[The following article appeared in the May 11 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The third meeting of the FCR [Front des Cercles Rouges - Front of Red Circles, the high-school group affiliated to the Ligue] was attended by 410 comrades, 264 from Paris and 146 from the provinces (more than thirty cities were represented). The meeting was held basically to draw an initial balance sheet on the struggle against the Debré law.
The introductory report, given by Michel Field, and the various work- 624
shops (structure of the struggle, countercourses, antimilitarism, political forces involved in the struggle) contributed to drawing this balance. Other workshops were also held (youth struggles around the world, workers struggles, Vietnam); skits on the army and on sports were put on, and a film on Fort d'Aiton was shown.
The meeting marked the first time that many comrades in the CET [Collèges d'Enseignement Technique - technical education institutions] participated in such a gathering. A workshop and a report given by a militant from Grenoble to the entire conference gave the meeting a feel for the CET struggle.
Foreign comrades also attended the conference, including representatives from the Young Socialist Alliance movement forced all political forces to define their relationship to it. The traditional left, after vain attempts at waalonal ten, anter vain attempts ar splitting, had to accept the movement's target dates and its structure; the regime was forced to tolerate a profound challenge to its army and its round challenge to is army and its educational system.
Before the strikes were decreed, and before the the huge demonstrations were held, the bourgeoisie had wanted to hail the end of a movement that it claimed was just a flash in the pan. But this was to fail to understand that an irreversible situation had been created, that mass polities has reappeared in the high schools and CET, that the content of the educational system has been challenged by "countercourses," and is under continuous attack, that behind the rejection of the Debré law lay the rejection of an army of repression and militarization.
This mobilization will have another aspect. By trying to build a lasting antimilitarist current in the high schools, by organizing a continuous critique of the content and goals of education, the Red Circles will devote their energies to making sure that the lessons of March-April 1973 remain a permanent acquisition of the highschool and apprentice movement.
Five years after May 1968, the whole youth have just taken a significant step forward in the struggle against the bourgeois state. The Red Circles will do everything to make future battles decisive ones.