1968 in France

Chronology of France

1967 in France - 1968 - 1969 in France

Events

January

    • Agitation high-school girl around the Vietnam Committees. Incidents with the university of Nanterre.

  • January 2nd: Creation of the Communist party Marxist-Leninist of France, pro-Chinese tendency.

  • January 10th: By the first " classes of neige" , 50.000 children of the schools leave to the winter sports.
  • January 12th: Bomb attacks in Brittany (prefectures of Quimper and Saint-Brieuc).
  • January 13rd: The Franco-Luxembourg border is rectified on a zone of 2.225 m2.
  • 13 - January 14th: national days of trade union mobilization for the increase in the retirements.
  • January 17th: Force working demonstration with Redon.
  • January 19th: Robert Poujade is elected general secretary of UDR.
  • 20 and January 27th: first confrontations violent one between high-school pupils and police officers. “Condorcet Business”. 20, first manifestation of the CAL (committees of action high-school pupils). After having appeared before the disciplinary board Romain Goupil, militant active trotskist in the colleges Parisian is excluded from the Lycée Condorcet. The 27,400 high-school pupils fight with the police force to ask for the rehabilitation of Goupil. This event will give the impulse to the Comités of action high-school pupils (CAL) created at the end of 1967.
  • 20 - January 23rd: Days of protest in the metallurgy with the call of the federations CGT and CFDT.
  • January 26th: Nanterre saw its first great day of riots. A rumor runs faculty. There would exist “black lists” of revolutionary students, promised with possible sanctions. A procession is formed, to protest against the “flicage of the university” and a possible reference of Daniel Cohn-Bendit. The senior calls upon the police force, which arrives in force on the campus. Birth of the group of the " enragés".

February

    • “Suspension” of the activities of MRP by Jean Lecanuet, the movement dissolves in the Democratic Center.
    • Demonstrations against the War of Vietnam, strike of the teachers of the secondary.
  • February 5th: Strikes of the railwaymen with Grenoble, the bank clerks to Paris and of the flight crew of Air Inter.
  • February 11th: A demonstration joins together student and workmen of the factories Dassault with Bordeaux.
  • February 26th: Beginning of the week of claims with the call of the CGT and the CFDT in chemistry.

Mars

  • March 16th: End of the one week demonstrations for the defense of employment in north and is.
  • March 17th: To put a term at the speculation on gold (the course of the ingot reaches 7000 francs with Paris), the active members of the gold pool decide to cease buying or selling metal on the international market. Two parallel markets of gold are created.
  • March 22nd: Movement of March 22nd. Students, carried out by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, occupy the administrative tower of the faculty of Nanterre.
  • March 28th: The faculty of Nanterre is closed by the senior.

April

  • Agitation in the universities and the colleges.

May

  • student's and social Dispute of “May 68” in France. Manifestation of the left of the Republic with Denfert-Rochereau (800 with 170  000). The Sorbonne and FAC of Nanterre are occupied by the students.
  • May 2nd: Georges Pompidou share travels from there in Iran. Beginning of the Events of May 1968.
  • May 3rd: The students meet in the Sorbonne. The police force makes evacuate the Sorbonne. The SNE-Sup for the teachers and UNEF for the students denounce the attack with the university franknesses and decide an unlimited strike.
  • May 6th: First barricades with Paris. Violent one confrontation with the Latin Quarter: 600 students and more than 300 police officers are wounded. The movement extends in province.
  • May 7th: The students ravel through Paris and will sing International the in front of the fall from the unknown soldier.
  • 10 - May 11th: Harms of barricades the Latin Quarter of Paris. The confrontations with the police force make more than thousand wounded on the two sides. FEN calls with a general strike.
  • May 10th: First interview in Paris concerning the Vietnam.
  • May 13rd: The central trade-unions and the left parties start to support the student's movement: united demonstrations are organized in Paris and in province. The manifestation of the Left with Paris gathers 800  000 people according to the Trade union S against 171  000 according to the police force. At the end of the day, the Sorbonne reopened is occupied by the students.
  • 14 - May 18th: Travel of the general Charles de Gaulle in Romania.
  • May 19th: Of return of Romania, de Gaulle declares in front of the persons in charge of the police force: “reforms yes, the chienlit not! ” .
  • May 20th: Beginning of great strikes from May-June 1968. 6 million strikers is counted.
  • May 22nd:
    • One counts 8 million strikers in France.
    • Daniel Cohn-Bendit is interdict of stay in France.
    • a motion of censure deposited by the left is pushed back. The crisis cannot be untied by a change of government.
  • May 24th: De Gaulle announces a referendum, badly accommodated by the opinion. New barricades are drawn up in the night of the 24 with the May 25th.
  • 25 - May 27th: Negotiations of the agreements of Grenelle.
  • May 27th:
    • Meeting with the Stage Charléty with Paris France: UNEF , PSU , CDFT .
    • Signature of the Agreements of Grenelle, draft-agreement between the government and the trade unions (raising of the SMIG, wage increase, reduction of the user fee as regards Social security…). Strikers of Renault - Billancourt refuse the agreements.
  • May 28th:
  • May 29th: Manifestation of the CGT which requires a popular government. De Gaulle “disappears” with Baden-Baden where it meets Jacques Massu.
  • May 30th: Short radio and televised speech of the general Charles de Gaulle on the “Chienlit”. He announces the dissolution of the National Assembly and the adjournment of the referendum. Demonstration gaullist on the Fields-Élysées of the same width than the demonstration contestatrice of the May 13rd.

June

  • June 1st: Rehandling of the government Georges Pompidou.
  • June 4th: Beginning of the renewal of activity in certain sectors like EDF-GDF, transport and postal and telecommunications authorities.
  • 5 - June 7th: Beginning of the resumption of work in the public office.
  • June 7th: Violent one confrontations with Flins between the strikers and the Control Renault, supported by the students and the police force.
  • June 12th: The government dissolves several organizations of extreme left and prohibits the demonstrations on all the territory.
  • 14 - June 16th: Evacuation of the Sorbonne, and the Odéon. The courses include in the colleges.
  • 23 - June 30th: Legislative elections in France: broad victory of the Gaulliste S UDR and their allies (Union of the democrats for the Republic) which gain the absolute majority of the seats. The opposition undergoes a resounding failure.
  • June 27th: Suppression of the written test of the baccalaureat.

July

  • July 10th:
  • July 11th: In accordance with the Constitution the new Parliament meets for one fifteen days duration: Jacques Chaban-Delmas is re-elected with the presidential armchair. Incidents between the independent UDR and the Republican : Giscard d'Estaing is isolated presidency of the committee of supply.
  • July 12th: End of the strike of the journalists of ORTF.
  • 13 - July 16th: Incidents with the Latin Quarter and the Bastille between demonstrators and police officers.
  • 15 - July 31st: Incidents with the Festival of Avignon.
  • July 17th: In its declaration of general policy which it makes before the Parliament, Couve of Murville is given eighteen months to restore the balance of the French economy and specifies “the great reforms” which will be committed before the end of the year.
  • July 24th: Law of amnesty for the facts relating to the Algeria.

August

  • August 2nd: A third of the posts of journalists is removed with ORTF, 102 journalists of radio and television is laid off.
  • August 5th: Inauguration of the port of Fos.
  • August 7th: Manifestations of the farmers in the Vaucluse.
  • August 24th: First test (Canopus) of a bomb with hydrogen (H).

September

  • September 2nd: Direction of the theater of Odéon withdrawn with Jean-Louis Barrault.
  • September 4th: Suppression of the exchange control in France.
  • September 10th: Speech of Charles de Gaulle: “France forever ceased working to put a term at the system of the two blocks”. “No system of thought, will or action could inspire France, if not that which the events caused since June 1940. ” “Praise” of G. Pompidou, put “in reserve of the Republic. ” Evocation of the great reforms in preparation (Senate, regionalization, participation, University). A recognition of Biafra is not excluded.
  • September 11th: Louis Aragon, “I call a spade a spade”, the French Letters . Protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. A few days later, it will write the foreword of the novel of Milan Kundera, the Joke (the novel over the spring of Prague) appeared at Gallimard.
  • September 12th: Reopening in the calm one of the Sorbonne.
  • September 12th: Creation of the Alliance of the young people for socialism (AJS), the “young branch” of the organization trotskist OCI (or lambertist).
  • September 18th: Exit of the first Red number of , body of the old JCR, become the communist League of obedience trotskists: “In May we spoke, it is the last weapon which one will make us deposit. ”
  • September 22nd: Senatorial elections.
  • 27 - September 28th: Talks with Gaulle Kiesinger with Bonn.

October

  • New agitation gauchist in the colleges and the universities.
  • October 1st: Discovered corpse of Stéphan Markovic, bodyguard of Alain Delon, in a refuse tip of Yvelines.
  • October 2nd: Alain Poher elected president of the Senate to replace Gaston Monnerville which is not represented.
  • 3 - October 11th: Discusses in first reading with the National Assembly on the law Edgar Faure of orientation relating to the autonomy of the universities. François Pipe cleaner, Jean-Denis Bredin and Michel Alliot took part in the development of this law.
  • October 3rd: Alain Poher is elected President of the Sénat (fine in 1992).
  • October 4th: Beginning of the “Business Markovic”: Stevan Markovic, bodyguard of Alain and Nathalie Delon, left a letter showing of the crime Alain Delon and “a withdrawn gangster of the businesses”, Marcantoni. The Pompidou couple is implied soon on the basis of false documents. A young Yugoslavian, Akow, prisoner with the prison of Fresnes, addressed letters to Delon. They were seized. It states there to have taken part in one evening organized in a villa of Yvelines. “Particular, extremely merry Evening. ” Akow affirms that Markovic had photographs compromising for the wife of the former Prime Minister, Claude Pompidou. Akow, questioned, would have affirmed to have seen Claude Pompidou, at the time of this “particular evening”. Georges Pompidou itself would be blamed by this testimony.
  • October 5th: Jacques Chancel presents for the first time Radioscopie on France inter 17 to 6 p.m. (each day until 1982).
  • October 9th: Nobel Prize of peace for Rene Cassin, inspiring lawyer of the Universal declaration of the Human rights of the December 10th 1948.
  • October 9th: First of “ In all letters ”, monthly literary emission of Eric Olivier and Jean Dutourd on the first television channel
  • October 16th: François Mitterrand is isolated of the European Parliament to the profit of a supported candidate by the majority.
  • October 18th: First concert of the Pink Floyd in France, with Lyon, the theater of 8th.
  • 20 - October 21st: Central committee of the PCF to Evry. Following the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, the resignation of the political office of Thorez-Veermersch Sleeve-board is accepted. He addresses a public blame to Roger Garaudy (dissension on the Czechoslovakia). The review new Democracy , directing Jacques Duclos, editor association P. Villon, assistant editor association: P. Noirot, cease to appear.
  • October 21st: At 80 years, Maurice Chevalier, most international of the French singers bids its final farewell with the scene with the Théâtre of the Fields-Élysées, after more than 50 years of career. Maurice Chevalier will die out 4 years later, on January 1st 1972.
  • October 25th: The bunch Occident causes incidents and attacks the teachers with the colleges Voltaire, Louis-the-Large, Condorcet and Buffon in Paris.
  • 25 - October 30th: Visit in Turkey of the de Gaulle general.
  • October 26th: Following incidents caused by Occident, beginning of demonstration with the Latin Quarter.
  • October 28th: A group common pro-Chinese and anarchists invest the coffee Relay-Odéon, place of usual appointment of the militants of Occident, and launches coktails Molotov involving there a fire whose damage will be quantified with 250  000 Francs. Prevented by a “mole” in the gauchists mediums, the nationalist militants abstained from going this day with what constituted their true “general headquarter”. The evening even, the “Chinese” bookstore of the street Lie-the-Heart is damaged, while an other anarchistic group in vain endeavoured to set fire to the French Bookstore of Henri Costun, held by error for a close relation of the Occident movement.
  • October 31st:
    • Of the Maoists of UJCml dissolved creates the proletarian Gauche (GP). Benny Levy, Tony Levy (teacher of maths), Robert Linhart, founder of UJC (ml), Philippe Barret (normalien), Christian Jambert, Alain Geismar, Serge July, Andre Glucksmann, Olivier Rolin (normalien), Jean-Pierre Dantec (central School), Jean-Claude Vernier (central School), Cristian Riss, Jacques-Alain Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, Jean-Claude Zancarini (Tarzan, raises of Saint-Cloud), etc It is the result of the major crisis which UJC (ml) with the failure of May 68 lived. The proletarian left gathers only one minority of the old UJCML, but it collects on the other hand the adhesion of certain militants of the “March 22nd” nanterrois, and that of refractory intellectuals to the speech “Marxist-Leninist” (Andre Glucksmann, Serge July), as those which belonged to the circle normalien very closed Books for the analysis, up to that point known especially for its distance very lacanienne in front of the policy.
    • Dissolution of the movement Occident (extreme right-hand side). In front of the risk of gears after the fires of the October 28th, Maurice Grimaud chooses the prohibition of the group of extreme right-hand side.

November

  • November 1st: Publication of the first number of the Cause of the people , newspaper of the Proletarian Left . Jean-Pierre Dantec becomes the director about it. Four to eight pages printed in red and black on bad paper. In subtitle “ proletarian revolutionary communist Newspaper ”. On the right: an effigy of Mao, a hammer and a sickle.
  • 2 - November 3rd: Joined together with Clichy as a national council, SFIO request the replacement of FGDS by a “resolutely socialist” party.
  • November 5th:
    • FAS, Face of release of Brittany, announces that it will suspend its actions of commandos during the visit of the de Gaulle general.
    • François Mitterrand gives up the direction and resigns of the FGDS which disappears without no one not trying to save it.
  • November 12th: Vote law of orientation on higher education. Transformation of the French university landscape. The autonomous universities replace faculties (creation of the UER whose management returns to the whole of the users). Two new centers are created: Dauphine and Vincennes.
  • November 25th: Re-establishment of the exchange control.

December

  • December 5th: Law on the exercise of the trade union rights in the voted company to the Parliament.
  • 5 - December 6th: The central committee of the Communist party decides for a “advanced democracy”.
  • 7 - December 8th: Attack against three Parisian banks and a permanence UDR. Found wounded on the place of one of the explosions, a coed, Miss Destouet, will recognize her participation in the attack of the banks.
  • December 8th: Valery Giscard d'Estaing request which no election is organized in 1969.
  • December 9th: Guy Mollet announces that it will not take the head of the future democratic party and Socialist.
  • December 10th: Jean-Marcel Jeanneney confirms that the reform of the areas and the Senate will take place by the way of the referendum.
  • 12 - December 20th: Agitation with Nanterre during several days. Burden with the courses; the police force occupies the campus.
  • Saturday December 14th: The defense of thesis of Jean-William Lapierre is stopped by students who intend to protest against Raymond Aron, member of the jury. The uproar was carefully organized. While the jury questions the candidate, a boy emits the objection: “Me, I am workman and I do not include/understand this language”. Little by little, the uproar was such as the jury was obliged to declare the meeting closed.
  • December 17th: The management committee of the independent republicans decides to make countryside against the organization of a referendum in 1969.
  • 17 - December 20th: Closing of the College Chaptal following various incidents.
  • December 18th: The Commission of the European Communities approves the Mansholt plan on the reform of the agricultural structures.
  • 20 - December 22nd: Extraordinary national congress of SFIO to Puteaux, which decides the creation of a new “socialist party” in 1969. Guy Mollet announces that he will not be candidate at the position of secretary general of the new socialist party.
  • December 27th: Law on the local union of company. The trade unions can constitute local unions and designate union representatives within the companies. Until now, the terms of collective agreements arranging the activities of the trade union on the work places remained rare. This law devotes not only one freedom of expression and of action of the trade union in the company, but also a properly trade-union institution (the union representative) with dimensions of the elected institutions (union delegates and work's council). It is finally the base of the future promotion of the collective bargain of company.
  • December 27th: The CDR (Defense committee of the Republic) of Dijon attacks the Minister for State education violently and qualifies the law of university orientation of “bluff” and “fiasco”.
  • December 29th: De Gaulle decides to put the embargo on the supplies of armament at Israel the shortly after the Israeli raid on the airport of Beirut.
  • December 31st: Short speech of the de Gaulle general: “Thus Let us carry out of ground the devils which tormented us during the year which is completed. ”

Economy

  • Rise of 9,2% of the hourly salaries to the second half-year 1968.

Radio, press and television

Internal bonds

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