"All Power to the Imagination!"

May-June 1968 in France. It began with student protests of the U.S. war against Vietnam and of sexual segregation in university dormitories. The French government responded with police repression, a first on French university campuses. By May 8th, after almost a week of riots, 80% of the people of Paris showed their support for the student rebellion. May 10th was the "Night of the Barricades." May 13th, 800,000 students and workers took the streets in solidarity with the student revolt. The Sorbonne was occupied, as well as factory after factory. French President De Gaulle left Paris tempted to resign. May 29 there was a vacuum of power. Several analysts believe that May-June 1968 in France was a revolutionary situation, that "yes, power could have been seized."

Some reading on May-June 1968 (and background):

Cornelius Castoriadis. Political & Social Writings (3 vols). Univ. of Minnesota Press.

Daniel & Gabriel Cohn-Bendit. Obsolete Communism: The Left Wing Alternative. AK Press (reprint).

Dark Star (eds). Beneath the Paying Stones: Situationists & the Beach, May 1968. AK Press.

Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. Zone Books.

Andrew Feenberg & Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968. SUNY Press.

Informations Correspondence Ouviere. The Mass Strike in France: May-June 1968. Root & Branch (translation).

George Katsiaficas. The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968. South End Press.

Henri Lefebvre. Critique of Everyday Life. Verso Press.

Henri Lefebvre. The Explosion: Marxism & the French Upheaval. Monthly Review Press.

Daniel Singer. Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968. South End Press (reprint).

Rene Vienet. Enrages and Situationists in the Occupation Movement: France, May 68. Rebel Press.