1968. Beneath the cobbles, the beach!

 John Bs latest outing to revolutions of the mid/late twentieth century took us to Paris in May 1968. 

Be reasonable, demand the impossible! In popular memory this was a very French sort of revolution, and hilariously was originally triggered by demands that male students be allowed access to female dormitories at the Nanterre campus. The background more generally was opposition to the Vietnam War, and dissatisfaction with the Gaullist regime in France.   

I was cast as Daniel Bendit-Cohn, or 'Danny the Red', the charismatic revolutionary and leader of the students occupying the Sorbonne. I can't imagine why I ended up in that role, although my experience of opposition to the Thatcher regime in the early 1980s came in handy.

We were very fortunate to discover that one of our number, Terry, had actually been there! He and a group of his friends from Oxford went to Paris in May 1968 and he took part in some of the sit-ins in June.  

The usual motley crew assembled, with many berets in evidence. John ran it as a loosely structured matrix game, with roughly one week turns although they got longer as the immediate crisis of May passed. Lots of famous characters were present, including future Presidents Mitterand and Pompidou, Marchais the Communist, General de Gaulle and General Massu, quietly fuming about Algeria while commanding the French army in Germany.

We essentially got to propose that one major thing happened each week, with varying likelyhoods of success, and we all had secret objectives - some overlapping, some conflicting. I had to bring down the government and install a peoples revolutionary government (!), be recognised as a youth leader and leader of the left, and finally get as much publicity for myself as possible.

The main battleground was the Boulevard St German between the Sorbonne and the National Assembly. I won't bore you with a blow by blow account, these sorts of committee games are very unphotogenic, but despite the worst efforts of the CRS, the various student protests, workers strikes and general disquiet with the actions of the Gaullists did force the government to resign and in new elections, the Communists emerged as the single largest party. Mon dieu! Despite General Massu mobilising half the French Army, we also managed to avoid a military coup.

Perhaps more important, Danny garnered lots of headlines by staging many evenements, including occupying the Eiffel Tower, briefly storming the National Assembly and throwing flour around, staging the 'Art is dead' exhibition and most popular with the numerous journalists, the mass 'love in' outside the National Assembly. He also managed to evade numerous attempts to arrest him. I was very fortunate that there are masses of on-line resources about 1968, including some great archives of slogans and quotes.

So that was a real hoot. I gather we are off to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal next and at some point will re-visit Cambodia, which may well be rather more sombre.