May 1968. Students construct barricades, the youth shake up an “old school” France too stuck in its ways for its taste and, we often forget, 13 million salaried employees stop working all at once in order to obtain salary increases and better working conditions. In La Rochelle, the university wasn’t there yet, but they also had a “May ‘68″, as this former tool and die maker tells us. At the time he was 24 years old. He responds to Florence Maitre.
-Well, my name is Michel, Michel Guitton and in 1968, I was the CGT union secretary at a business that was then called Brissonneau and Lotz and which today is called Alsthom. At that time, in 1968, there must have been about 1000 of us… 1200 to 1300 salaried employees. Already, in 1968, we had led a union initiative around salary and buying power at the beginning of the year, in January and February, and 1968 came with news about the student movement, and we said to ourselves: “You see, they, too, want to live better, in a better world, to be rid of this continual pressure, etc.” We recognised each other, I would say, automatically. We didn’t have a thorough evaluation of what the students’ demands were on the whole, but we recognised each other automatically through these struggles and these demonstrations for a better life, so we were very much awakened.
So, it began when? When and how here in La Rochelle?
-Well, in La Rochelle, it was a fairly quick movement in the metalworking industry, beginning notably with the large demonstration on May 13th. So it began, we’ll say, in the first fortnight in May and it continued, as far as we were concerned, until the first fortnight in June because the metalworking industry, which was quite boisterous in matters of social concern, was in some ways a bit punished since they told us: “There was Grenelle, period, and there will be nothing more than Grenelle.” And we, we were orphans of two negotiations which had not advanced. These were the reduction of working hours, the 48 hour work week limit, that is to say, that there was also overtime, which made for a lot of work, and concerning retirement at age 60, we had obtained nothing.
You said, you had other strikes, this was a very active sector, but there was something special at that moment in ‘68…
-Yes, it was indeed a larger movement. Quite fortunately, there was not only Alsthom! Our shipyard friends were very active as well, the chemists, the civil servants, etc. The most diverse bodies of workers got involved in the strike: the sailors! The sailors, etc. We had a port, at the time much more active than today, a fishing port but also a commercial port. There were 400 dock workers at La Rochelle. There are less than 80, I believe, now. Therefore, all of this created a very distinctive environment, both a rather remarkable calm, when you consider the minimal traffic, and at the same time, an extraordinary hustle and bustle where you’d find some ten thousand people in Verdun Square. So therefore, it was a city, La Rochelle, that was very alive and at the same time very quiet when the large gatherings of social demonstrators passed through. It’s true that the city knew moments of calm sometimes rather extraordinary compared with today.
Were there people who reacted badly to these things, who came to tell you: “You would do better to go to work!” I don’t know, things like that. Were you confronted with situations like that?
-Of course, like everywhere. For example, there were picket lines that at one time or another could be attacked by rocks or by bocce balls thrown at them by, those whom we called and still call today, people from the extreme right. It never went very far, but there were some little moments like that which were a bit heated. There was an anti-strike demonstration from people claiming to be Gaullists who got together in La Rochelle at Verdun Square with a demonstration that was more symbolic than anything else, and that we went to see out of curiosity. So, there was some name-calling, but nothing much, nothing much. All the more, we recognised who was a shopkeeper in our neighbourhood, who was someone… “Hey, well, I didn’t know that he would have been here.” Well, it was never very cruel. On the other hand, there was sometimes much more tension tied to routine questions, for example, fuel. It was at the labour exchange (unemployment office) that they gave out fuel vouchers for those who were most in need of them, and notably of course, people from public health, for essential services mainly. It was rather amusing, it was rather amusing…it was a sort of…power. We mustn’t say that because it wouldn’t be fair. We never looked to have any special power, but the responsibility of providing a minimum to the people of La Rochelle, that’s what! It was rather amusing to see that and then, well, the atmosphere as a whole was nevertheless rather serene, I’d say. La Rochelle did not experience any serious incidents. It experienced some exchanges that were a bit heated but no major incident.
Did you talk about…Did you talk among yourselves about the events which took place in Paris? I’m thinking of course about the student movement.
-It’s true that there was somewhat of a gap between some student demands, some calls to strike, some gatherings like that of Charlety or another when they talked of collective management, of new management, things like that, which for salaried employees wasn’t automatically the most urgent. The working class went out to strike in masses in ‘68 for a better life, in terms of its daily bread, that is say, to have more money, in terms of working hours, of retirement, etc. So, we were accused of being somewhat “proletarian” by some of leaders in the student world. They came to see us at the gates of our workplaces, or even to distribute pamphlets which described us as “proletarian” and that we would do better to be concerned with collective management or co-management than with what we were doing. So, well, there were differences. It rather pleased us to see the youth getting active and then acting in such a way, as they wished to have a better life than we had or than our parents had been able to have. That’s what’s happened until today, when unfortunately, we have today rather a movement which is the opposite.
What view do you take on the current situation? We see the high school students in the streets, we’re making reference all the time to ‘68, etc. Okay, there will not necessarily be another May ‘68, but do you sometimes sense things that indeed make you think about what preceded this movement?
-Absolutely. We’re in a situation where all of the elements are in place, so that the largest social sectors are beginning to act. In ‘68 we had an accumulation of factors, which I just told you about: low wages, 48 hours, hourly pay and not monthly, etc. Well, today there are a certain number of situations, which are not automatically the same but which prepare the ground for it: job insecurity, underemployment, low wages. People who are paid minimum wage are nevertheless much too numerous. And with the minimum wage today, you still can’t say that you’re a mogul because you live on minimum wage. There is a decline in the social welfare system which, currently, is one of the hot topics as well, etc. Just like before ‘68, the orders of General De Gaulle had mobilised in an extraordinary way the social welfare system. When you see all that’s happening around the banks today, that adds a tension, a discontentment, even an anger. There are today really, yes, some of the key elements, as one would say in a scholarly manner, for there to be a large movement. I was hearing this morning the same thing on the radio about black labour (illegal immigrants). I am really telling you that black labour is going to strike. It’s extraordinary, unbelievable. People whose objective is to survive, but in hiding, since you mustn’t know who, just like that, is at the front of the stage. It’s an extraordinary example of political representation
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