1) “Retour à la normale”

1) Affiche, 64 x 88 cm - Sans tampon [Beaux-arts]

BnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, ENT QB-(1968) /W3658

2) “Mai 68, début d’une lutte prolongée”

Affiche, 49,5 x 76,5 cm - Atelier populaire de l’ex-École des beaux-arts

BnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, QB-1 (1968-05)- BOITE FOL

3) “CRS SS”

Affiche, 43 x 55 cm - Atelier populaire de l’ex-École des beaux-arts

BnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, ENT QB-(1968) /W3692

@credits

The beginning of Mai 68

Following months of conflicts between students and authorities at the University of Paris at Nanterre, the administration shut down the university on 2 May 1968. Students at the Sorbonne University in Paris met on 3 May to protest against the closure and the threatened expulsion of several students at Nanterre. On Monday, 6 May, the national student union, the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF) — still the largest student union in France today — and the union of university teachers called a march to protest against the police invasion of Sorbonne. More than 20,000 students, teachers and supporters marched towards the Sorbonne, still sealed off by the police, who charged, wielding their batons, as soon as the marchers approached. While the crowd dispersed, some began to create barricades out of whatever was at hand, while others threw paving stones, forcing the police to retreat for a time. The police then responded with tear gas and charged the crowd again. Hundreds more students were arrested.

On the 12th of June 1936, workers of the naval construction site are occupying their working place in a festive ambiance

@credits

The Matignon Agreements (French: Accords de Matignon) were signed on June 7, 1936, at one o’clock in the morning, between the CGPF employers trade union confederation, the CGT trade union and the French state. They were signed during a massively followed general strike initiated after the election of the Popular Front in May 1936, which had led to the creation of a left-wing government headed by Léon Blum (SFIO). These agreements were signed at the Hôtel Matignon, official residence of the head of the government, hence their name.

All of the workers benefited with these agreements of:

• the legal right to strike
• the removal of all obstacles to union organization (including the right to have representatives, named délégués du personnel, elected by secret ballot, which may not be fired without approval from the labour inspection - inspection du travail - and thus are protected from pressures by the employers
• and a blanket 7-12 percent wage increase for all workers (it is thus the reverse of deflation, and is an economic policy based on demand) (the female workers in Verdun even succeeded in obtaining a 400% wages increase)

Furthermore, Blum’s government deposed on June 5 five law projects, prepared by the Minister of Labour Jean-Baptiste Lebas, which were easily adopted during the month. These laws granted:

• paid vacations (two weeks - for the first time in France) (voted by the National Assembly on 20 June 1936)
• 40 hour work week paid 48 (adopted by the Assembly on 21 June 1936).
• collective bargaining (adopted by the Assembly on 24 June 1936)
• the repeal of the 1935 decree-laws concerning the wages of public servants and the taxes on World War I veterans’ pensions.