Epilogue: The Day My Father Fell Silent (Extracts)

Abstract

The following text is extracted from Virginie Linhart’s award-winning essay ‘Le jour où mon père s’est tu’, or ‘The Day my Father Fell Silent’. It recounts the experiences of the sons and daughters of some of the key players in what has been referred to throughout this volume as the ‘1968 years’. Virginie Linhart is herself the daughter of one of the most militant and influential Maoist leaders of the day, who subsequently attempted to take his own life. Her own childhood experiences cross the events discussed in a number of contributions to this collection, from her recollections of the Maoist rhetoric discussed by Philippe Buton to her exposure to the radical fringe of feminist liberation which spearheaded the sort of deep change in sexual politics analyzed by Prearo and Rebreyand. Also covered is the inscription of ‘May’ within a longer historical trajectory and more particularly the impact of the Nazi period on the Jewish immigrants who then raised some of the future militants of the gauchiste movements.