A Postcard From Paris

On de Gaulle, it's worth remembering that he was not universally loved and that the workers and students nearly deposed him in a revolutionary strike back in 1968.

[It's also worth remembering that he was the U.S. bête noir in Europe for many years, and that before the students had got around to it the French military had also tried for a coup. Such is the nature of nostalgia. g.]

It's also worth noting that Sarkozy considers himself the current incarnation of Gaullism.

[Be that as it may, he's no Charles de Gaulle. g.]

Diana adds: "First of all, my reference to De Gaulle had to do with the construction of a mixed economy. Whether or not he was "loved" has nothing to do with it. Incidentally, the workers and their unions actually saved him from being overthrown. I have written at length about May '68, in which the students were revolting as much against the Communist Party as against De Gaulle — a very complex event which cannot be summed up accurately in that fashion.

I'm forwarding an excerpt from a discussion of a new book just to show that there are very mixed appreciations of May 1968 and its significance."

D'accord avec les pensées exposées dans cet article; mais quelques nuances s'imposent, à mon avis.

1/ De Gaulle n'était pas un conservateur et encore moins un réactionnaire ; il menait la politique la plus progressiste que l'époque permettait, et il était cerné par une droite sournoise, avide, bornée, qui s'efforçait de se débarrasser de lui. Plus précisément, la droite atlantiste tentait d'utiliser la droite passéiste (celle de l'Algérie française, pour schématiser) afin de mettre au rancart le gouvernant dont elle n'avait plus besoin depuis qu'il avait débarrassé la France de la dernière guerre coloniale.

Pour les possédants, de Gaulle était l'homme qui voulait la participation des travailleurs au fruit de leur travail, et surtout qui voulait l'indépendance nationale. Bref, il était celui qui les empêchaient de se vautrer devant les Anglo-saxons et les Allemands comme Giscard, Mitterrand et leurs séides le firent si bien ensuite.

2/ Le Parti communiste était un parti d'ordre, et qui prenait ses ordres. Il ne voulait pas une révolution qu'il savait impossible (chacun dans son camp, et la France était à l'Ouest) et obéissait à la stratégie de Moscou. Bien entendu, cette soumission n'empêchait pas nombre de ses militants, et même quelques-uns de ses dirigeants, d'avoir une authentique sensibilité sociale (je n'ai jamais compris comment des gens sincères pouvaient utiliser une langue de bois thermo-moulée aussi caricaturale que celle du communisme, mais bien d'autres réalités de la vie me sont mystérieuses !).

Or, pour Moscou, le mot d'ordre était : "Pas touche à de Gaulle !".

3/ En aggravant la situation, les radios dites à l'époque "périphériques" rendirent sur le moment un grand service à la droite. Les soixante-huitards romantiques ne cessèrent depuis d'aider les pires réactionnaires. Qu'un homme bouffi de vanité et sans projet politique comme Cohn-Bendit soit encore influent à présent, et dans un pays dont il n'est même pas citoyen, est significatif des complicités qui se nouent en politique. Depuis quarante années cet homme-là, constamment admiré par les adeptes du crétinisme gauchiste, a sans cesse nui au Peuple Français.

4/ Les sociologues expliquent l'explosion internationale de 1968 comme le résultat de la croissance démographique, de la scolarisation de masse et du bouleversement de la société. La bouffée libératrice fut sensible pour tous ceux qui vécurent cette époque. Cette brève récréation fut mentalement salutaire à court terme, mais elle aboutit à la généralisation du cynisme et du ressentiment.

5/ En sapant le prestige de de Gaulle, et en noyant les députés gaullistes dans un océan de réactionnaires, le contrecoup des "événements de mai" engagea la France dans un long tunnel de régression sociale. Les gauchistes, de leur côté, l'engagèrent dans une régression intellectuelle dont on peut à présent se demander si elle sera un jour arrêtée. Peut-être sera-t-elle mortelle pour la pensée et pour les institutions républicaines.

Le coût fut effroyable pour la France.

Il le fut aussi pour l'ensemble du monde.

De Gaulle était en effet le seul dirigeant qui tenait tête à l'empire anglo-saxon, et qui, en particulier, tentait de réformer le système monétaire international. Sa position tactique sur l'étalon or tendait à imposer finalement une refonte des institutions de Bretton-Wood. Son refus de la supra-nationalité visait aussi à bloquer le pouvoir financier. Ce n'est point par hasard que Nixon attendit le 15 août du premier été suivant la mort du Vieux pour annoncer la banqueroute des États-Unis. Face à un tel coup de force, le rugissement poussé à Colombey eût encore ébranlé la terre entière.

Le malheur de la révolte de 68 fut qu'elle ruina le pouvoir gaullien et mit en place les valets de l'atlantisme, qui agirent systématiquement pour vassaliser la France. Ce fut désastreux à long terme.

Nous en voyons à présent le résultat : chômage et déculturation de masse ; soumission à des modes anglo-saxonnes violentes, irrationnelles et décadentes ; destruction de l'éducation nationale ; désindustrialisation et perte de compétences ; déstructuration sociale ; immigration de peuplement incontrôlée ; vassalisation à l'Union européenne et à l'OTAN ; disparition de la démocratie et spirale de guerres.

Nous avons perdu notre liberté.

Pis encore, nous avons perdu l'esprit ce qui nous empêche de recouvrer notre liberté.

Je n'accable pas les gens de gauche, car il sera toujours plus difficile d'être de gauche que de droite. Pour être de droite, le panurgisme suffit. Le prêt à penser permet de justifier toutes les inégalités. Pour être de gauche il faut être inventif, hardi et raisonnable. Ce que je reproche aux gens de gauche, c'est d'avoir depuis quarante années cessé de penser.

"Il est interdit d'interdire", c'est un slogan réactionnaire : c'est prôner le droit du plus fort.

Depuis quarante années, les gens de gauche sont imbéciles, au sens étymologique : ils ne pensent plus par eux-mêmes et s'appuient sur des béquilles idéologiques (les trotskystes furent les pires, et tous leurs ténors ont trahi).

Il est grand temps de changer.

Le première pensée, la plus libératrice, est d'admettre que la Nation est le lieu de la discussion politique, de la démocratie, de la solidarité sociale et de la culture. Ce n'est pas une entité providentielle, mais depuis deux siècles, et aussi loin dans l'avenir que la vue humaine porte, la Nation est la formation politique qui permet la liberté collective indispensable à la liberté individuelle. Ce sont les luttes sociales nationales qui ont permis d'élaborer le droit national protégeant les faibles.

La coopération internationale n'est possible que si les nations sont prospères. Les organisations supra-nationales sont toutes soumises aux entreprises supranationales.

Il serait absurde d'affirmer que les guerres sont dues aux nations : il y eut des guerres bien avant les nations, et les guerres du XXe siècle, si elles opposèrent des États nationaux, ne furent pas dues aux nations elles-mêmes. Les guerres en cours à présent ne sont pas dues aux nations ; elles sont menées par les puissances financières qui se couvrent du nom des États. Hélas, elles sont menées en notre nom !!!

Les gens de gauche doivent urgemment réfléchir à la nation, et devraient rendre hommage aux hommes qui assurèrent l'indépendance nationale. C'est à l'échelon national que nous retrouverons notre liberté, et la liberté d'aider d'autres nations. C'est avec la Nation toute entière, formée des citoyens de vieille souche et des nouveaux venus, que nous devons agir afin que vive la République et que vive la France.

Christian Darlot

While I'm aware that the Unions played a big role is salvaging de Gaulle's presidency in '68, I think it is a stretch to claim that the workers, who were striking largely without the support of their unions and who continued to occupy the factories after several deals had been struck between de Gaulle and union leaders, saved de Gaulle. From what I've read many workers felt betrayed by their unions. It seems more accurate to say that the workers were outfoxed by de Gaulle than to suggest that they saved him.

As to the article you posted, I must admit that my French is bad to nonexistent. What I could make out seemed to say that de Gaulle wasn't a conservative and the left should wake up and embrace the nation and the idea of a mixed economy. I'm probably misreading this essay entirely.

One last comment because I believe the true point of my comment on de Gaulle was lost, I'm looking at the current global economic crisis as a structural crisis that's endemic to capitalism itself. De Gaulle's task was to return France to a regular and regulated Capitalist development after the collapse of France's Imperial ambitions. The contradictions involved in that project were what created the student and worker rebellion.

Clearly de Gaulle looks good in comparison to Sarkozy, just as Nixon looks good in comparison to Bush, but my perspective is that all of these men moved in the same direction down the road of history.

Excellent article by Christian Darlot.

The main thrust of the article is that many of the French student rebels in 1968 became, perhaps in spite of themselves, the useful idiots of Anglo-Saxon finance capitalism. That in the name of opposition to US hegemony and the consumer society, they destabilized the tacit ruling alliance of the Gaullists and the Communists. The irony is that it was this Gallo-Communist cohabitiation that had brought France its greatest level of social peace in the 20th century and that had, to a certain extent, made France an independent power, opposed to both the Soviet military domination of Europe and the American financial domination of the world.

One must note that after 1968, the French left, led by the student radicals of that era, "progressively" (if I may savor the irony of the word) abandoned economic analysis and class struggle for a cultural struggle that championed the rights of women, gays, immigrants, bohemians, etc, etc. Of course, none of these are coherent social categories. What does a woman from the high bourgeoisie who wants to equal her male peers in the corporate world have in common with the woman from the popular classes who works constantly to supplement her husband's meager salary and dreams of winning the lottery so that she no longer has to work? What does a rich Saudi in the posh districts of Paris have to do with a second-generation ethnic Algerian in the suburbs?

Post-68, the bulk of the French left did not in any substantial way oppose the outsourcing of French industry. By promoting both a policy of mass immigration and an opening to globalized Americanism, it helped wreck social solidarity. The crocodile tears this Left sheds for the fraying of the French social safety net are meaningless given its complete submission to international finance.

All this new leftism produces is a mass of atomized, alienated, increasingly cultureless individuals who are the most vulnerable of all to the consumer society of corporate globalization.

One might argue that industrial capitalism inevitably leads to financial capitalism, and that Gaullism was thus doomed to failure. But Gaullism was still an effort to stem that tide, whereas the prevailing currents of May 1968 only quickened it.

J,

Millions of workers created Mai '68, not just Daniel Cohn-Bendit. And not only would I claim that industrial capitalism relies on financial capitalism, but I would also remind you that it was the currency war de Gaulle found himself caught up in put him in that set his Gaullism against the interests of the working classes. Under de Gaulle productivy outpaced production, unemployment rose, and the a sense of futility boiled over into revolt.

Equating '68 with identity politics is dirty pool. Identity politics is what Capitalism could recuperate out of '68. It is the result of '68s failure.

Millions of workers and the greivances they carried with them made Mai '68 possible. But they did not determine its prevailing currents, and they had little to do with its outcomes. Those were determined by a series of far left grouplets, a third of whom were probably being manipulated by the CIA. It is an old trick of subversive warfare to back the extremes in any crisis or revolutionary situation so as to throw one's enemies onto the rocks.

Revolutions are not made by the masses, only facilitated by them. Revolutions become possible when power structures break down, usually because of mass discontent. But who picks up the power afterward is anyone's guess and has much more to do with conspiratorial power struggles among small groups than with any expression of mass aspirations. This is partly why revolutionary movements are almost never led by persons from the lower classes: Bolivar, Lenin, Mao, Castro...is there a prolo among them?

I maintain my point that the post-68 left is, for the most part, riddled with ideological incoherence. The social libertarian trends of the left are frankly incompatible with class-based notions of social justice. The former has jettisoned the latter, and allied itself with finance capital.

You may interpret this outcome as the failure of Mai '68. I would say that it may have been the failure of some, but it was the success of others.

The "prevailing currents" of '68 took the form of most of France occupying their workplaces, factories, universities and setting up committees and councils to self-manage their lives. The Unions, the Communist party, the pre-'68 establishment left along with de Gaulle undid the progress that was made during the strikes.
The last forty-two years have consisted of a continued effort to depoliticize social struggle, but that doesn't mean that Gaullism is some sort of solution for modern France anymore than a return to the War on Poverty or the policies of Nixon are possible solutions for the US. This is a systemic crisis. It's not something caused by a cabal, or CIA agents, or even chic liberal/leftists. It's intrinsic to Capitalism.

I doubt very much that the problems of politics can be overcome through anarchism, except in very limited circumstances. Self-rule on a localized level through committees and councils requires a very high level of social and cultural cohesion of the kind found among the TrekBoers of 300 years ago. Did such cohesion exist between the students of 1968 and the workers such that they could perpetuate such a system of governance for 5, 10 years? Not likely. Schismatic tendencies as developed among their Chinese Red Guard peers were far more probable. And it is even less likely today, not in France and certainly not in the US. There is an increasing awakening by sections of the population around the world to the problems of finance-led globalism, but it remains a very uneven awakening, divided by language, nationality, and social circumstances.

In moments of crisis, the majority of people do not "self-manage" their lives. They look to others for leadership. By being directed against General de Gaulle, the workers and students of May 1968 were badly led.

I did not address your general point about capitalism earlier, but I may as well do so now: In a way you are probably right. Finance tends to eclipse industry in the long run under capitalism. The markers of social struggle tend to become co-opted and turned into markers of consumer self-fulfillment (like the Che Guevara shirt). But such a heavy emphasis on what is intrinsic to a social system as grounds for jettisoning it is self-defeating. Human society itself is intrinsically full of backbiting, egotistical tendencies that drive it towards crises. Is that a reason to abolish it?

Capitalism is intrinsically inegalitarian. But it also allows much more avenue for the creation of wealth through the superior organization of resources than almost any other social system. Today capitalism in the West has developed to a point where it is dominated by industrial oligopolies that are themselves dominated by a finance oligarchy and there is a systemic crisis. What to do? At any moment in history one's margin of maneuver is quite small. I do not think that the people in most Western countries will follow radical experiments in anarchistic socialism, at least not en masse. They may however, at least in France (though maybe not in the US), support the state retaking the power to print money away from private banks. That would, in a single stroke, restore fiscal sovereignty to the national state and thus recreate the opportunity to affect a more equitable relationship between labour and capital within France. It would also make it possible to reposition their country internationally so that it can adjust to a world without Western dominance, rather than being roped into the mad schemes of their Anglo-American suzerain. Gaullism cannot be recreated wholesale today, but its key elements remain very relevant.

One of the slogans of May '68 was this: Demand the impossible.

It was an expression of utopian ambition then, but today I believe it is the mantra of the so called realists. The notion that Global Capitalism can continue or be reformed is today's utopian dream. And those who passionately call for a return to Capitalism with a human face are demanding the impossible. History has moved along. The system has its logic. The old forms are cracking. The choice now is between suicide or revolution.