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| University of Lyon during 1968 student occupation. Photo by George Garrigues |
Part Two (letter to my Mother)
by Carol Rose
May 12, 1968
Dearest Mother,
You have, as usual, been very faithful and I not. Nothing from you, however, since the postal service has closed down. Actually I need to find some way to get this letter mailed.
This city has been going through a week of great excitement much of it centered here in the neighborhood… (many parents of adult children have been calling to quiet their fears which were groundless.) Last evening about 6 big demonstrations culminated in a mass demonstration of around 600,000 workers and students which filed by our house 15 abreast for hours straight, singing the International and shouting slogans such as CRS - assassins (the riot police force), DeGaulle assassin, libérer nos camarades! Among these comrades were the numerous neighbors in the courtyard who have small children such as mine. Just behind our friend Marianne”s house, on the rue St. Jacques, there were two story barricades consisting of cars, taxi signs and general debris built high by the students under the impatiently watchful eyes of the CRS police, chaffing at the bit as the students manufactured homemade weapons such as clubs and boards studded with nails. Leaning against supports, the pointed ends of the nails marked off spaces for ordinary pedestrians to walk No workers amongst this crowd! The CRS police looked like black beetles armed as it were with black shields, wearing shiny black slickers, the whole topped with black helmets, shotguns hanging on their shoulders and machine gun like weapons slung over their backs to be used to shoot tear gas bombs at the rioters.
