After the Council of Ministers, the General signals for Joxe, Fouchet, and me to follow him into his office. He begins by showing us the telegram that five Nobel laureates — Mauriac, Monod, Kastler, Jacob, Lwoff — sent to him: “We urgently request you to personally make a gesture that could appease the student revolt: amnesty for convicted students, reopening of the faculties. Deep respects.”
He comments curtly: “This is despicable demagoguery.”
I venture to respond: “But it will have an effect. The leaders will make a big deal out of this, the students will feel encouraged to follow the leaders, and the situation will escalate.”
The General glares at me: “When an insurrection breaks out, you do not try to appease the insurgents, you suppress them. When opponents stop discussing and start rioting, you no longer discuss with them, you lock them up.”
AP: “We are not yet at the point of insurrection; these are riots of misunderstanding... I will try to dispel it this afternoon.”
CDG: “Those who want to misunderstand will remain deaf. Do not try to please them; you would only strengthen them.”
Joxe and Fouchet remain silent.
CDG: “What on earth do these students want?”
AP: “Every act of the government serves as a pretext for a new demand. Last Friday, late in the afternoon, the rioters in the street were protesting against the arrest of their comrades, who had gathered earlier in the courtyard of the Sorbonne. And those had invaded the courtyard to protest against the summoning of Cohn-Bendit and seven other radicals from Nanterre before the disciplinary committee. Since Monday, the rioters have been demanding the release of their comrades, sentenced on Sunday to two months in prison. And so it continues. Each time, it's a few dozen revolutionary leaders who stir things up, distribute tasks, and invent slogans.”
CDG: “It will have to stop at some point! We need a clear situation. We are ready to listen to all grievances and all proposals. We have no reason to align ourselves with mandarins who only think about preserving their acquired advantages. But we are not ready to accept that violence rages in the streets.”
He turns to Fouchet: “In case of a riot, round up a few hundred each time. They will have to calm down eventually.”
Then he continues, addressing the three of us: “You look terrified of these kids. They are only formidable to the extent that you fear them. This is a minor issue that must be resolved with firmness! It used to be settled with white batons and capes. We shouldn't spare the batons or the tear gas grenades.”
Joxe: “We are still facing a societal malaise. There is a crisis of civilization that is also evident in many other countries. It is fueling a collective hysteria that must be calmed urgently.”
CDG: “That's all nonsense. If there are problems, it is up to us to solve them, not anarchy! There have always been student pranks and disturbances. This time, the disturbances are more violent because they have excitable leaders who sense your apprehension and exploit it. Be unyielding, and they won't be able to exploit it anymore.”
Joxe: “Why are the young people angry? Because four of their own are in prison, because eight others are charged and pursued before the university's disciplinary committee, because they want the police to withdraw from the Latin Quarter. The question is how to eliminate the causes of their anger.”
AP: “We can make a gesture towards them to show the public that we are not brutes, but explain that any measures to calm the situation can only come as a response to the return of calm.”
CDG: “There is perhaps at most one radical among ninety-nine students who are waiting for the government to protect them. They will side with the government if the government shows resolve; they will be terrorized by the radicals if the government weakens. And don't forget” (turning to Fouchet) “that a Minister of the Interior must know, if necessary, to give the order to open fire.”
We all look at each other wide-eyed.
Joxe: “We aren't there yet!”
Fouchet: “Before it comes to that, there are intermediate measures: police charges, water cannons, batons, tear gas grenades.”
CDG: “Well, don't skimp on those means. But know that, in the end, the state has a prerogative — the right to strike down those who wish to overthrow it. You give the warnings, you shoot in the air, once, twice, and if that doesn't suffice, you shoot at their legs.”
We leave in silence.
We cross through the aides-de-camp's office so they can't hear us; then, at a sign from Joxe, we stop before crossing the threshold and start whispering in a corner.
Joxe: “Naturally, he doesn't mean a word of what he said. I know him as if I had made him. He wanted to bolster our spines with bronze. But he knows well that if we were to shoot, it would be the best way to unleash public opinion against us and topple the regime. He just wants to pressure us to vigorously use all intermediate means, so as not to resort to the last means.”
Joxe is probably right, but it's still impressive.
Shoot students? American, Japanese, Mexican, and other South American police don't hesitate to shoot, even inside campuses. Bourricaud tells me that one of his colleagues from Berkeley, an American sociologist currently in Paris, told him: “Faced with such frenzied rioters, the National Guard in our country would have immediately opened fire, and there would already be ten dead.”
Debates in the Assembly
Palais-Bourbon, Wednesday, May 8, 1968.
The National Assembly devotes the afternoon, from 3 PM to 8 PM, to the “student protests.”
Almost all the interventions during this afternoon harp on the inadmissible “occupation of the Sorbonne,” that inviolable space untouched for centuries.
I reply that the Sorbonne was not occupied by the police but emptied of its occupants; that, under all regimes, the police have entered the Sorbonne; that it would be contradictory to oppose a taboo to the forces of order and to hand over university premises to the armed militias of all factions; that the state cannot tolerate the illegal occupation of public buildings. No one objects to my demonstration.
And yet, the legend will remain: the police have desecrated the sanctuary, something they had not dared to do for five centuries.
Sudreau, perhaps trying to spare me, blames the cause of these disorders on the absurd decision made a few years earlier to set up a campus on the Nanterre site: “You can't create a modern faculty,” he says, “in a dilapidated environment.”
I'm tempted to respond that he himself was the author of that decision. But since I'm not entirely sure and can't risk provoking a session incident that could backfire on me, I remain silent. I'll make the clarification, if necessary, after having duly verified it.
One can sense both sides of the chamber being tempted by the two extreme solutions: to crack down on the students as they cracked down on the fellagha during the Algerian War; or to capitulate to them, since you're always right when you're twenty years old. But most deputies feel that both solutions are as simplistic as each other, and that a third one must be found: to bring down the fever so that reasonable people can talk about reasonable things.
Hours pass. Fouchet, who has come to join me at the government bench, is worried. He whispers to me: “The demonstration that is about to begin in the Latin Quarter threatens to be violent. The students are numerous and very agitated. My forces are insufficient. I've had to send a lot of CRS and mobile units throughout the West. We can't control both the streets of Paris and the artichokes of Brittany at the same time. Try to avoid confrontation tonight. You need to quickly say something calming.”
He is obviously right. Whoever gains time gains everything. I immediately add a reassuring announcement in the margin of the presentation I have prepared: “The goal has always been the rapid resumption of classes. But it is clear that what needs to resume are classes, not violent demonstrations in the lecture halls. It is clear that we would be in an insoluble situation if the unrest that led to the suspension of teaching were to resume with the reopening of classes. Therefore, such a measure cannot be taken in a climate of disorder and violence.”
“Furthermore, this measure can only be based on the trust placed in the teaching staff and in the students as well, regarding the maintenance of order in the face of potential agitators or provocateurs, and the maintenance of the calm necessary for the university's work and the functioning of its institutions. If these conditions seem to be met, the resumption of classes at the Faculty of Letters of Paris-Sorbonne and at the Faculty of Letters of Nanterre could occur as soon as the rector and the concerned deans deem it possible, which I hope could begin as early as tomorrow afternoon.”
This text, which Fouchet approves, makes the reopening conditional on two conditions: a calm demonstration tonight and assurance that the conditions for a normal resumption of classes are met. The “de-escalation” comes at this price. I send an excerpt an hour before delivering it to AFP as well as to France-Soir, which, under the clearly exaggerated headline: “The Sorbonne reopened tomorrow,” will make it a special edition sold near the demonstration.
A little after 7 P.M., Joxe returns from the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, where the General, surrounded by my colleagues, went to rekindle the flame to commemorate the victory and purify the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which the “enragés” had desecrated the day before. Joxe has seen the special edition of France-Soir: he calls Pelletier while I am at the Assembly. He is beside himself: “Your minister has gone too far! The General is going to be furious! Do you take us for nitwits?” I call him after the session; the additional details quickly calm him down.
The expected effect occurs: the fever immediately subsides. The demonstration takes place calmly.
But the dispersal, requested by UNEF and whose call was spread by FER and UEC activists, leaves a bitter taste for many demonstrators, for whom the activism of Cohn-Bendit, the JCR, and the CAL aligns much better with their romanticism of throwing cobblestones.
In the morning, Geismar had announced on the radio: “Today we take the Sorbonne.”
In the evening, he is persuaded by Sauvageot and probably the CGT that indeed, it is necessary to seize the opportunity of de-escalation — there is no need to take the Sorbonne tonight since it will be open tomorrow. Cohn-Bendit recounted how, after the dispersal, he and his comrades decided to break this logic of appeasement and provoke “the test of strength”: “We did not have an immediate political objective to defend, but a bet to win, that of the strength of the Movement's autonomy.”
Around 2 A.M., Geismar attends this meeting of the “March 22” group. “He made a self-criticism; he, also, cried.” He releases the leftist in him.
The next day, at 8 A.M., Cohn-Bendit meets Geismar at the SNESup office, where a meeting of all movements is taking place. They get what they want: whether the Sorbonne is open or not, the struggle continues. Krivine’s JCR aligns with this provocative strategy, and Sauvageot follows, more or less willingly.
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De Gaulle’s reaction to the de-escalation of his government
Salon doré, Thursday, May 9, 1968.
The General has summoned me for this afternoon. The aide-de-camp who called me this morning does not hide the fact that I will probably face a difficult moment: “He is irritated.”
I can guess why. But time moves faster in the Latin Quarter than in the schedules of power. A gathering took place early this afternoon on the Place de la Sorbonne. The radios report the incendiary remarks of Cohn-Bendit and Sauvageot: “We have been played! We do not want to resume our classes and take our exams like obedient little students! We want to occupy the Sorbonne day and night to carry out the Cultural Revolution! Tomorrow, we will gather again here and storm the Sorbonne.”
These thunderous bravadoes are immediately echoed by a leaflet distributed to students and onlookers in the Latin Quarter that afternoon, and which is widely reported by radios and news agencies:
“More than ever, the struggle continues! We are being offered the resumption of classes, in order and calm, as if nothing had happened! Worse still, control of access to the faculties by the police and the administration! The first manifestation of our will remains: THE OCCUPATION OF THE SORBONNE. We will go there, NOT TO RESUME OUR CLASSES LIKE OBEDIENT LITTLE CHILDREN, but to demonstrate in action our right to exercise all political freedoms within the University! In order for the struggle to not weaken, we must continue our mass actions every day. [...] The Sorbonne will be occupied, and meetings will multiply there day and night.”
Thus, the leftist leaders are determined to escalate again, which I interrupted last night with the announcement of the conditional reopening of the Sorbonne. They demand a complete surrender from the authorities. They want power within the university.
The “de-escalation” seems poorly underway, I think to myself as I climb the steps of the Élysée. How could one begin to reopen tonight or even tomorrow?
When I enter the Golden Salon, the General does not come to greet me as usual. He simply rises from his chair, shakes my hand over his desk, and, pointing imperiously to a chair, declares: “You were wrong.”
And he gives me a vigorous reprimand: “I told you that we must show no weakness. I repeated to you yesterday morning, after the Council, that any concession would be seen as a surrender. Why did you do the opposite of what I asked? The government appears to be retreating. It looks cornered. That is the worst thing in times of crisis.”
The General hands me, or rather throws at me across his desk, this morning’s issue of Combat, which headlines in bold across the entire front page: “De Gaulle Has Given In.”
AP: “General, you yourself have been betrayed by the press often enough to understand that I have been today. Here is exactly what I said yesterday in the Assembly.”
I hand him the Official Journal, which I fortunately brought with me, pointing out with my thumb the passage I highlighted in the margin: “It is clear that we would be in an unsolvable situation if the agitation that led to the suspension of teaching were to resume with the resumption of classes. Therefore, such a measure cannot be taken in a climate of disorder and violence.”
He puts on his glasses, reads, and relaxes:
“Splendid! The conditions you set have not been met! That’s obvious! So, you are not reopening the Sorbonne. It is not us who are changing our minds. It is the anarchists who are rejecting our proposals. You just need to explain that.”
The General has softened. As he often does when he has lost his temper and regrets giving in, he compensates for his irritation with an excess of goodwill.
CDG: “Alright already, explain to me who these extremists are. What’s going on in their heads?”
AP: “Among the demonstrators, there are three categories. First, the leftists, which include the ‘enragés’ from Nanterre, the ‘Revolutionary Communist Youth’ who are Trotskyists, the ‘High School Action Committees’ aligned with their ideology at the secondary level, and the ‘Maoists’; they are very few in number but highly fanatical. Then, there are the communists, who are much more numerous and are in a quarrel with the leftists but never want to be outdone. Finally, there is a less committed mass, but they are tempted to join the leftists if there is repression against them.”
“The issue is to not let the leftists sow disorder with impunity, while at the same time not repressing them too brutally, otherwise the communists and the moderate mass will come to their aid.”
CDG: “You say that the communists are at odds with the leftists. What makes you think they’re not in cahoots?”
AP: “The leftists keep insulting the communists. Cohn-Bendit, on May 1st, called them ‘Stalinist scoundrels.’L'Humanité last week, and Soviet newspapers today, have published very violent articles against them.”
CDG: “What exactly does Cohn-Bendit want?”
AP: “He criticizes the communists for having been absorbed by bourgeois society, which he considers corrupt and irreformable. What he wants is to destroy the established order, of which the Communist Party is a guarantor. For example, he expelled Juquin, a communist deputy, from Nanterre a few days ago, and just now, he confronted Louis Aragon on the Sorbonne square. He insulted Professor Kastler and mathematician Schwartz, who are left-wing but wanted to defend him and his friends. Why? Because both support selection.”
CDG: “And does he demand reforms in the University?”
AP: “That’s the least of his concerns. He denounces any reforms that would seek to better adapt education to the needs of society, since it is this society that he rejects. He wants nothing to do with the established order. That’s probably why he exerts such a fascination on many young people, who had never imagined such audacity.”
During our meeting, La Chevalerie brings the General a dispatch from AFP reproducing the remarks made by Cohn-Bendit and Sauvageot. He reads it and hands it to me.
CDG: “They don’t give a damn about their courses and exams! What they’re interested in isn’t restoring calm and returning to work; it’s creating chaos! You see clearly that we must not give in! We must not trust them!”
“They have only one goal: to destroy the regime and the country. And the others are like sheep following the leaders without raising a word. First, we need to restore order. It’s a matter of power dynamics. You’ve given the impression that we are weaker than them. We need to show them that we are stronger. We are not going to yield to their ultimatum!”
AP: “It’s clear that after the statements from these extremists, if we were to reopen the Sorbonne unconditionally, we would be admitting that the insurrection has won.”
I expected the General to talk to me about the opening, later that day, of the Peace Conference on Avenue Kléber. He doesn’t mention it, but I am sure he is only thinking about this strange contrast. On one side, the triumph of his foreign policy: that the Americans and North Vietnamese have decided to meet in Paris to try to find a path to peace — what joy! On the other side, these wild riots — how disgusting!
De-escalation fails
Thursday, May 9, 1968, late afternoon.
I inform Joxe and Fouchet of the General's position, which does not surprise them and which they both deem perfectly justified given the verbal violence of the leaders that afternoon. They believe that the reopening of the Sorbonne is now a matter for the government and is beyond the jurisdiction of the university authorities. I inform Rector Roche, instructing him to relay the information to the deans of the five faculties he is about to assemble.
Roche is caught off guard. Like me, he had firmly counted on the positive outcome of the de-escalation. On the phone this morning, as soon as I arrived at the office, we had sketched out the plan: immediate reopening of Nanterre, a more gradual reopening of the Sorbonne due to the priority given to the agrégation exams — his delicate machine does not tolerate any interruptions — whose tests run until Saturday.
Roche had a long meeting with the deans. By midday, I approve their communiqué by phone, which they publish around the same time that Cohn-Bendit announces that an “open Sorbonne” will be an occupied Sorbonne, and I head for the Élysée:
“The rector and the deans of the University of Paris have decided to lift the suspension of classes. Classes, practical work, and tutorials will therefore gradually resume. The rector and the deans call on teachers and students to return to their work. They rely on students to avoid any incidents and disorder.”
Upon returning from the Élysée, I explain to Roche that, unfortunately, we cannot rely on students to avoid incidents and disorder since their leaders are announcing and planning these disturbances. “Therefore, we will maintain the closure of the Sorbonne until calm is restored. However, the doors will open at Nanterre, where no incidents have occurred since May 3rd.”
I sense his unease. I expect him to inform the deans. Have they and he been less attentive than us to the positions and provocations of the anti-university movement leaders? Around 7 p.m., the rector declares to AFP:
“I am in constant phone contact with the Minister. He knows the very precise positions taken by the University and the deans regarding the reopening of the Sorbonne, but only he can make it effective. For now, it is therefore a status quo. The students' decision to occupy the premises has certainly changed the Minister's position.”
So, a decision remains to be published, which the university authorities clearly do not want to assume, nor even share. Since the General reproached me for being too long on television on Monday, I limit myself to drafting a brief communiqué:
“The rector and the deans decided this morning on measures to organize an immediate gradual resumption of classes and practical work at the Sorbonne. They have issued a call to students to avoid any incidents and disorder. However, a large gathering has formed in front of the Sorbonne. It has been announced that the Sorbonne will be ‘occupied’ and that ‘discussions will be held day and night.’ This is not a return to calm or to work.”
“The conditions for resuming classes are not yet met. The Sorbonne will therefore remain closed until calm is restored. The Minister holds the organizers of such demonstrations responsible for prolonging this situation.”
Was I too laconic? Has AFP been attentive enough?
This text, dictated at 7:20 P.M. to be the lead item for the 8 P.M. news broadcasts and television, does not hit the wires until 8:49 P.M., after the news and the press “closure.”
The media have given so much prominence to the announcement of the Sorbonne reopening, considering it as a fait accompli, and so little to the explanation of the contrary decision, that the public is left with the impression of an inexplicable reversal on my part. The media obscure the fact that it is the behavior of the extremist leaders that forces us to abandon the announced reopening. The government appears to be unsure of what it wants, or to want it without good reasons.
Friday, May 10, 1968.
This Friday, May 10, is as if swallowed up by the demonstration organized at the call of the Movement of March 22 and the High School Action Committees.
The High School Action Committees start with a bang. Just like the first skirmishes on Friday, May 3, they form the advance guard.
Before 8 A.M., about two thousand boys and girls from the High School Action Committees gather at Place Clichy. They then subdivide, following an order, into several columns to recruit high school students at the gates of all the schools in Paris. These high school students, who have already demonstrated, arrive with a certain prestige in front of their peers who have not yet done so.
The crowds grow larger as they gather. They assemble late in the morning at Gare Saint-Lazare and then head to Denfert-Rochereau for the demonstration organized by UNEF. Their processions are perfectly organized. This movement across Paris is superbly organized.
For the first time, professors are seen accompanying their students. Communist professors who, until the beginning of the week, had warned their colleagues about the “troublemakers,” have mobilized their students against colleagues they accuse of “abandoning the students.” The principals call us all morning: “What should we do? Try a counter-operation, asking the teachers to dissuade their students from joining demonstrations that risk being violent and are not the business of high school students?” This is obviously the speech I encourage. But it is hardly heard: how can one prevent very young high school students from yielding to the thrill of joining older students in protests?
UNEF follows suit. It issues a classically leftist call to action: “The struggle that has begun will continue. Organize yourselves! Exams, as instruments of selection, will no longer be tolerated.” But its primary goal is to broaden the movement by aligning with workers' unions. Sauvageot, Séguy, and Descamps met yesterday. They are meeting again this Friday, and a major national demonstration is announced for Monday, May 13. It will be a general assembly: CGT, CFDT, FEN, SNESup, UNEF. Only Force ouvrière and SGEN have stayed out of it. Force ouvrière issues an embarrassed communiqué: it refuses to demonstrate “alongside a political organization, the CGT, which the majority of students have severely judged.” SGEN remains very moderate throughout this period; its honorary secretary general, Vignaux, stays in contact with my office.
However, the activists are speeding up a situation that escapes the control of union apparatuses.
In response to the expansion of the movement to high schools, I seek the support of parent associations. Of the three federations, two publish calls for calm and responsibility from parents, with the text prepared in conjunction with my office and disseminated by AFP in the afternoon. I send a telex to the rectors, which is promptly made public. The text was prepared for me by Lamicq, president of the Association of principals.
“This morning, groups of agitators tried to disrupt teaching in several high schools in the Paris region by setting up picket lines or encouraging students to skip classes. I urge you to instruct all school principals in your academy to use their full authority to protect students, minors entrusted to them by their parents, from agitators or provocateurs seeking to drag them into street movements or even violent demonstrations. In particular, they should not recognize any ‘student committees’ that claim to form. It is their responsibility to prevent and, if necessary, to suppress with vigor any attempt to disturb school life.”
I also seek to obtain public statements from university authorities. Zamansky offered to gather prestigious signatures on a reasonable text. However, he quickly gave up after being rebuffed by Lichnerowicz. All we got was a statement from the deans of pharmacy, who praised the “calm” of their colleagues and students. A meager harvest!
Even the support from the majority is not without flaws. The left-wing Gaullists are reluctant. Capitant calls me: “We should have maintained the announced reopening of the Sorbonne and left the students responsible for any disorder.” Not content with expressing this on the phone, he then broadcasts the same opinion on Radio Luxembourg. David Rousset says on France-Inter that he is “with the students.” Which students?
I call Joxe: “The announcement of the reopening of the Sorbonne wasn’t enough to defuse the agitation. Could we not resolve the issue of the four prisoners, which unites the students? The simplest solution would be provisional release.” He agrees. However, likely out of provocation, the four prisoners have not appealed, making their release impossible. He agrees to have their lawyers received by senior magistrates, and indeed they are received in the afternoon. It turns out that a court of appeal hearing could be convened after a five-day delay. We could announce that requests for provisional release would be considered favorably. This offers some negotiating elements.
I issue a brief statement intended to mitigate the effect of the continued closure in Paris:
“The resumption of classes took place this morning in Nanterre. If calm is confirmed, classes and practical work suspended elsewhere since last Friday can resume. The necessary measures will be implemented gradually. The Minister of National Education is determined not to let irresponsible elements take over the faculties and disrupt their functioning.”
A few tens of thousands of students and high school students gather at Denfert-Rochereau. It is little, certainly, compared to the 160,000 students in the Paris metropolitan area and as many high school students. But it is a lot compared to what one is used to seeing in Paris.
To rouse this youthful crowd, the speakers, perched on the pedestal of the Lion of Belfort, find appropriate themes. One urges the gathering to go to the Santé prison to show solidarity with “our imprisoned brothers.” Another asks that they go to Saint-Antoine Hospital, where “our comrades blinded by tear gas are being treated and may lose their sight.” And Cohn-Bendit exhorts the crowd to simultaneously cause disturbances “everywhere in the capital,” so that the police will not know where to turn.
The demonstration this evening promises to be tough. Can one risk a confrontation that has the appearance of a civil war without first attempting peace talks? Neither Louis Joxe nor I believed it possible. Unless one resorts to repression that does not have the support of Parisian opinion and the media, it will be necessary to respond in one way or another to the three points of the agitation leaders: the release of the four detainees, the evacuation of the Latin Quarter by the CRS and the mobile gendarmes, and the reopening of the faculties.
At 7 P.M., I receive, at my request, for the second time this week, the two leaders of the FEN, Marangé, its secretary general, and Daubard, secretary general of the National Union of Primary School Teachers. It seemed to me that they could act as intermediaries. We quickly agree on the process announced to the Assembly the day before yesterday, which the trio of leaders blocked yesterday. They must renounce their threat to “occupy the Sorbonne day and night.” The “three preconditions” can be lifted if the conditions we consider together are accepted: checking student IDs for entry to the Sorbonne, stationing a police van in the street to prevent the intrusion of a commando, and maintaining, for forty-eight hours, a minimum of law enforcement forces until calm is restored.
They have barely left, around 8 P.M., when Joxe informs me over the phone that he has just tasked Maître Sarda, his longtime friend, a left-wing Gaullist, lawyer for the UNEF and the SNESup as well as for Cohn-Bendit, with negotiating an agreement. “He has the approval of the ‘château.’” I warn him that I have entrusted a mediation mission to the two leaders of the FEN. He balks: “We can't conduct two negotiations in parallel!”
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AP: “Two precautions are better than one. The chances of success are not great! The three leaders are more enraged than each other. It's better to run these two opportunities at the same time.”
Joxe yields to my reasons, but in compensation, takes me hostage: he asks me to join him so that we can be side by side if one of our fishermen brings in his catch: “The simplest thing is for you to come here and we will coordinate the talks.” I immediately go to Place Vendôme.
We agree on a scenario. I call Roche to ask him to receive a delegation from the SNESup and the UNEF, which will be brought to him by Maître Sarda. It will suffice for the delegation to confirm its agreement on our three concessions and our counterparts, and to announce it upon leaving. The police commissioner of the 5th arrondissement is tasked with going to fetch this delegation around the Sorbonne and bringing it to the rector by crossing the police line. We draft the statement that the representatives of the UNEF and the SNESup should make after their meeting with the rector: “In light of our desire to see classes resume normally at the Sorbonne and our promise not to occupy it, we have obtained assurance that the public prosecutor’s office will not object to the lawyers’ request for provisional release of the four imprisoned protesters.”
However, Sarda informs us that, through the intermediary of Michel Rocard, secretary general of the PSU, interventions have been made with the UNEF and the SNESup to have them withdraw their threat of permanent occupation of the Sorbonne, replaced by an “expiatory” meeting in the courtyard of the Sorbonne. Maître Sarda believes that the revolutionaries are looking for a way out: “These gentlemen are in a great hurry. The operation would take place this evening, during the demonstration. Sauvageot would publicly withdraw the threat ‘to occupy day and night.’ In response, the police would step aside and allow the students to hold a meeting in the Sorbonne. They commit to ending the recess period within a maximum of two hours.” We do not object. But this scenario will also remain unfulfilled.
At 10:05 P.M., Geismar speaks on RTL: he refuses to negotiate with the rector; he is waiting for answers. The journalist tells him that he will not get any if he does not go and seek them. Geismar responds that he does not want to negotiate “under the pressure of the CRS.” He displays the hardline position of someone who only wants negotiations after the adversary’s capitulation. He will not cross the police line to go and speak to the rector; it is up to the rector to cross it. And when Chalin, the deputy rector, bravely proposes to do just that, to go and speak to him where he is, Geismar manages to thwart this initiative by demanding as a public precondition, on the air and live, what could only be the result of a discreet negotiation.
Cohn-Bendit occupies Quartier Latin
On his side, Cohn-Bendit issues the order: “We occupy the Latin Quarter, but without attacking the police.” He makes this proclamation perched on one of the first barricades. From then onwards, they multiply.
It is not now that the Leftists will reduce their demands. They transform the Latin Quarter into a Fort-Chabrol. They want a fight. Nothing will stop them now.
AP to Joxe: “It is 11 P.M. You must realize that now, neither the negotiations you entrusted to Sarda nor the good offices I entrusted to Marangé can succeed.”
Joxe: “The worst is not always certain! We must not despair. In any case, Grimaud wants to wait until the kids have left. So, there is nothing to change in the arrangement. Let's still give a chance to the talks. It doesn't change anything for the clearing of the barricades.”
AP: “But why must we wait, to react to a barricade being built, for a general offensive against all the barricades?”
Joxe: “That is not your concern, it is Fouchet's and Grimaud's. Besides, I am going to Place Beauvau to finalize with Fouchet the arrangement for the police operations. It is better for you to stay here. In any case, one thing is certain, I did not order shots to be fired at the pieds-noirs in Algeria, I will not order shots to be fired at the students in Paris.”
This is obvious. But we repeat it so much that the leaders can hardly feel dissuaded from their audacity.
Here I am, stuck at the Chancellery. I do not like being isolated in a ministry that is foreign to me, while its head is in a third ministry that is not his own. But I bow to the authority of the Acting Prime Minister.
After 1 A.M., while we are waiting with less and less hope for a sign from Sarda or Marangé, we hear on our transistor radio that Cohn-Bendit is conferring with the rector. However, the rector had made it clear that he could not receive Cohn-Bendit, the number one defendant brought before the university jurisdiction.
I call Roche: “What is happening? The radios are announcing that you are discussing with Cohn-Bendit.”
The rector: “That is impossible, Minister.”
AP: “You do not have in front of you a redhead with a round face?”
The rector: “That is correct, Minister.”
AP: “Mr. Rector, wouldn't it be better if we continued this conversation in another office?”
(He calls me back from the next office.)
The rector: “It is a terrible misunderstanding.”
AP: “We must not make Cohn-Bendit appear as the one who holds the fate of this night in his hands, nor give him the benefit of negotiation.”
A comical misunderstanding: instead of the expected delegations from the two organizations, UNEF and SNESup, responsible for the demonstration, here are three professors and three students who declare themselves without a mandate.
The rector informs me of the names of the three professors: Touraine, Bacquet, professor of English at the Sorbonne, Motchane, professor of physics at the Faculty of Sciences.
Just then, Touraine asks to speak to me: “At this point, there is only one thing to do. Order your police to withdraw.”
AP: “It is not my police, it is the police of the Republic. Under no regime would a government capitulate to a riot, or else it would not be worthy of governing.”
Touraine: “Then, we have nothing more to say to each other. There will be dozens of deaths and you will bear the responsibility.”
AP: “The police will not shoot. But if you want them not to retaliate with tear gas grenades, advise your friends not to bombard them with Molotov cocktails.”
Did I do well to be reassuring? The General would probably disapprove: “One must maintain a frightening silence.”
The rector takes the line again. “Mr. Rector,” I say to him, “Cohn-Bendit is asking for the impossible, knowing well that we cannot accept it, so that no negotiation can succeed. Therefore, you have no choice but to escort your visitors out.”
The police dismantles the barricades, takes back Quartier Latin
At Place Beauvau, Fouchet, Grimaud, and Joxe agree that the order to clear the barricades will be given at 2 A.M. “Absolute secrecy! The element of surprise must be complete,” Joxe recommends to me when he returns to the Chancellery. Grimaud, who inspected the area around midnight, estimates that he has a good window around 2 A.M. Before that, there would still be too many people. After that, the more time the indomitable have to organize the stronghold, the more difficult and risky the clearing would become.
My colleagues share my sentiment: it is essential not to leave the airwaves solely to the rioters. The government's silence becoming oppressive, an appeal would at least have the advantage of reassuring the listeners. It seems essential to me to announce the assault and to put everyone before their responsibilities. I scribble an appeal:
“No government worthy of its name would allow a district of Paris to turn into a fortified camp. The assault will be launched shortly on the barricades that have just been erected. I implore you not to engage in acts of force, which in any case will not prevent the law enforcement from doing its duty. Do not let yourselves be drawn into this dangerous game!”
“The University and education will not be renewed through street clashes. The government will take initiatives in the coming days so that all demands are examined with benevolence in dialogue and calm, and that the necessary transformations are brought to university life. Students, high school students, do not give in to the intoxication of violence! You have better things to do, we all have better things to do, in the interest of the University and of France!”
I read this text to Joxe, who gives his agreement but asks me to obtain Grimaud's agreement, “who is in charge of the operation.”
I call Grimaud, who flatly refuses: a public warning has no chance of leading to the dispersal of the demonstrators, and it would deprive the assailants of the benefit of surprise, which is essential. Joxe agrees with him: “It is not for civil authority to complicate the task of the police.”
Around 2 A.M., when the last metros have taken away their share of kids, the word is with force — that of order and that of the riot. Police, gendarmes, and CRS do their work. The barricades are taken down one after the other, without the feared or hoped-for deaths.
At 3:15 A.M., I go to the Interior Ministry, Place Beauvau. In Fouchet's office, very much at ease, I find Joxe, Debré, Gorse, and those who saw the General late in the evening: Tricot and Foccart. Dannaud goes back and forth between his office and that of his minister. Fouchet gives instructions to Grimaud, speaks on the phone with a “Mr. Professor,” of whom he says after hanging up: “Kastler has just been politely addressed as ‘tu.’”
Around 4:30 A.M., I return to Rue de Grenelle. Pouthier calls me there to beg me to ensure that the police do not enter the École Normale Supérieure on Rue d'Ulm, where combatants, wounded or not, normaliens or not, are gathering in tight ranks. I immediately call Grimaud to ask him to consider the School as a sanctuary. A little mockingly, he agrees to instruct his men to stop at the gate, despite their immense desire to make arrests inside the School: “So, you are protecting the most hardened leftists and Maoists, those who set the example for building the barricades!”
I had barely hung up when I suddenly became aware of my contradiction: here I am, caught red-handed, wanting to sanctuarize the cloister of Rue d'Ulm, when just two days ago, I demonstrated to the Assembly the futility of those who take the courtyard of the Sorbonne for a sanctuary. In turn, I have given in to the corporatist bias to which the professors and students of the Sorbonne succumb: believing that their corporation is of a different essence and can therefore live above the laws. The only difference is that the dear professors have convinced the whole of France, through radio and television, that no such violation of the Sorbonne has occurred since the Middle Ages; whereas my discreet intervention in favor of Normale goes unnoticed.
I receive Marangé and Daubard again, who come to report the failure of their good offices. There are times when common sense has no right to speak. Nevertheless, we decide together to renew the threads, on neutral ground, at the Maison des Instituteurs: Pelletier and Olmer would meet Geismar and Sauvageot there this morning at 11 A.M.
The night has been sleepless for the police, the demonstrators, and the ministers — at all levels. Except for the General. Assured of the clarity with which, as is his custom, he gave his instructions for firmness, telephoned to Joxe and Tricot, he went to bed around 11 P.M.
Pompidou also, from Kabul, gave his instructions at the beginning of the evening. Joxe, struck by their formulation, repeats them to me as Jobert has just communicated them to him over the phone: “Hold firm, the time for concessions has not yet come.” Joxe wonders: “Is Pompidou reserving the right to make concessions upon his return?”
When the streets of the Latin Quarter are nothing but rubble and burned cars, what remains most difficult to achieve is the return to university order. Negotiation has failed; it was not possible with the enragés. What remains is to try to outflank the small group of agitators with the large mass of students. We must open a perspective, make a public offer. It is this approach that I intend to put forward to the General.
Saturday, May 11, 1968, morning.
Joxe calls me. He tells me that he had the General woken up so he would not learn about the night’s events from the radio. The General immediately summoned Joxe, Messmer, and Fouchet at 6 A.M. to discuss the maintenance of order. He immediately raised the question that directly concerned him as the head of the armed forces: “Should we bring in the troops?”
Messmer strongly opposed it. Today's army is no longer suited for law enforcement missions. If we call on the Legion or the paratroopers, they will not hesitate to shoot, and the worst could happen. As for the regiments composed of young conscripts, there is a risk that they will side with the students instead.
On his side, Fouchet tells me that upon entering the General's office, he exclaimed: “Thank God, no deaths!” He adds: “The General did not comment, but he must realize that it was the best possible news. It is a miracle that, in such a riot, the police limited themselves to a measured and massive intervention. It is a miracle that the only serious injuries are on their side. It is a miracle that the police officers had enough composure to adapt their tactics at every moment.”
The General told him: “We must give hooch to the police! It would not be too high a price for their morale. They deserve it.” This was his way of saying that they should be given bonuses. By offering them financial compensation, we would help them endure the harshness of the confrontations.
Order has been maintained. And law enforcement forces have not only given the rioters a beating but also a lesson. The state has at its disposal one hundred thousand gendarmes and one hundred thousand police officers, half of whom could be rapidly operational, not to mention the reservists. It is therefore absurd to conclude from this night that the next demonstration would take control of Paris.
Yet this is what they believe at Matignon, and what they will convince Pompidou of upon his return.
Saturday, May 11, 1968.
Meanwhile, countless statements reach me, condemning “police brutality.” Jacques Droz, a professor of contemporary history at the Sorbonne, sends me a motion on behalf of three hundred teachers from the Faculty of Letters, who, “appalled by the deliberate massacre of students (sic), demand the resignation of Rector Roche, in whom the University can no longer recognize itself.”
Around 10 A.M., Marangé informs us that his meeting of good offices has been postponed to 2 P.M., and around noon, that Geismar and Sauvageot have hardened their stance and want a written agreement before any contact…
The Council of the University of Paris met this morning in a mood of lamentation. It asked the rector and the deans to urgently request an audience with the head of state to inform him that they no longer have confidence in the minister. During this session, I did not have many advocates. The deans do not understand how what I had solemnly announced to the National Assembly — or at least, the simplified translation that had been made by the headline of France-Soir — had not come to pass. This proves that the long phone call I had with the rector after my meeting with the General was not relayed.
La Chevalerie calls me late in the morning: “The General has received a request for an audience from the rector and the deans, who have been tasked by the Council of the University of Paris to go as a body to see him. Naturally, the General, who knows the spirit in which this approach is being made, will not receive the deans. However, he will speak with Rector Roche in your presence. He will receive you first without him, then he will extend the conversation with you. He is expecting you at 6 P.M.”
I can only be grateful to the General for the elegance with which he covers me.
Before going to the Élysée, I have Joxe on the phone. This afternoon, the General received him, Fouchet, and Grimaud successively. He keeps me informed:
“All three of us told him that this escalation is absurd and that the only way to stop it is to release the imprisoned protesters, promise an amnesty, reopen the Sorbonne, and withdraw the police forces.”
The General was unyielding: “One does not capitulate to a riot! One does not negotiate with rioters! If we back down, there is no more state! Power does not retreat, or it is lost.”
