A Film Like Any Other (Un film comme les autres)

4 October 1967. An hour's wage is docked from Françoise Moreau,

who sews men's shirts at Seligman's for 1.14 francs an hour.

Reason: singing while working. What's in a name?

We wonder about this as children,

writing this name which we forget is ours.

James to Paul, writing on the ears of his dog:

"I wrote your name, Liberty, with the blood of a comrade

"tortured by the Gestapo."

The people of oppressed nations

must not stop fighting for their emancipation.

Persevering in the fight is the way to succeed.

I'm embarrassed to say I give moral support and that's all.

We know that our capacity to fight is limited,

but we'd like to fight as much as we can

and to only give moral support seems rather weak to me.

Could you explain?

You mean the presence, during the strike,

of students supporting workers?

Yes, that's it.

That's... That's important, but it's not...

It's very important, but it isn't what we need to discuss.

Of course we'll be there, that seems obvious,

but where do we go from there?

What is to be done?

We can do what we did last time,

or we can do more, for instance...

It's a case of thinking it over

and deciding when to call a second general strike

and organising it better than the last one,

even though the last one wasn't a total failure

because we did learn a lot of things.

December 1967.

The head of Lycée Condorcet expels a pupil for trade union activity

after a strike organised to protest

against the resumption of classes on a Thursday.

First, then second demonstration.

High-school pupils clash with the police for the first time.

The Russian working class is decimated by the civil war.

In his fight against Stalin

Trotsky is supported by the Red Army and young students.

He hesitates to unleash them against the Party apparatus

which Stalin has taken in hand.

It was a reconnaissance mission.

If, for instance, we wanted to work in Flins,

we'd need to go to Flins.

In order to help the workers in Flins, we'd need to go to Flins

to try to get a job at a factory,

preferably at Renault because it's a tough sector,

and find out and learn what's going on at the factory.

December 1967, Le Figaro and I Express

rebel against the prohibition on campus

of free movement between boys' rooms...

...and girls' rooms.

"The main task of the theatre is to explain the story

"and communicate ideas by means of appropriate distancing effects,"

explains Bertolt Brecht to chemists at a photographic products factory.

Despite the civil strife, which adds to the horror

civilised life resumes at the start of spring

in the territories liberated by Tito.

The partisans have put the railways back in service.

Classes have resumed in some rural schools.

So, for example, the minimum...

It would have been possible to manufacture and bring out cars...

-...and give them away or... - Or exchange them.

Exchange them for other things, or something like that.

And to make red cars rather than black cars.

It's not our tragicomic achievements

that have paved the way for revolutionary progress.

At best, only by giving rise

to a compact and powerful counterrevolution,

by creating an adversary and fighting it

can the party of subversion finally become a truly revolutionary party.

Political class awareness

can only be given to the worker from outside,

that is, from outside the economic fight,

from outside the sphere of labour relations.

If we had a job like that...

Do you think it's important or not?

- It's a way of... - I think it's important.

It's a way of putting the strike in the service

either of propaganda or of information or other things.

For example, if cars were coming out of Renault

spokesmen with loudspeakers could be used

to talk about what was happening in the factory and on the picket lines.

These are small details. However, it's very important.

It shows the workers don't need a boss

to get a factory running on their terms.

- Yes, but it hasn't been done. - No, it hasn't been done. Why not?

I don't know, but you shouldn't see it as a failure.

The way to look at it is...

the general strike was a step in the right direction.

It took the struggle to a higher level.

We couldn't solve the problem of organising

the means of production to serve the strikers, it's true.

That's the next stage.

The next stage is when, say,

we can provide food

using contacts with the countryside with the cooperatives, etc.

It's not just the contacts.

Farmers are chucking away tomatoes and stuff several times a year

and that's not good.

It's feasible as long as, for example,

we stay in contact with them and provide explanations.

For example, we explain to the farmers...

what the strike at Flins means for the workers at Flins

and we tell them that now...

The important thing is for people to feel connected.

So we say, for example, to a cooperative,

"You're going to send supplies to the strikers at this factory

"and we're going to explain what's going on at this factory."

Similarly, we can say...

to workers in the factory,

"This is the situation.

"This is the situation in this place

"and this is why they feel solidarity with you.

"They have demands too." That's how we do it.

What did you mean when you said it wasn't a failure?

I mean, it was a failure, it was a failed revolution, sure.

But it wasn't a failure...

December 1967, IFOP poll.

37% of the French believe that before the year 2000

there will be another world war. 19% have no opinion.

72% think the problem of unemployment won't be solved.

58% think that in France they'll drink more wine than now.

Prison bombed, police station blown up,

perceptions blown up.

Where? In Quimper, in Rennes, in Saint-Brieuc, in Plouzevédé.

When? In January 1968.

To check if a youth is revolutionary or not, there is only one criterion:

does he feel solidarity with the workers and farmers

and is he fighting for their cause?

If he wants it and does it, he is a revolutionary.

If he stops doing it tomorrow,

then he'll be non-revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.

February 1968. In Caen the workers fight.

The police disguise the number of deaths.

...the same bonus for everyone.

- The bonus? - The same for everyone.

The same for everyone. What does it depend on?

The bonus depends on the rate of work,

on the output the factory achieves.

If the output is down, we don't get a bonus.

No doubt this year...

The output agreed by the unions hasn't been reached.

The employer tried to get us to reach it anyway...

- What is the maximum output? - The output is...

- It's unlimited. - The output is decided...

If the employer determines a ceiling,

that ceiling must be reached.

What is it?

- We know nothing. You don't know. - No, we're in the dark.

Do you think it would help you to know, for example...

You realise...

We must attack with non-violence, and defend with violence.

22 March, 1968, in protest against the arrests

at demonstrations organised by Vietnam Day Committees,

600 Nanterre students occupy lecture theatre B1

and rename it "Che Guevara".

At the CFC in Alés, after a 48-hour strike,

the enamel workers obtained a 15-centime pay rise.

The colour workers immediately began to strike for a pay rise too.

Say they were a number of cars short on the assembly line yesterday,

that number would have to be made up tomorrow morning.

But they don't tell the workers that.

They just think there was a shortfall in the output.

For example, two and a half years ago...

when the R16 first came out...

the painting came to a halt, I think.

A car fell into a vat.

That blocked the entire assembly line and they were forced to raid the stock.

History so far has found no other way to advance humanity

than to oppose the violence of the condemned classes

with the revolutionary violence of the progressive class.

Anything can happen right now.

We could almost say everything has happened.

If our story is not believable today, it may be tomorrow,

thanks to scientific research, which is the way of the future.

Then no one will dare consign it to the realm of legends.

It's about destroying the enemy, not judging it.

In villages liberated by the column

they assembled the peasants,

asking them to point out the fascists and shooting them on the spot.

The next revolution will go the same way, serenely.

We know there will be no one to judge us.

The judges will be gone forever. We will have eliminated them.

In Flins we know the whole region geographically now.

We know the Renault factories and the roads.

We know the people, we know where to stay, etc.

If anything happens in Flins,

we'll go into the factories, no problem, because it's home.

We'll circulate in Flins.

If there are actions like the ones we led...

that infamous Friday, Saturday and Monday in Flins,

we know where the roads are and how to attack

and that, in the short term, is extremely important.

We've been observers, I agree, but there's nothing to prevent us

from staying much longer in the factory so we can stop being observers.

As you know, since we work together,

as soon as we spent four months at the factory

and got our cards...