L’Imagination au pouvoir Radical left press of the 1970s

1. L’Imagination au pouvoirRadical left press of the 1970s Images in the powerpoint reproduced by kind permission of the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale et Contemporaine, Michel Dixmier, Philippe Gavi & Gilles Olive.

2. May 68 posters

3. There was a whole series of posters in May 68 against the rotten press, the press under the government’s heel… and posters for a new press, for a free press. That’s where our underground press came from... and from Action, the first paper. -Léon Cobra, author of Le Tréponème Bleu Pâle, underground press poet.

4. Posters for a free press

5. Action

6. Key elements • An “agitprop” sheet: tactics and strategy for the movement • A paper of political and cultural criticism • Reports on regional & international movements • Strong visual dimension with caricature and collages

7. Other May publications Les Cahiers de Mai: the worker’s movement L’Enragé (Siné) : caricature

8. One of the great accomplishments of May 68 in my view, not only May 68 but the whole movement internationally, was that this artistic dimension and language were completely integrated into the political field… no longer poetry here and politics over there, it wasn’t a contradiction anymore. -Jean-Jacques Lebel, underground artist and ‘happenings’ organiser

9. Parti Communiste Français vs. gauchistes Action (1968) Politique Hebdo (1970) Tout! (1970)

10. PCF/CGT vs. gauchistes We must at all costs keep up the fight against the sabotage of the gauchiste groups and elements at the heart of the trade union movement. Léon Mauvais, PCF & CGT leader, December 1968.

11. Participation Action, summer 1968.

12. Press of the militant far left(gauchisme)

13. Marxism We tried to be readable. There isn’t necessarily a contradiction between being Marxist and being readable but it’s not easy. On the conceptual level, we had Marxist analyses. But Marxism was the language of the intelligentsia, even Aron spoke Marxist... class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, surplus value, alienation, all the Marxist concepts. Marxism was the major language of the left. All the left spoke Marxist, so all of society spoke Marxist. Today it seems strange. No one dares speak of social classes. Even the Communists speak of people and even ‘real people’. Henri Weber, editor of Rouge, 1968-75.

14. Tribune Socialiste (Parti Socialiste Unifié) 1969 1971 1968 1970

15. Sartre & La Cause du Peuple

16. Death of de Gaulle

17. Hara-Kiri Charlie Hebdo And we knew they could no longer get at us… we really started to provoke. At the time porn was mostly underground. So we put penises on the cover, etc … [the government] didn’t dare do a thing. We really got one over them. Delfeil de Ton, Charlie Hebdo writer, 1970.

18. New press of the counter culture

19. TOUT!

20. Graphics & BD P.Caza, Kool Trip (Actuel) 1970 Guy Pellaert, Pravda (1968) Zinc 1971 M.Gotlib, L’Echo des Savanes, 1972 P.Druillet, Lone Sloane (Pilote) 1970

21. Press of new social movements Gay lib. Women’s lib. Ecology Sexuality

22. Agence de Presse Libération We strived to « liberate » information, to free the news. We really wanted to broaden the horizons of the news, and we succeeded. This was coming out of the Charlie Hebdo experience. We published different news, the kind of news that the mainstream media would ignore. Claude-Marie Vadrot, journalist at Politique Hebdo, APL, L’Aurore in 1971.

23. Libération