Rioting Recalls Student Uprising of 1968
PARIS, Nov. 10, 2005

(AP) Young rioters rampage in the streets. They overturn cars, build barricades and hurl bricks at police. But that was Paris 1968, not 2005. Like the rebellious university students of nearly 40 years ago, the youths who have rampaged across France the past two weeks seethe with anger. The difference is that they have no political strategy, nationwide organization or demands for a revolution.
"They don't want another society. They want the same one, but with themselves included in it," said security expert Sebastian Roche, a director of research at the state-funded National Center for Scientific Research.
The students of 1968 wanted to remake the world.
They were the heirs of the French elite, at a time when relatively few young people had access to college. The rioters demanded reforms in France's government, denounced entrenched ideas in education and business and shouted for an end to the Vietnam War.
Their litany of fanciful slogans, printed on cheery posters, included "It is forbidden to forbid" and "Be realistic, ask for the impossible."
The anti-establishment movement brought nighttime street battles, a monthlong student occupation of the Sorbonne and a general strike by 10 million workers. Students burned hundreds of cars, smashed windows, cut down trees with chain saws and ripped up streets.
Allying with unions, they were determined to change society. President Charles de Gaulle was forced to dissolve the National Assembly and call national elections, and the unrest fizzled out soon afterward.
By contrast, today's rampaging youths are from the tough towns crowded with the poor. They have no barricades _ long a symbol of French rebellion _ and leave their mark with cars set aflame in the dark.
They are influenced by a patchwork of images, from the Palestinian intefadeh to war games on their Playstations, sociologist Jean-Pierre Le Goff said.
"The uprising has taken a very raw form, and it is stripped of historical imagination," said Le Goff, who has written a book on the 1968 unrest.
Rebellion has sprung from high-rise housing projects where immigrants from Africa, many of them Muslims, live with their French-born children on the fringes of a society that has never fully integrated them.
Many have different customs, beliefs and skin color, and struggle with dual identities. They also face high unemployment, discrimination and crowded living conditions.
Rioters have torched about 6,500 cars and burned down schools, police stations and shops in 14 straight days of unrest. One man died after a beating. Youths act in small, scattered packs, unlike the mass actions of 1968. And also unlike 1968, few if any women are taking part.
The unrest has far surpassed the material damage of 1968 and is much more widespread, though the death toll is lower as yet.
Five people died in 1968 _ four protesters and a police commissioner, Le Goff said. Some 2,000 were injured, 200 seriously. France's riot police gained a reputation for brutality that lingers _ though Le Goff believes the claims were exaggerated, as police fired weapons only once.
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Associated Press writer Joelle Diderich contributed to this report.

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