Dany le Rouge
Dany le Rouge was the nickname to a French born German radical activist, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who gained major attention throughout the 1968 student protest in Paris. The nickname le Rouge was attributed to Cohn-Bendit not only because of the colour of his hair but also his politics, of which belonged to the left side of politics but in particular to the new left that had emerged during the 60’s.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit was born on the 4th April
1945, in Montauban, France to German-Jewish parents who had fled Nazi Germany
in 1933. At the age of 14, he decided to claim German nationalnality and had a
German passport to avoid conscription in France also attending high school in
Germany, only returning to France to attend the University of Paris, where he
was located at the newly built Nanterre Campus. The Nanterre Campus was
disliked and represented everything that was troubling the overcrowded French
university system. It had also been built without planning for the social lives
of the students something that Cohn-Bendit and his fellow students was unhappy
about. His nationality would also play a role in the Student protests in 1968.
He was a key and influential member in the revolutionary
group movement du 22 mars (Movement
of the 22 March) which can be linked to the student protests of May 1968. The
Movement came into being after the French Sports Minister François Missoffe
attended the Nanterre Campus to open a swimming pool which Cohn-Bendit and
fellow students disrupted, causing the University to open a disciplinary
hearing against Cohn-Bendit and the other students involved in the disruption. Cohn-Bendit and his fellow students made
a mockery of the hearing and a sympathy protest formed outside the Sorbonne
(the universities central hub and where the trial was being held) but was
broken up brutally by the Parisian police, which had disastrous consequences
for the police as it sent ripples through Paris and began the Student protests
of May/June 1968.
(Credit:
https://www.welt.de/finanzen/article10310952/Ich-verdiene-6000-Euro-und-gebe-das-meiste-aus.html)
Being one the faces of the 1968 protest drew De Gualle to
look at every aspect of Cohn-Bendit life, of which he realised that he was
German.This highlighted De Gualle's Nationalistic policies and thought, which
contrasted many of the student’s views, highlighting the emerging generation gap between the older and younger generations in
France. Richard Jobs in the American Historical Review states that ‘1968 was a
significant moment in the cultural history of European integration’[1], stated
that this is the first time in history that young people would not identify
themselves as simply a member of a particular nation but as a continent wide,
transnational social group. Cohn-Bendit’s deportation lead student to take up
the chant “Nous sommes tous des juifs allemands” (We are all German Jews),
highlighting the unity between students and strenghtening up Jobs argument about
internationalism.
With Cohn-Bendit out of France, his involvement in the
protest obviously diminished but he remained outspoken and involved in politics
until this day, being a leading politician in the German Green party and is now referred to as Danny the Green. To me the fascinating thing about Cohn-Benit is that;
‘Cohn-Bendit has
never sought to deny or recant their legacy’
(Credit: Richard Ivan Jobs, Youth
Movements: Travel, Protest, and Europe in 1968, The American Historical Review,
2009, Vol. 11, p.91)
Some modern day politicians would have definitely tried to
disassociate themselves with their student days.
[1] – Jobs, Richard Ivan, Youth Movements: Travel, Protest,
and Europe in 1968, The American Historical Review, Vol.11 (2009)
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