1968 IN EUROPE - ONLINE TEACHING AND RESEARCH GUIDE

The language boundaries dividing Belgium into two major monolingual parts, a Dutch speaking Flanders in the North and a French Speaking Wallonia in the South are fixed and the boundaries of the administrative sections (provinces and municipalities) are adjusted accordingly. Brussels becomes officially bilingual (French-Dutch) and six municipalities bordering the Capital belong to Flanders but obtain facilities for French-speakers. The university city of Leuven is situated in Flanders. As the ‘Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis’ , it is the most important university of Belgium: it has more students than the other Belgian universities together, and comprises a French-Speaking and a Dutch speaking section – in 1968 with 11,000 Dutch-speaking and 9,000 French-speaking students – with their own deans and faculties, but still under one rector magnificus.

1964

22.10.1964	Flemish students in Leuven demonstrate for a splitting up of the unitary university in two autonomous universities: a Flemish and a French-speaking one.

25.11.1964	There is a huge demonstration of Flemish students in Leuven demanding a more democratic university and the transfer of the French-speaking section to Wallonia.

1965

10.02.1965	1,000 Flemish students demonstrate in Leuven for the transfer of the French-speaking section to Wallonia.

05.05.1965	About 30 students of the Free University of Brussels demonstrate against the American military intervention in Vietnam.

11.10.1965	Solemn opening ceremony at Leuven University. Flemish students confront the academic cortège with a banner saying: “Long live our Walloon Rector.”

03.11.1965	The French speaking student journal ‘L’ergot’ publishes an interview with the administrator-general of the Catholic University, the French-speaking professor Michel Woitrin, in which he develops a plan for territorial expansion of the university including the vision of “le très grand Bruxelles de l’avenir.” In his view, Leuven needs to obtain a bilingual status by being incorporated into Brussels.

16.11.1965	In a letter to the Rector, Flemish professors and academic staff of Leuven University demand a split of the university and the transfer of the French-speaking section to Wallonia.

15.12.1965	Major inter-university Flemish demonstration in Leuven, demanding the departure of the French speaking section from Leuven to Wallonia, in order to preserve Flemish monolingualism on Flemish territory. The 4,000 demonstrators rally behind the slogans:“Walloons: Go Home” and “Leuven Flemish.”

21.12.1965	The Belgian bishops, the highest authority at the Catholic University Leuven, issue a new declaration with an old statement, arguing that the unity of the Catholic University, including both the French-speaking and the Flemish section in Leuven, should be maintained in any case.

1966

31.01.1966	In the Flemish north-eastern province Limburg, Flemish miners demonstrate against plans of closing their coalmines. In the confrontation with the authorities two miners are shot dead.

01.02.1966	1,000 Flemish students in Leuven demonstrate against the “murder” of two mine workers.

16.03.1966	The Flemish Movement mobilizes about 8,000 demonstrators in Leuven to put the Catholic bishops under pressure to split the university and transfer the French-speaking part to Wallonia.

03.05.1966 - 04.05.1966	The Flemish students of Leuven strike in favor of the splitting up of the university.

13.05.1966 - 21.05.1966	The Catholic bishops decide that the Catholic University of Leuven will remain one university, that the French-speaking section stays in Leuven and that the Flemish professors, staff and students have to agree to this solution or are otherwise forced to leave.

15.05.1966	The Episcopal decision is made public in a solemn declaration. The Flemish students, academic staff and the whole Flemish community do not accept the declaration, both because of its content and its authoritarian form. A gulf of anticlericalism and anti-authoritarianism sweeps over the Flemish community. The authority of the bishops “in political matters” is no longer accepted. A Flemish student strike in Leuven, - the May Revolt of 1966 - supported by faculty and staff, leads to an early end of the academic year. The French-speaking community is satisfied.

September, 1966	Fall 1966: In Gent and Antwerp, an anarchistic ‘Provo-movement’ following the Dutch example begins.

October, 1966 - December, 1966	Weekly actions in Leuven set up by Flemish students (demonstrations, clashes with the police, occupation of the university library), advocating both the split of the old university and the set up of a new democratic Flemish university with greater student participation in the decision-making process. When the Flemish academic authorities, under (vice) rector Pieter de Somer, refuse to accept this, they are faced with a student strike, leading to the exclusion of some Flemish student leaders. In January 1967, this decision is revoked and students and authorities return to be speaking terms.

04.10.1966 - 09.10.1966	At the eve of the new academic year Flemish student-leaders organize a 5 day March from Ostend to Leuven, with meetings in the provincial towns they pass by demanding the split of the Leuven university. The underlying tone is Flemish-nationalistic, anti-clerical, as well as anti-authoritarian and democratic. It paves the way for the New Left movement in Belgium that starts among Catholic student activists.

1967

January, 1967 - February, 1967	Brussel and Leuven also sees several sympathizers with the Provo-movement.

March, 1967	An international gathering of student-leaders takes place in Brussels, which sets up a coordinating secretariat is set up to maintain contacts between New Left student leaders. The Dutch Student Union (SVB, Studentenvakbeweging) is well represented.

March, 1967	In Leuven, student leaders also start a SVB, trying to channel the traditional Flemish-nationalist student-union as a whole into the direction of the New Left and transform their organization. Since their attempt is unsuccessful, resulting in the fact that the most politicized student activists leave their old organizations and join SVB.

12.04.1967 - 19.04.1967	April 12,18 and 19: In front of the Academic Hall in Leuven hundred Flemish students organize a ‘sleep-in’, spending the night in their sleeping bags to support the demand for the split of the university.

12.12.1967	1,000 Flemish students demonstrate in Leuven for the split of the university and the transfer of the French-speaking university to Wallonia.

20.12.1967	In the administrative leadership of the Catholic University of Leuven an insolvable conflict arises between the Flemish and the French-speaking side, blocking every decision.

1968

January, 1968	The Flemish students of Leuven are supported by student solidarity actions in Gent, Antwerp and Brussels. Some students travel to Leuven to take part in the protest-actions. In Gent there are clashes between students and police outside the bishop’s residence, with several wounded protesters. The police in Gent searches the office of the Flemish Student Union and arrests its leader and several other students.

13.01.1968	The decision of the academic authorities of the French-speaking section of the Catholic University Leuven to stay in Leuven and their plans for future expansion in the city are made public and provoke an unprecedented opposition among Flemish public opinion which is not restricted to Leuven and has repercussions all over Flanders.

15.01.1968 - 27.01.1968	The Flemish students start their ‘January revolt 1968.’ The first day they disturb classes of the French-speaking section. The second day the authorities prevent them from entering the university buildings, merely allowing French-speaking students to the class rooms. The result is that the gendarmerie in their dark blue battle dresses and steel helmets becomes the enemy. The next four weeks see daily clashes with the authorities, which use riot sticks, teargas and water canons and arrest hundreds of protesters (most of them are set free again after one night detention in the barracks of the gendarmerie).. The charismatic student leader Paul Goossens is arrested as well and remains in custody for several weeks. Every day a ‘people’s meeting’ – a huge meeting where all protester are invited to lift their spirits – takes place in the student cafeteria. A daily newspaper entitled ‘Revolte’ is distributed. One issue publishes a manual for producing Molotov cocktails, which is used only once (with little material damage to an auditorium). Throughout the weeks of confrontation with the establishment, the orientation of the strikers is gradually moving towards a general questioning of the existing ‘order’ from a New Left point of view. At the end of the revolt the activists are under the impression that they are fighting for freedom of expression, against the ‘fascization of the regime,’ and for a democratic university in a democratic society, rathen than for ‘Leuven Flemish.’ All over Flanders, from provincial towns to the rural areas, secondary-school students and their teachers also organize strikes and demonstrations. Propaganda teams of ‘informers’, comprising a staff member and a student, travel around the Flemish countryside to spread the word of protest in local branches of the traditional Flemish movement. In those teams the speaker tries to present the struggle of the student revolt in Leuven as a fight for a more democratic society and not merely as a Flemish nationalist action. Flemish students also charter buses and leave Leuven at night in groups of 30 to 60 people to distribute leaflets in the early morning at the gates of factories to steelworkers and coalminers and discuss the cause of the revolt. The same actions take place in Wallonia, where the stress is more on the fact that the protest in Leuven is directed against the establishment and aims at creating ‘a university open for working class people.’ Although workers are generally indifferent, the actions in Leuven in January 1968 somewhat resemble the later events of the French ‘mai ’68.’

01.02.1968	At the University of Antwerp a professor of philosophy, the Jesuit Louis van Bladel, declares in a meeting of 1,000 students and 100 staff members that the struggle for the split of Leuven university and the removal of the French-speaking university community to Wallonia is ethically justified, since it is a struggle against the domination of the French language in Flanders, as well as the domination of the capitalist establishment and clericalism (i.e. the unjust interference of the Church in political matters). In his view, it is therefore a struggle for emancipation and democracy.

02.02.1968	The Flemish bishop of Bruges, Emiel L. Desmedt admits that he made a mistake 2 years earlier when complying with the unanimous declaration of the episcopate about the maintenance of the French-speaking section in Leuven.

06.02.1968	February 6 is ‘black Tuesday’, a day of action all over Flanders with demonstrations of secondary school students and their teachers, together with the general public, in favor of the split of the university of Leuven and the transfer of the French-speaking section. The demonstrations take place in order to support an interpellation in parliament by one of the Catholic Flemish MP’s on this matter.

07.02.1968	The Belgian government and Prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants are forced to resign after the resignation of the Flemish Catholic ministers in the cabinet. It is the first time that student action causes the fall of a government in Europe and the first time since the Second World War that the language issue brings a Belgian government to a fall.

09.02.1968	The Roman Catholic Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and primate of the Belgian Church, appeals for greater mutual understanding between the Flemish and French-speaking communities in Belgium.

01.03.1968	King Baudouin dissolves parliament in preparation for general elections on March 31.

01.03.1968	The U.S. embassy in Brussels is painted with slogans against the American war in Vietnam.

02.03.1968	About 10,000 demonstrators from all over Belgium participate in a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Brussels against the American war in Vietnam. There are clashes between demonstrators and the police. Several demonstrators and police officers are injured, 10 protestors are arrested.

27.03.1968 - 29.03.1968	March 27 and 29, 1968: More than 100 students demonstrate in Leuven against the political position of the Liberal Party opposing the split of the Catholic University and plea for the stay of the French-speaking section in Leuven.

31.03.1968	General elections to the Belgian parliament bring a victory for those parties in favor of the split of the Leuven university in Flanders: the Flemish Christian Democrats and the Flemish nationalists. In the French-speaking part of Belgium the anti-Flemish parties win. The liberal party, having played the unitarian Belgian card, suffers a bitter defeat.

14.04.1968	In Brussels a demonstration in solidarity with the revolting students in Berlin – where Rudi Dutschke was shot on April 11 – gathers 100 students.

13.05.1968	As an echo of the student actions in Paris, the students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles begin their ‘contestation.’ They meet student leaders from Paris, Rome, Turino, Berlin and Amsterdam, and start an ‘assemblée libre’ in the afternoon, an open meeting where everybody can take the floor. It is the beginning of the ‘Mouvement du 13 mai.” The first evening the Greek actor and democratic activist Milina Mercouri also protests against the dictatorial ‘regime of the colonels’ in Greece.

13.05.1968 - 22.05.1968	The Brussels student revolt continues: regular ‘Assemblées libres’ are set up not only by students, but also by the staff members, all aiming at the transformation of the university into a more democratic institution. Some consider these actions as the beginning of a transformation of the society as a whole into a more democratic community.

22.05.1968	About 500 students occupy several central buildings at the Free University of Brussels (the rector’s office, the main hall, and the faculty buildings of Arts and Law) demanding university reforms, especially of teaching methods and examination structures, but also of decision making processes. After one week tensions among the activists surface. But the assemblée libre continues to work for almost fifty days – until June 29, 1968 – considering itself as the true leading (counter-) authority of the university. Outside the occupied buildings a banner reads: “The university is open for the entire population.”

30.05.1968	The legendary student leader of the January revolt in Leuven, Paul Goossens, is very warmly welcomed by the occupants in Brussels. He declares that the linguistic and confessional contradictions between Leuven and Brussels are now history, and proposes collaboration between the student movements of Leuven and Brussels in order to realize a new more democratic society.

06.06.1968	Following the example of their peers, the students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels also occupy their institution, demanding greater student participation in decision making processes.

07.06.1968	Extreme right-wing activists, armed and masked, invade the occupied buildings of the Free University of Brussels at night and attack left-wing activists. One activist is injured.

12.06.1968	At the State University of Liège an agreement is reached between critical students and the academic authorities to create a joined commission to advise the academic board of the university.

17.06.1968	After 232 days of governmental crisis, Gaston Eyskens, leader of the Flemish Christian Democrats, is appointed as Prime Minister in a coalition government with the Socialist Party. The new government decides to split the Leuven university and transfer the French-speaking section to Wallonia

17.07.1968	The Belgian bishops declare that they agree with the split and the transfer. The unitary ‘Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis’ ceases to exist.

September, 1968	In Brussels students protest against the movie ‘The Green Berets’ (with John Wayne), a U.S. pro-Vietnam film.

25.09.1968	At the Free University of Brussels a new rector is elected following a new democratic electoral system. André Jaumotte, former dean of the Faculty of Sciences, is the first democratically elected rector at a Belgian university.

30.09.1968	Flemish students of the Free University of Brussels boycott the election of the new board of directors of the university, demanding greater autonomy for the Dutch-speaking section of the university. Their initial demand is a parity of French-speakers and Flemings on the board.

October, 1968	Following the example of the now autonomous Flemish K.U. Leuven, where rector De Somer immediately set up a commission to design new structures, the academic authorities of the French-speaking Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) also form a commission for the restructuring of the university, in which students are also represented. Since a new city has to be build in Louvain-la-Neuve (in Wallonia, near Wavre) for the UCL, the transfer of all French-speaking students from Leuven will last about 10 years. From 1968 onwards, the two universities also follow a different academic calendar: as a consequence, there are two opening ceremonies in Leuven in 1968.

10.10.1968	In Liège, 2,000 students protest in a meeting against the decision of the academic authorities to introduce a system of selection before accepting students at the university. The students consider the plan undemocratic and receive support from the academic staff.

11.10.1968	A group of Flemish and French-speaking student-activists invade the university hall in Leuven and the offices of the two rectors to ask their support for a petition in solidarity with the student protest in Mexico at the eve of the Olympic Games.

24.10.1968	Because Rector Dubuisson of Liège University forbids a meeting about Vietnam, 500 students occupy the promotion room for several hours and discuss topics such as ‘the critical university’, freedom of speech, and the right to freely post messages on university premises. They demand that the police should not be allowed to enter university buildings.

24.10.1968	The Flemish student movement in Leuven holds a demonstration with 600 participants in solidarity with the workers in strike at the Ford factory in Genk (province of Limburg). Demonstrations are repeated on a regular basis until the end of the strike on November 21. For the first time some radical student activists of the SVB (Studentenvakbeweging) travel almost daily to Limburg to support the workers, also to turn of the slogan ‘students-workers: one front’ into reality. It is the beginning of a development that will lead the most radical activists to an orthodox Marxist-Leninist position that considers the workers the only revolutionary class.

04.11.1968	Students at the State University of Liège go on strike for more student participation at the university. They organize ‘people’s meetings’ in the afternoon were the authority of the rector is criticized.

06.11.1968	Flemish students at the predominantly French-speaking Free University of Brussels organize an action day for more Flemish autonomy in the university.

13.11.1968	In Leuven, the Flemish student movement disagrees with the new Flemish rector Piet de Somer over student participation. They demand representatives not only in the councils, but also in the ‘bureaus’ where the daily policy is executed. The radicals of SVB use the conflict to elaborate on their ideological vision of unmasking the existing university as a tool of the establishment, whereas it should be an institution ‘at the service of the people.’ On December 4, a general strike for one day forms the climax and also the end of this action.

13.11.1968	In Gent, several hundred supporters of SVB demonstrate against militarism at the occasion of an army exhibition on a square nearby the university. After charges of the police the demonstrators seek refuge in the Arts Faculty building, where the police is not allowed to enter without specific permission of the rector, and occupy an auditorium. It is the first occupation of a university building in Gent.

19.11.1968	In Leuven, the action committee of the Flemish students publishes a new journal ‘Vonk’ (spark). The name is a reference to the illegal Russian weekly published by Lenin around 1900. The new publication argues that the conflict with the rector is the result of diametrically opposed visions on the role of the university in the society: for Vonk the university is “for the people, not for the establishment.” The Leninist turn of the most radical core of student leaders is well on its way.

30.11.1968	In Liège, students protest against the movie ‘the Green Berets,’ resulting in repeated clashes with the police that week.

03.12.1968	Because the students are not allowed to take part in a lecture by a professor from Paris on ‘student participation’ (since the audience consists of highly selected people like King Baudeoin), student activists protest in the University Hall. The rector calls in the police to break up the demonstration.

04.12.1968	Students ask for an explanation from the rector for his behavior and occupy the rector’s office. The rector calls in the police again, which uses teargas in response to students throwing bottles at them. 20 students and 5 police officers are injured in the battle, 5 students are arrested.

05.12.1968	At the UCL in Leuven the French-speaking academic community has its ‘journée de reflexion’, a day of discussion about the structure of the university in the future. A referendum on that subject is planned for in March 1971, which eventually results in the rejection of a plan proposed by a joint commission of academic staff and student leaders. As a result, the academic authorities only carry out partial reforms that make UCL Leuven less democratic than its Flemish counter-part, the K.U. Leuven.

06.12.1968	In Liège, a conflict arises between students and academic authorities about student participation in decision making processes which results in strike the following week with the participation of Leuven student-leader Paul Goossens.

13.12.1968	The academic authorities of the Free University of Brussels decide to split up the university along linguistic lines, so that from October 1969 on, there will be a French-speaking Université Libre de Bruxelles and a Flemish (Dutch-speaking) Vrije Universiteit Brussel as two independent universities.

1969

27.01.1969	After protests in Brussels and Liège, left-wing students in Leuven also voice their opposition to the movie ‘The Green Berets’ by invading the movie theater and occupying the ground floor. The balconies, however, though are filled with other students who paid to see the movie. After an hour of shouting between the two groups, the owner decides to start the film and both groups watch it.

27.01.1969 - 31.01.1969	In factories close to Gent a strike-movement starts, demanding less hours of work for the same wage. Students from Gent University come to the factories to support the strike. A ‘people’s meeting’ on the subject at the university attracts 300 students and ends in a demonstration heading for the offices of a local newspaper in order to demand ‘more objective information.’ The demonstration is, however, stopped by the police.

30.01.1969	In Liège, students demand in a letter to the rector that students will be admitted immediately as full members to the board of directors of the university. In case he refuses, they threaten to erect barricades in the city.

06.02.1969	In Liège, students elect 12 students as their representatives for the university’s board of directors, but rector Dubuisson still refuses their participation.

19.02.1969	Rector Dubuisson refuses to explain his vision on student participation before a student audience in Liège.

23.02.1969	Students and others demonstrate against the American war in Vietnam during president Nixon’s visit in Brussels.

03.03.1969	400 French-speaking students demonstrate in Leuven in front of the private home of Prime Minister Eyskens against the slow speed of the government’s transfer of the UCL to Wallonia. A clash with the police, which uses tear gas, results in 6 arrests.

09.03.1969	Demonstration in Brussels against the Vietnam War.

12.03.1969	In Gent, students organize a conference on pornography in a university building, but are not allowed to show pornographic pictures. The 400 participating students decide to protest against this ‘censorship’ with the rector the next day. This minor provocation starts the contestation at Gent university, one year later than elsewhere, known as the “March movement ’69.”

13.03.1969	In Gent, about 350 students march from the student cafeteria to the official house of the rector to present their motion against ‘censorship’ and in favor of ‘freedom of speech.’ The rector closes the door. When students to enter the building through the basement, rector J. Bouckaert calls the police. A clash with the students follows. In the evening, a demonstration gathers 1,000 students protesting against ‘academic authoritarianism’ and police repression.

14.03.1969 - 20.03.1969	A ‘people’s meeting’ attracts 1,500 students. Participants proclaim a strike and start a demonstration through the center of the city while shouting “’ t’ Is maar een begin, wij gaan door met de strijd” (‘This is just the beginning, let’s continue the combat’), a slogan borrowed from the May days in France in 1968. They also chant the slogan “Workers students: A United Front.” The movement continues the next days with meetings, discussion groups, demonstrations, leaflets and informative “wall papers” posted all over the city. Clashes with the gendarmerie take place on a daily basis. On February 19, several groups of students arrive at the gates of the many factories in Gent in order to ‘explain’ their combat for democracy to the workers. Ludo Martens, one of the ideologists of the Leninist turn in the Leuven student movement who is now a student at Gent university, tries to channel the March movement into a Marxist-Leninist direction. On February 20, the students formulate concrete demands for reform of the university. A central element is the abolishment of “ex-cathedra lectures” and the introduction of socially relevant seminars. During the night from February 20 to 21, the gendarmerie attacks the occupied auditorium in the Arts Faculty building and arrests the about 700 students present. They are set free the next morning. The next day the rector decides closes all university buildings for the public and declares an early Easter recess.

19.03.1969	In Liège, more than 100 students demonstrate before the rector’s house demanding greater student participation in university decisions.

28.03.1969	In Gent, students are on strike. More than 1,000 of them demonstrate against the rector’s policy. It is the climax of the mass movement which also marks its end. A minority of activists transform their commitment to the university to the workers in the factories in the following months.

19.04.1969	In Brussels, 200 students demonstrate against the regime of the colonels in Greece. A similar demonstration takes place in Liège two days later.

29.10.1969	50 students gather for a solidarity demonstration with the Palestinian people in Brussels.

20.11.1969	A group of about 200 students marches through Brussels demanding an educational reform.

11.12.1969	Students in Leuven demonstrate against the Greek regime of the colonels.

1970

05.01.1970	The miners of Limburg go on strike, demanding a rise of their salary by 15%. Soon 23,000 workers are participating and form a striking committee on their own without the support of the unions. Students, mainly from Leuven but also from Gent, join them. The Leninist students form the group ‘Mijnwerkersmacht’ (Miners power) which tries to give the strike a revolutionary direction. The Trotskist students follow a different strategy, namely supporting the unions. Neither of the two groups is able to mobilize the student masses, but still a lot of students travel daily from Leuven to Limburg in support of the strike.

17.01.1970	Solidarity demonstrations with the miners in Flemish university cities: several hundred demonstrators in Leuven, almost 1,000 in Antwerp, and about 800 in Gent.

12.02.1970	An interuniversity demonstration to support the miners brings 1,000 students to Leuven. The secondary school students of several municipalities in Limburg also demonstrate.

20.04.1970 - 24.04.1970	A week of protests against the dictatorial regime of the Greek colonels takes place in Brussels, climaxing in a demonstration of about 2,000 students on April 24. The same day, 2,500 students join the protest in Leuven.

28.04.1970	About 350 French-speaking students and staff members of the UCL demonstrate in Leuven, demanding financial guarantees for the transfer of UCL to Wallonia.

21.10.1970	A major student protest starts in Brussels, eventually supported by students from all Belgian universities, against the plans of the minister of justice Alfons Vranckx to apply a more restricted policy towards the foreigners and foreign students in Belgium from December 1970 onwards. The students fear that this move will mainly affect students from the Third World.

22.10.1970	Students occupy the administration of the Development Aid Office in Brussels.

29.10.1970	In Leuven, 200 students – more French-speakers than Flemings – demonstrate against the policy of minister Vranckx with regard foreigners.

30.11.1970	About 60 students – Flemings and French-speakers – begin a hunger strike against the plans of Vranckx in a student home in Leuven. Their banner outside the house reads “Nous sommes tous des étrangers” (a reference to 1968 when Daniel Cohn-Bendit was temporary expelled from France). Several hundred students sympathize with the hunger strikers and occupy part of the university hall. The Flemish and French-speaking rectors jointly call the police to expel the students. The same week, students occupy the grand reading room of the central university library. In their protest, they include once more a general critique of capitalist society and connect the issue of foreign students to that of the migrant workers. French-speaking and Flemish students have now completely joined ranks and work together.

December, 1970	Protest actions against the plans of minister Vranckx continue and are strong enough cause a mass mobilization. Until December 18, there are street manifestations in Leuven, Liége, Gent and Brussels, as well as in smaller centers of higher education like Kortrijk, Mons and Namur on a daily basis. In Antwerp, official student organizations stay aside.