ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the first French intellectuals to support the student revolt of May 1968 through his writings, interviews, and meeting the students occupying the Sorbonne; yet, as he would admit in 1972, it was not until almost a year later that he understood its significance. In April 1970, leading members of a Maoist group, La Gauche proletarienne appealed to Sartre for assistance. The Maoists were inspired by events in China where Mao Tse-Tung had launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Sartre was impressed by the number of French Maoist students who became etablis, abandoning their studies, often at prestigious educational establishments, to take jobs in factories and live as workers. Sartre’s friendship with individual Maoists, especially Benny Levy, deepened after the auto-dissolution of the Maoist organization in 1973. Alain Geismar also saw a link between what the Maoists were trying to do and Sartre’s own thinking and writing.
