Beyond the Stereotypes

The popular image of May '68 — young male students throwing cobblestones at police — tells only part of the story. The movement's true strength lay in its diversity, bringing together people traditionally excluded from political action. Women challenging patriarchy, immigrant workers asserting dignity, provincial youth rejecting Parisian dominance, and countless others found their voices in the revolutionary moment. Their participation transformed what might have been merely a student revolt into a broad social movement that questioned every form of domination.

Women in Movement

"We are not fighting to become the equals of men in an unjust society," declared a women's action committee leaflet. "We are fighting to destroy that society." This sentiment captured the emerging feminist consciousness within May '68. While women comprised nearly half the participants, their specific struggles initially remained marginal to a movement dominated by male voices and concerns.

In the occupied Sorbonne, women faced a familiar paradox. They were welcome to type leaflets, prepare food, and tend the wounded, but when they tried to speak at general assemblies, they were often ignored or mocked. The revolution, it seemed, stopped at the bedroom door. Male leaders spoke of liberation while expecting female comrades to perform traditional roles.

But women refused to accept this limitation. Anne Zelensky, a young philosophy student, recalled: "We realized we had to fight on two fronts — against the capitalist system and against patriarchy, including the patriarchy of our own comrades." Women began organizing separately, creating spaces where they could articulate their specific oppression and develop strategies for liberation.

The Mouvement de Libération des Femmes Emerges

Though the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) wouldn't formally organize until 1970, its roots were planted in May '68. In occupied universities, women's committees formed to address issues ignored by the broader movement. They discussed illegal abortion, workplace discrimination, domestic violence, and the double burden of wage labor and housework.

At the École des Beaux-Arts, women artists created posters addressing female exploitation. One showed a woman juggling baby, broom, and briefcase with the caption "When will we have time to live?" Another depicted a pregnant woman behind bars, representing the criminalization of abortion. These images introduced feminist themes into the movement's visual vocabulary.

Women workers brought particular insights. At the occupied Moulinex factory in Caen, where the workforce was predominantly female, workers linked their exploitation as workers with their oppression as women. They were paid less than men, assigned the most repetitive tasks, and subjected to paternalistic management that treated them like children. Their strike demands included not just wage equality but dignity and respect.

Breaking the Silence

The movement created unprecedented opportunities for women to speak publicly about their lives. In occupied theaters and factories, consciousness-raising sessions spontaneously emerged. Women shared experiences of discrimination, harassment, and violence that had previously been considered private matters.

Marie-Claire, a secretary at Renault, described her revelation: "For the first time, I understood that my problems weren't personal failures but systematic oppression. When I heard other women describe identical experiences, I realized we needed collective solutions." These sessions prefigured the consciousness-raising groups that would become central to 1970s feminism.

Young women students were particularly vocal about sexual liberation. They challenged the double standard that celebrated male sexual freedom while condemning female sexuality. They demanded access to contraception, then still restricted, and abortion rights. They rejected both traditional morality and the casual sexism of male revolutionaries who saw "free love" as increased access to women's bodies.

Immigrant Voices Rising

Among May's most militant participants were immigrant workers, primarily from North Africa, Portugal, and sub-Saharan Africa. Confined to the worst jobs, housed in squalid conditions, subjected to racist violence, they had everything to gain from revolutionary change. Their participation shattered stereotypes of immigrants as passive victims.

The bidonvilles (shanty towns) surrounding Paris became organizing centers. In Nanterre, where the university stood next to immigrant settlements, students and foreign workers created unprecedented alliances. Portuguese construction workers shared their experiences of exploitation with middle-class students. Algerian factory workers, veterans of their own revolutionary struggle, provided tactical knowledge.

At the Citroën factory, where management had deliberately recruited immigrants as supposedly docile labor, the opposite occurred. Moroccan and Algerian workers were among the most determined strikers. They occupied not just for better wages but for dignity — an end to racist foremen, equal treatment, and recognition as full participants in French society.

The Double Struggle

Immigrant workers faced what they called "double exploitation" — as workers and as foreigners. They were paid less than French workers for the same jobs. They were housed in company dormitories resembling prisons. They faced constant police harassment. They were denied basic rights accorded to citizens.

Mohamed, an Algerian worker at Renault, explained: "The French workers fought for better conditions. We fought to be recognized as human beings." Immigrant strikers demanded not just economic improvements but an end to segregation in company housing, racist violence from foremen, and police raids on their communities.

The movement gave immigrants unprecedented visibility. French workers, forced to acknowledge their importance to production, began overcoming prejudices. Joint occupations created solidarity across ethnic lines. The slogan "French and Immigrant Workers United" moved from rhetoric to reality as workers discovered common interests.

Women Immigrants: Triple Oppression

If immigrant men faced double exploitation, immigrant women confronted triple oppression — as workers, foreigners, and women. Often invisible in both the immigrant community and the broader movement, they nonetheless participated actively in strikes and occupations.

At textile factories employing predominantly immigrant women, strikes took on particular militancy. These workers, paid starvation wages for exhausting labor, had nothing to lose. They occupied factories with their children, creating improvised nurseries. They defied husbands who ordered them home. They challenged union leaders who ignored their specific demands.

Fatima, a Moroccan textile worker, recalled: "The strike was my liberation. For the first time, I wasn't just someone's wife or daughter. I was a worker fighting for my rights. I discovered I had a voice and the courage to use it."

Provincial Perspectives

While Paris captured world attention, May '68 was truly a national movement. In industrial cities like Lyon, Marseille, and Lille, workers struck as militantly as in the capital. In rural areas, farmers blockaded roads and occupied agricultural cooperatives. Each region brought its own grievances and traditions to the movement.

In Brittany, with its strong regional identity, the movement took on autonomist dimensions. Breton language and culture, long suppressed by French centralization, experienced revival. Workers occupied factories flying both red and Breton flags. Students demanded education in their native language. The slogan "Power to the Regions" challenged Parisian dominance.

Southern France, with its traditions of radical politics, saw some of the movement's most creative experiments. In Marseille, dock workers opened the port to anyone, demonstrating how commerce could function without capitalism. In Toulouse, aircraft workers discussed converting military production to peaceful uses. These regional initiatives often went further than Parisian radicals in imagining alternative futures.

High School Rebels

The participation of lycéens (high school students) added another dimension to the movement's diversity. These teenagers, some as young as 14, organized strikes and occupations in their schools. They faced particular repression from authorities who saw their rebellion as especially threatening to social order.

The Comités d'Action Lycéens (High School Action Committees) developed autonomous organizations and demands. They challenged authoritarian teaching methods, irrelevant curricula, and preparation for lives they rejected. They wanted education that developed critical thinking, not obedience.

Parents reacted with particular horror to their children's rebellion. Generational conflict, already acute at university level, became explosive when it reached high schools. Families split as children rejected everything their parents represented. Some parents supported their children's activism; others threatened disownment. These family dramas multiplied the movement's social impact.

The Elderly Engage

While May '68 was primarily a youth movement, older people participated in surprising numbers. Some were veterans of 1930s struggles who saw echoes of their own youth. Others were parents radicalized by their children's experiences. Still others were retirees freed from workplace constraints.

In occupied factories, older workers often played crucial roles. Their technical knowledge proved essential for maintaining equipment. Their memories of past struggles provided historical perspective. Their presence legitimized the movement to skeptical workers. The intergenerational solidarity contradicted stereotypes of inevitable conflict between young and old.

Some of the movement's most moving moments came from encounters between generations. A grandfather teaching barricade techniques from the Resistance. A mother joining her daughter on a demonstration. An elderly professor acknowledging that his students understood contemporary reality better than he did. These connections suggested that revolution could unite rather than divide generations.

Voices from the Margins

May '68 gave voice to many marginalized groups. Sex workers organized to demand decriminalization and labor rights. People with disabilities occupied rehabilitation centers to protest infantilizing treatment. Gay men and lesbians, though not yet organized as movements, began discussing their oppression in revolutionary spaces.

These diverse voices enriched and complicated the movement. They showed that oppression took many forms beyond class exploitation. They demonstrated that revolution required addressing all hierarchies and exclusions. They prefigured the identity politics that would emerge in subsequent decades while maintaining connection to broader struggles for social transformation.

The Challenge of Unity

The movement's diversity was both strength and challenge. Bringing together students and workers, men and women, French and immigrants, Parisians and provincials created powerful coalitions. But it also generated tensions and contradictions difficult to resolve.

Male workers sometimes resented student "intrusion" into their struggles. French workers occasionally expressed xenophobia toward immigrants. Parisians often ignored provincial initiatives. Women faced sexism from revolutionary comrades. These conflicts revealed how deeply hierarchies penetrated even movements dedicated to equality.

Yet the attempt to create unity while respecting diversity remained May's greatest achievement. The movement showed that different groups could find common ground without erasing their specificities. The slogan "We are all German Jews," chanted in solidarity with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, expressed this universalism that didn't deny particular identities.

Speaking Truth to Power

What united May's diverse participants was the act of speaking — breaking silences that had constrained them. Workers described alienation never acknowledged in union meetings. Women articulated oppression never named in political discourse. Immigrants testified to racism politely ignored. Youth expressed desires their elders couldn't comprehend.

This explosion of speech was itself revolutionary. People who had been objects of others' decisions became subjects of their own history. They didn't wait for leaders to articulate their grievances but spoke for themselves. They created new languages for experiences previously considered unspeakable.

The movement's general assemblies, however chaotic, provided forums for these voices. A cleaning woman's account of her working conditions received the attention traditionally reserved for politicians. An immigrant's description of police brutality commanded respect denied in normal times. These role reversals demonstrated that everyone had truths worth hearing.

Lasting Impact

The diverse voices of May '68 permanently changed French society's conversation about itself. Women's liberation, immigrant rights, regional autonomy, and youth culture all emerged strengthened from the movement. Groups that had been invisible forced themselves into public consciousness.

More profoundly, May '68 demonstrated that revolution wasn't the exclusive property of any single group. It showed that transformation required participation from all of society's marginalized and excluded. It proved that movements were strongest when they incorporated rather than suppressed diversity.

The full inclusion of these diverse voices remained incomplete in May '68. Women still struggled to be heard. Immigrants faced continued racism. Provincial initiatives were overshadowed by Parisian events. But seeds were planted that would bloom in subsequent decades. The movement created models and memories that inspired future struggles for inclusion and recognition.

As Simone de Beauvoir observed, watching the movement unfold: "What was beautiful about May was not just the challenge to capitalism but the challenge to all forms of oppression. For the first time, everyone — women, immigrants, youth — claimed the right to speak and be heard. That multiplication of voices was the real revolution."# Political Dynamics - De Gaulle, Parties, and Power