Document 2:
A FLASH FIRE OR THE BEGINNING OF A CONFLAGRATION?

On Monday, May 6, 1968, a demonstration against police repression in Paris that began with 6,000 participants grew by evening to 20,000. Violent clashes with the police took place at the barricades erected on Boulevard St. Germain and Place Maubert. That evening, the March 22 Movement issued the following leaflet:

SINCE FRIDAY:
—948 arrests, 31 still in custody
—13 condemned to prison
—more than 800 wounded
—8 students to go before the disciplinary council
—student arrests all day Sunday
—threats of expulsion from the area
—school lockouts
—a xenophobic and racist media campaign
—fascist provocations
—general mobilization of police forces (concentration of provincial police forces in Paris, suppression of permits
—thousands of armed cops transforming the center of Paris into an entrenched camp

WHY IS THE BOURGEOISIE BEGINNING TO BE AFRAID?

During the strikes at Caen, Saint-Nazaire, Redon, Rhodiaceta, the bourgeoisie understood the danger.

This is because students now use methods of struggle used by the most combative sectors of the working class; in unmasking the authoritarian nature of the University, students are radicalizing their struggles.

The bourgeoisie realizes it is vulnerable in the face of workers and students united in struggle; it tries to mask the facts by slandering student actions while keeping silent about those of workers and to violently repress worker actions before it is too late.

To continue this struggle for victory, means to organize all those ready for combat, to gather together their energies, to unify their forces.

The battle of the workers in Caen, Redon, Rhodiaceta, the battle of young people, the battle of students and teachers in their workplaces, in their towns, must be a single battle.

To isolate a sector of struggle is to abandon it, despite its resistance and the courage of militants in the face of violent repression.

The battles in the last few months (and especially those over the last few days) prove to us that the principal and most urgent task is to forge weapons of a common fight.

Explosions of anger from workers, students, the young, must not be a flash fire to be quickly extinguished.

WE REFUSE TO IMPROVE THE BOURGEOIS UNIVERSITY.
WE WANT TO RADICALLY TRANSFORM IT.

so that from now on the university will form intellectuals who fight alongside workers and not against them.

It’s from struggles carried out this year by workers in the major industrial sectors that we have learned our methods of struggle and that we have understood the necessity of taking our fight outside of the closed sphere of the university.

We want working-class interests to be defended at the university too. Those who want to separate us from workers oppose the interests of the working class and those who want to fight along with it.

Already on Friday, May 3rd, and Monday, May 6th, we were not alone to face repression; workers and passers-by joined us. THERE WAS SOLIDARITY IN THE STRUGGLE.

WHEREVER YOU ARE, WHEREVER WE ARE, LET’S MOBILIZE AGAINST
BOURGEOIS REPRESSION, AGAINST POLICE AGGRESSION
LET’S ORGANIZE TO EXPAND THE STRUGGLES.
MARCH 22ND MOVEMENT, NANTERRE.