Daniel Cohn-Bendit

Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit (born April 4, 1945) was a leader of the student protesters during May 1968 in France. He is currently co-president of the group European Greens - European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.

May 1968

He returned to France in 1966 to study sociology at the University of Nanterre (a North-Western suburb of Paris). He sooned joined the larger and classic national anarchist federation Fédération anarchiste, which he left in 1967 in favour of the smaller and local Groupe anarchiste de Nanterre and the Noir et rouge magazine. Although residing in Paris, he was frequently able to travel back to Germany, where he was notably influenced by the murder of Benno Ohnesorg in 1967, and the assault on Rudi Dutschke in April 1968. In this tense context he invited Karl Dietrich Wolff, leader of the student organization of the SPD, for a lecture in Paris, which had an influence on the later May events.

Related Topics:
1966 - Paris - Fédération anarchiste - 1967 - Groupe anarchiste de Nanterre - Noir et rouge - Benno Ohnesorg - Rudi Dutschke - Karl Dietrich Wolff - SPD

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In Nanterre Cohn-Bendit was a leader in claims for more sexual freedom, with actions such as participating the occupation of the girls' premisses, interrupting the speech of a minister who was inaugurating a swimming pool in order to demand free access to the girls' dormitory, which contributed in attracting to him a lot of student supporters later to be called the Mouvement du 22 mars, a group characterized by a mixture of Marxist, sexual and anarchist semantics. On the fall of 1967 rumours of his upcoming expulsion from the university led to a local students strike, and his expulsion was cancelled. On the 22 of March 1968 students occupied the administrative offices, and the closing of the university on the 2nd of May helped move the protests to downtown Paris.

Related Topics:
Mouvement du 22 mars - 1967

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From the 3rd of May 1968 onwards, massive student riots erupted in Paris against Charles de Gaulle's government, led mainly by left-wing anti-communists. The already media-savvy Cohn-Bendit quickly emerged as a public face of the student protesters, along with Jacques Sauvageot, Alain Geismar and Alain Krivine. His Jewish origins were exploited by the movement to enhance the comparison between authorities and fascism, a common trend of 1968 counter-culture, with slogans such as "We are all German Jews".

Related Topics:
May 1968 - Paris - Charles de Gaulle - Jacques Sauvageot - Alain Geismar - Alain Krivine

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The French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais described Cohn-Bendit as the "German anarchist Cohn-Bendit" and denounced student protesters as "sons of the upper bourgeoisie"... "who will quickly forget their revolutionary flame in order to manage daddy's firm and exploit workers there". Continued police violence, however, caused the trade unions (and eventually the Communist Party) support the students, and from May 13 on, France was struck by a general strike.

Related Topics:
French Communist Party - Georges Marchais

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However Cohn-bendit had already retreated on the 10th of May with a few friends in the Atlantic coast city of Saint-Nazaire, seeing that his Nanterre group had become a minority without political influence in the larger Paris students movement. Cohn-Bendit's political opponents took advantage of his German passport and had him expelled from Saint-Nazaire to Germany on the 22nd of May as a "seditious alien". On the 27th the Communist-led workers signed the Accords de Grenelle with the government; on the 30th supporters of the president organized a successful demonstration; new elections were called and at the end of June 68 Charles de Gaulle was back in power.

Related Topics:
Saint-Nazaire - Accords de Grenelle - Charles de Gaulle

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On the whole Cohn-Bendit had partcipated little in the May 1968 Paris events, which continued without him, but he had become a legend, which was to be used later in the nineties on his return to France.

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