Awakened memories

DAVID’S TAKE

The current demonstrations in France by students  and teachers, allegedly egged on by the far left, awaken memories of a similar movement in 1968, when I was in Paris conducting a survey of student attitudes  for an American client. I had already completed a similar report on students in London.

As today, the protestors faced the baton-wielding CRS  (riot police) and two were drowned in the  River Seine. Today’s casualties list one student who lost a hand when struck by a tear-gas grenade. At the time of writing there have been over 2,000 arrests.

France in 1968 was ruled by President De Gaulle  who was lampooned by cartoonists for his statement  France C’est Moi.  During WW2 De Gaulle had led the Free French army  whose shoulder badge was The Cross of Loraine which led Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill to declare : “I have  many crosses to bear but the heaviest is the Cross of Loraine.”

I was encouraged by the students I was investigating to view a demonstration on the Left Bank, which led to my arrest and a three-hour wait in the Prefecture while a duty-policeman studied my Carte de Commerçant and politely  wished me  Bon Soir as he led me past the long line of arrested demonstrators  to find a taxi to my home in the Paris suburb of Vau Cresson.

The demonstrations with a rallying call from the president  that brought thousands onto the Champs-Élysées, led by veterans of many wars in wheelchairs.

That’s not likely to happen under the current president, Emmanuel Macron.