milled about, watching but not wanting to fully participate. I stood in a doorway and watched the crowd. I could hear the crowed getting louder, the shouts more angry. I could see the line of police linked across the street pushing into the crowd.

Suddenly, out of the window came a garbage can filled with water. It fell, tumbling over and crashing down on the heads of the police blocking the door. A roar went up from the crowd—the occupiers had taken a direct action against the police. Some people ran as soon as they saw the water fall, knowing the police had to act soon. I backed down the street, listing to the crowd cheer louder and louder—

three loud pops, like champagne opening, echoed down the narrow street. Instantly, the mass of people began churning towards me, screaming. A small, dense cloud appeared above the crowd, drifting slowly downward. I turned and ran, looking back as the street beginning to seethe, the gas engulfing them as they charged.

I turned the corner and stopped down the block, at boulevard St. Michel. The white cloud poured out of the ally, like steam from a pipe. The mass of people began to emerge from the street, spilling towards me. At first they ran right past me, but then came those who had been hit hard by the gas. There eyes were red and streaming with tears. They coughed and spat and yelled.

Theo appeared next to me. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. He coughed.

“Ca va?” he asked me, smiling.

“Are you ok?” I asked. “Do you need some serum?”

“No, no, give it to someone!”

He grabbed it out of my hands and went running back into the crowd.

The angry crowd filled the boulevard St. Michel, blocking traffic. The students chanted “Aujourd'hui, dans la rue, la lutte va continue !” We marched down the boulevard, ignoring the traffic. The patrons of the cafes looked up from their coffee and drinks, seeming to enjoy the spectacle. A scarved student ran up to a sign with a spray paint bottle—I watched him as he wrote the words TOURIST FUCK YOU in bold letters. I was glad I didn’t have my camera. But I could understand his anger: the protesters weren’t there for my enjoyment. They had a huge stake in whether the CPE passed or not, and they were being treated by some as street entertainment. People come to Paris because it is a center, but to view the center working, and not to participate in it, is to commodify the revolution; the protesters become “‘products of modern society, just like…Coca-Cola’” (Reader, 6)

At Place St. Michel, the crowed slowed and milled about, unsure of what to do. I heard shouts of “à la Palais de Justice!” and thought of the gendarmes with the submachine guns, and envisioned hundreds of students lying bloody on the streets. We had reached the banks of the Seine—but crossing it would be a Rubicon. To spread the protest outside the Left Bank would mean that it would be more than a student protest, more than just an occupation of the Sorbonne; it would be all of Paris. Could we march on the Place de la Concorde and once again make it the Place de la Revolution? Could we march to the Louvre and burn it to the ground? Paralyzed by the magnitude of possibilities, the crowed halted. Before we could decide, three large, blue, windowless busses rushed in front of the Pont St. Michel and riot police spilled out. Just as in ’68, “a large demonstration on the Left Bank found all the bridges across the Seine blocked by police.” (Reader, 11) The government knew all too well what could happen if the students left the Left Bank.

In response, protesters started grabbing the green metal construction fences and started dragging them into the street. The barricades. I turned to a student beside me.

“They’re building barricades—does this usually happen?”

He grinned and shook his head.

“Non. C’est special.”

I ran and grabbed one of the corrugated aluminum pieces and helped drag it into the street. As we set it up in the middle of the street, the rush of History poured through me:

I am in Paris. I am setting up barricades. I am there in ’89 at the Bastille, I am there in ’30 following Liberty, I am there in ’71 at Père Lachaise against the wall, I am there in ’68 railing against de Gaulle.

I could feel the excitement, the belief that anything was possible, that this moment would be remembered as a turning point in history.

But the police didn’t charge our barricades; they stood there, letting our excitement burn itself out. They knew their part: only if they reacted, only if they battled us would it the moment become important. I stood behind the wall, looking at their blank faces behind the plastic helmet shield. I wished for a moment they would charge, that I would yell and lead the students to meet them….

---

As I sat on the RER B, returning to my friends waiting for me back at my dorm, I couldn’t think of how to explain to them what had happened. It seemed too perfect, like it had fallen out of one of my History of Paris readings. I had even seen students tearing up “metal grilles from trees” and adding them to the barricades. (Reader, 11) How could it be that my readings had predicted so much? It was like I was in a living history museum—and as soon as I thought that, I laughed at the absurdity, and truth, of it. The problem for the revolutions is not fighting the government; it’s fighting the clichés.

These revolutions are not revolutionary. The idea of a ‘Center of Revolution’ dangerously counter-revolutionary. While it helps to have the history of Paris on your side, if you continue to do what you’ve done in the past, what your parents and their parents did, are you really changing anything? The revolutions of the past have become the spectacle of the present—it is just living history, not creating the future. This is why in the 20th century “the apparent stagnation of French—indeed European—social and political life meant that the Maoist and Trotskyist Left turned their attention much more towards the Third World.” (Reader, 8) It was in the post-colonial world, where structures were in upheaval and new kinds of struggle could be born, that the World looked—the Center had in a sense moved to the Periphery.

While the students out on the streets believe they can create change by building barricades and shouting slogans, harkening back to ’68, ‘71, ’48, ’30, and ’89. Without new metaphors of revolution, without creating new ideas they are simply continuing the same system that led them to revolt in the first place. The real power of Paris as Center is not the fact that revolutions have happened here in the past; it is that, because of that history, one can dream of the new kinds of revolutions to come.