Paris, May 10, 1968
Last edited Sat Jun 24, 2017, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)
These are my first serious pictures, taken almost 50 years ago.
In May, 1968 I was 17 years old, living in Paris for a year with my parents. I'd just begun my love-affair with photography, and was fascinated by the work I saw in Life magazine - especially the photos of Vietnam War photographers like Larry Burrows and Eddie Adams. When the student unrest began in early May, I saw my own opportunity to play photojournalist. With my parents' Canonet in hand, I headed down to the Latin Quarter to document the events.
I started shooting a couple of days before things got really serious. The main events happened during the afternoon of May 10 and the morning of May 11. These times bracketed the peak of the violence, which happened during the evening and night of May 10.
Things began pretty innocuously. The Sorbonne had been occupied by students, and the main courtyard became a free-speech forum.
Police evicted the Sorbonne occupiers and set up cordons to block the surrounding streets. The main police force was the CRS - a special French riot force noted for their willingness to use violence. Sporadic clashes began.
Graffiti has always been popular during demonstrations. This one reads "In opposition to police violence, violence in the streets." The classic Citroen 2CV places the photo unmistakably in Paris.
After the students were blocked from the Sorbonne the marches grew in size. I followed this one down Boulevard St. Michel on the afternoon of May 10.
When the march encountered a CRS cordon, it stopped. A couple of meters separated the two sides. I thought the space between them looked like a good photographic position, so I walked all the way down that opening to the far side of the street, with both sides staring at me in disbelief. Perhaps not one of my safer decisions...
A second after I snapped the previous picture, the street filled with tear gas and flying police batons. The CRS also used the steel butt-plates of their carbines to make their point.
Events escalated throughout the night, but I was at home with my parents nursing tear gassed eyes and a couple of police bruises. The next morning the streets were littered with the remnants of cobblestone barricades. These had provided both refuge and ammunition during the previous night's adventures. In the background are two of the dozens of burned-out cars that had illuminated the proceedings.
I picked up a couple of cobblestones from this barricade, and carried them back to Canada as souvenirs of history. I still have them on my bookshelves. These streets have all been paved.
The adventure convinced me that I probably didn't want to walk in the footsteps of Adams and Burrows after all. Looking back from 50 years on, that was a very sensible decision.
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