Alex Hughes. Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture

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Pompidou’s, and less than a year later, on 27

April 1969 the general was voted out of office

in a referendum (53 per cent of the voters say-

ing ‘no’). Thus ended the Gaullist Republic: on

15 June 1969, Georges Pompidou was elected

president as de Gaulle’s successor.

From today’s perspective, May 1968 is most

usefully studied through a range of interpreta-

tions (e.g. Reader and Wadia 1993 and

Pouvoirs 3 9). As far as their political conse-

quences are concerned, the events did not con-

stitute a revolution because the regime was

neither overturned nor replaced—if anything,

in the immediate term, it was reinforced. Yet,

if May 1968 did have a revolutionary dimen-

sion, it was long-term, and much more trace-

able in the areas of attitudes, values and cul-

ture. Youth culture in particular, as it is vari-

ously manifested in music, drugs and fashion,

has tended to follow a pattern set in the late

1960s. The longer-term consequences of May

1968 in France may be traced in the develop-

ment during the 1970s and 1980s of working

practices, left-wing politics, feminism, ecology,

decentralization and movements for regional

autonomy or separatism. In the words of

Laurent Joffrin (1988), ‘May 68 changed

France. This failed revolution ended up revo-

lutionizing society, and the French do not al-

ways realize it.’

MARTYN CORNICK

See also: alcohol, cigarettes, drugs; armed

forces; banks; demographic developments;

feminism (movements/groups); green issues;

parties and movements; regionalism; revolu-

tionary groups

Further reading

Aron, R. (1968) The Elusive Revolution:

Anatomy of a Student Revolt, trans. G.

Clough, London: Pall Mall Press (the clas-

sic right-wing liberal interpretation, origi-

nally published in French as La Revolution

introuvable by Fayard).

Bénéton, P. and Touchard, J. (1970) ‘Les

Interprétions de la crise de mai-juin 1968’,

Revue française de science politique, 20, 3

(a pioneering article offering eight different

but interlocking interpretations of the

events; a good starting point—also avail-

able in translation in Reader and Wadia

1993; see below).

Capdevielle, J. and Mouriaux, R. (1988) Mai

68, l’entre-deux de la modernité Paris: Presses

de la FNSP (a sophisticated longer-term in-

terpretation by French political scientists).

Caute, D. (1988) Sixty-Eight: The Year of the

Barricades, London: Hamish Hamilton

(one of the best and most readable studies

examining the events in a global context).

Combes, P. (1984) La Littérature et le mouvement

de mai 68, Paris: Seghers (an interesting study

of the literary fallout from 1968).

Crozier, M. (1970/5) La Société bloquée, Paris:

Éditions du Seuil (a key sociological

analysis).

Delale, A. and Ragache, G. (1978) La France

de ’68, Paris: Seuil (a well-illustrated sur-

vey of the events produced for the tenth

anniversary).

Dreyfus-Armand, G. and Gervereau, L. (eds)

(1988) Mai 68: les mouvements étudiants

en France et dans le monde , Nanterre:

BDIC (catalogue of an exhibition contain-

ing a mine of information and illustrations).

Hoffmann, S. (1974) ‘May 1968: Drama or

Psychodrama’, in Decline or Renewal?

France Since the 1930s, New York: Viking

(one of the best starting points for inter-

preting the events).

Joffrin, L. (1988) Mai 68: histoire des

événements, Paris: Points-Éditions du Seuil

(one of the most accessible studies in French

following the events through their student,

social and political phases; contains an ex-

cellent bibliography).

Morin, E., Lefort, C. and Castoriadis, C.

(1988) Mai 1968: la brèche, Brussels:

Complexe (new edition of a collection of

challenging essays by philosophers includ-

ing Morin, Lefort and Castoriadis).

Pouvoirs (1986) Mai 68, special issue 39 (an

excellent collection of texts by participants

and academics based on a conference held

in Lyon; short, useful, interpretive essays).

May 1968

369

Reader, K.A., with Wadia, K. (1993) The May

1968 Events in France, Basingstoke:

Macmillan (a wide-ranging survey over the

major interpretations, including a valuable

essay on women and 1968).

Schnapp, A. and Vidal-Naquet, P. (1969) Jour-

nal de la commune étudiante, Paris:

Éditions du Seuil (a large and indispensa-

ble collection of documents from the pe-

riod, illustrating the student angle; excel-

lent introductory essay).

Touraine, A. (1971) The May Movement: Re-

volt and Reform [Le Mouvement de mai,

ou le communisme utopique], New York:

Random House (the influential interpreta-

tion of a sociologist).

Weber, H. (1988), Vingt ans après: que reste-

til de ’68?, Paris: Éditions du Seuil (the view

twenty years on by a participant).

Winock, M. (1995) La Fièvre hexagonale,

Paris: Points-Éditions du Seuil (Chapter 8

looks at the events in the broader context

of over a century of political crises in

France; accessible and suggestive).

MC Solaar

b. 1969, Dakar

Singer

France’s leading rap artist of the 1990s, who

invites contemplation rather than conflict. MC

Solaar acknowledges the influences of hip-

hop, acid jazz and West Coast sounds, but

what he has given us in his first two CDs—

Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo (Who Sows

the Wind Reaps the Beat) and Prose Combat,

from 1992 and 1994 respectively—has a very

French flavour. In MC Solaar’s own words,

‘no slang, good subjects and sometimes just

poetry’. He has had the merit of taking rap to

a wider audience than its roots in

disenfranchized banlieues (suburbs).

GÉRALD POULET

Further reading

Griffiths, P. (1985) Olivier Messiaen and the

Music of Time, London: Faber and Faber

(the most recent and comprehensive study

of Messiaen in English).

Metz, Christian

b. 1931, Béziers;

d. 1993, Paris

Philosopher

An influential film theorist who during the

structuralist period of the 1960s attempted to

establish a grammar of film—see his Film Lan-

guage: A Semiotics of the Cinema (Essais sur

la signification au cinéma) of 1968–72. His

grammar of film was strongly influenced by

Saussure’s concept of a linguistic system that

functioned as a general science of signs (semi-

ology). His endeavour to uncover the rules

governing film language marked an important

step forward in film theory, by providing a

framework within which to discuss the rela-

tionship between film image and representa-

tion. Sensing the limitations of this total theory

approach, Metz then went on to explore the

relevance of psychoanalysis to film theory,

particularly in relation to spectator position-

ing, as in The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoa-

nalysis and the Cinema (Le Signifiant

imaginaire: psychanalyse et cinéma) of 1977.

SUSAN HAYWARD

Further reading

Locke, M. and Warren, C. (eds) (1993) JeanLuc

Godard’s ‘Hail Mary’: Women and the Sa-

cred in Film, Carbondale and Edwardsville:

Southern Illinois University Press (includes

readings of Le Livre de Marie in the context

of Godard’s ‘Je vous salue, Marie’, as well

as a filmography of Miéville).

mime

Mime, the tradition of physical, non-verbal

expression in theatre, has its roots in panto-

mime and the tradition of characters such as

the well-known Pierrot (in his white clown

costume with a black tear on his cheek), but

today it has become part of the established

repertoire of theatrical communication. The

importance of the actor, the role of physical

theatre and the importance of the gesture in

performance are all factors in current theatre

practice which have been influenced by mime

during the last century in particular. Thus, as

well as yielding famous mime artists such as

Étienne Decroux, Marcel Marceau and Jean-

Louis Barrault, techniques used in mime have

also influenced general ideas of theatrical per-

formance, with the emphasis on the physical

importance of the stage. Barrault’s concept

of ‘total theatre’ and his numerous produc-

tions exploring it are notable examples of this,

although the tradition of mime in theatre con-

tinues to this day through the work of

Michel, Georges

373

directors such as Jean Vilar, Peter Brook and

Ariane Mnouchkine.

Many of the key figures in the movement

of mime within the French theatre tradition

share a similar background, whether directly

or indirectly—that of Copeau’s theatre school

at the Vieux Colombier, where the famous

mime artist and teacher, Decroux, and Dullin,

future founder of his own celebrated school,

studied. At the time, an increased interest in

physical education was in the air outside the

theatre world, as well as inside it, with pio-

neers such as Georges Demeny in France en-

couraging participation in sport. In the early

decades of the twentieth century, Copeau had

begun experimenting with physical theatre

using mime and masks, exploring this with his

troupe, which eventually moved down to Bur-

gundy to concentrate on its work. One of the

troupe, Charles Dullin, left in 1920, but went

on to form his own theatre and theatre school,

based largely on the same principles as

Copeau’s teaching, with the emphasis on le

tréteau nu (the bare stage) and on the impor-

tance of gesture and physical expression. It was

here that Decroux (now a teacher of mime),

Barrault and Artaud were to meet, and that

(after the war) Decroux would teach the now-

legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau.

Decroux’s work was central in pushing back

the boundaries of mime with his famous silent

mimes, nude on an empty stage, based on many

of the principles he had learned himself with

Copeau’s troupe in Burgundy. His skill helped

inspire his pupil Barrault, who went on to be-

come one of the most celebrated mime artists

of the century in film roles such as Baptiste in

Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), a film

in which his teacher Decroux also performed.

At the same time, Jean Dasté, another protégé

of Copeau’s, had also founded a troupe, the

Comédiens de Grenoble, including among oth-

ers Jacques Lecoq, which also sought to explore

the possibilities of mime and masks in perform-

ance. Lecoq himself went on to found his fa-

mous theatre school in Paris, focusing his train-

ing on movement, gesture and body language,

although disagreeing in the importance of teach-

ing pure mime as an art form in its own right.

It was Barrault and Decroux who, between

them, were largely responsible for formalizing

what could be described as modern mime, codi-

fying and defining the ‘language’ of the body

for use within a theatrical context. Marcel

Marceau, Decroux’s pupil at the Dullin school,

was especially impressed by the work of

Barrault; the latter’s mimodrames, such as As

I Lay Dying (Autour d’une mere), were a par-

ticular influence on his work. The actor’s train-

ing imparted to him by Dullin was also to play

its role in his development of his renowned

character Bip in 1947 and his mimodrames.

He was also certainly influenced by foreign

theatre traditions from the East, as were

Mnouchkine and Brook in later decades. Both

of these directors focused on physical as well

as verbal theatre, looking to popular perform-

ers such as the clown figure to inspire wider

audiences, and experimenting with Japanese

and Indian theatrical traditions, rich in their

intricate tradition of gesture and mime. Today

mime remains an important ingredient in the-

atrical expression, both in its own right (as pure

mime, in the mimodrame) and also as part of

the actor’s training and tools for expression

within the world of ‘spoken’ French theatre.

ANNIE SPARKS

See also: collective creation; theatre; Théâtre

du Soleil

Further reading

Felner, M. (1985) Apostles of Silence: The

Modern French Mime, London: Associated

University Presses (essential reading).

Lecoq, J. (ed.) (1987) Le Théâtre du geste,

Paris: Bordas (a pictorial study with

firsthand accounts by practitioners of the

development of mime and physical theatre).

minimum wage

In France, the wage levels of the lowest-paid

workers are protected by minimum wage

minimum wage

374

legislation. This minimum wage is known as

the salaire minimum interprofessionel de

croissance (SMIC), which replaced the salaire

minimum interprofessionel garanti in 1970

when increases in the minimum wage were fixed

to price and average earnings increases. From

the mid-1980s onwards, liberal economists and

politicians have criticized the SMIC for keep-

ing the wage levels of those with few skills arti-

ficially high, which harms employment creation.

However, an attempt by the government to re-

duce the SMIC for young workers in 1994 was

brought down by popular protest.

JAN WINDEBANK

Further reading

Debû-Bridel, J. (1945) Les Éditions de Minuit,

historique et bibliographie, Paris: Éditions

de Minuit.

Simonin, A. (1994) Les Éditions de Minuit

1942–1955: le devoir d’insoumission,

Paris: IMEC Éditions.

Minute

Newspaper

A provocative, extreme right-wing weekly,

launched by Jean-François Devay in 1962.

Outspokenly critical of de Gaulle’s policy in

Algeria, Minute has a reputation for polemic

and sensational scandal-mongering. Pet

themes include a denunciation of the aboli-

tion of the death penalty, the supposedly luxu-

rious conditions in French prisons and the

overgenerous treatment of immigrants. Circu-

lation peaked at 188,084 copies per week in

1978. Despite resurgence of interest following

the Socialist victory in 1981, circulation has

since fallen dramatically (to below 50,000

copies by 1991). Internal squabbling as to how

closely the paper should align itself with the

Front National, and competition from Na-

tional Hebdo, have exacerbated this decline.

PAM MOORES

See also: national press in France; parties and

movements

Minyana, Philippe

b. 1946, Metz

Playwright

A former literature and drama teacher, who

began writing in 1980. His works include Pre-

mier Trimestre (First Term), Titanic, Exhibi-

tion and Drames Brefs 1 (Brief Dramas 1). The

Théâtre Ouvert publishes and performs many

of his plays.

ANNIE SPARKS