Two students in Professor François Proulx’s French cultural history course chose hands-on learning when the Department of French and Italian brought to the FLB a photo exhibit about the May 1968 French student and labor protests.

Lauren Longfellow, a senior from Mahomet, Ill., helped Proulx with the set-up and take-down of the exhibit, entitled “Au cœur de Mai 68” (“At the Heart of May 68”), which was on display in the FLB Atrium from April 24-26. Luke Lucio, a sophomore from LaGrange, Ill., helped with the take-down of the exhibit, and both students made presentations to their class.

The exhibition was a collaboration between the Association des Amis de Philippe Gras and Les Films des Quatre Planètes. It features 43 previously unpublished images of the May 1968 protests taken by acclaimed photographer Philippe Gras and discovered after his death in 2007.

This event was accompanied by the documentary film "Mai 68: un étrange printemps" (“May 1968: A Strange Spring,” in French with English subtitles) featuring first-person accounts by politicians, union representatives, and law enforcement.

Longfellow, who is majoring in civil engineering and minoring in French, talked about the cause of the student and workers strikes in France in 1968 and how they still come into play in politics today. The documentary features interviews with politicians, police officers, students, and regular citizens who were involved in the strikes and demonstrations. Longfellow also discussed their individual reactions, opinions or recollections of the events of May 1968 across France.

In his presentation, Lucio, who is majoring in French and integrative biology, focused on the second part of a documentary. He summarized a few of the events mentioned in the documentary, including the fleeing of President Charles de Gaulle. Lucio also noted the story of former police chief of Paris, Maurice Grimaud, who had to distribute soldiers and officers around the Latin Quarter and the Gare de Lyon area, as the riots quickly escalated.

The event was organized by the Department of French and Italian, with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. The Midwest tour of this exhibition was made possible by the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago with the generous support of the France-Chicago Center at the University of Chicago.