TIME MACHINE
MAY 1968 …Paris riots – and rolls
Another brick for the Gauls: Gendarmes man the barricades
Street-burning homme
Jacques Dutronc wigs out
Paris residents Aphrodite’s Child
Mick Jagger: “It was a strange time”
Dominique Grange’s ‘Mao folk’ 45
Post-protests burn-out.
Getty (7), Alamy (2), Shutterstock
MAY 2 It was a year of taking to the streets. In March, thousands of protesters against the Vietnam war clashed with police outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square. Later, in August, similar scenes at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago turned uglier still, with the cops-vs-peacenik riot dubbed “The Battle Of Michigan Avenue” broadcast live on TV, and Phil Ochs inspiring young men to burn their draft cards by singing I Ain’t Marching Any More.
But the real action was taking place in Paris, where on May 2, seven weeks of strikes and civil disobedience against capitalism, sclerotic government and ultimately all social restrictions began after a clampdown on disaffected students at Paris X Nanterre University. On May 10, thousands of students marched on the Latin Quarter: the police moved in, paving stones were hurled, fires were set, tear gas was used, and hundreds were arrested. As the weeks went on, an alliance of students, communists and striking underpaid workers united against the government of President Charles de Gaulle.