On this day in 1968, the May 68 Rebellion, the largest general strike in French history, began when school officials shut down the University of Paris after months of student protests, leading to nationwide unrest.

In mid-March, leftist students had occupied an administration building there, although they left peacefully after their demands were published. On May 6th, more than 20,000 students, teachers, and supporters engaged in a protest march. The march was attacked by police and devolved into a riot.

The state repression of protesters caused two major left union federations, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Force Ouvrière (CGT-FO), to call a one-day general strike on May 13th. More than one million people demonstrated that day.

By the middle of May, demonstrations had extended to factories, though their demands were different from the students'. Across France, students occupied university structures and up to one-third of the country's workforce was on strike.

The protests were so widespread and energetic that many political leaders feared civil war or revolution. President Charles de Gaulle secretly fled France to Germany at one point, and the national government at times ceased to function.

Revolution was averted when de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly and scheduled an election that the left dissidents agreed to participate in. Revolutionary fervor subsided and the government banned a number of leftist organizations in the following months.

In the election, de Gaulle's party won the greatest victory in French parliamentary history, taking 353 of 486 seats versus the Communists' 34 and the Socialists' 57.

1968: a chronology of events in France and internationally :france-cool:

Paris May-June 1968 marxist archive :marx-hi:

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  • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I was never a cat guy until I moved in with my SO and her cat became our cat. Now we have 3 of them (along with my dog).

    They are generally a lot of fun to have around, much less interactive than even the laziest dog but also a lot less needy. All 3 of ours have very different personalities, you should spend some time with any prospective cats before you adopt so you have an idea of what you're going to get.

    Words of warning - cats puke a lot, depending on how much hair they have you could be cleaning up hairballs multiple times per week, which is not the best if your place is very carpeted or this kind of thing will bother you. They will also be walking around on every surface of your house and the only truly effective ways to stop them are to lock them out of those rooms completely or effectively render those surfaces unsuitable for human use as well. IMO this is just something you have to accept instead of fight, so we wipe the counters down very well before cooking and we don't keep anything breakable or expensive where it can easily be knocked off a counter or table.