page_title: Anarchism in France
section_title: The Fifth Republic (1958) and May 1968
hierarchical_section_title: Anarchism in France / The Fifth Republic (1958) and May 1968
context_page_description: Anarchism in France can trace its roots to thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration and was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. According to journalist Brian Doherty, "The number of people who subscribed to the anarchist movement's many publications was in the tens of thousands in France alone."
context_section_description: Many leaders of the Mouvement du 22 Mars, the March 1968 decentralized student protest in Nanterre, came from small anarchist groups. The anarchists rejected the Anarchist Federation, which they described as dogmatic, and instead mixed with other revolutionaries, such as Trotskyites and other militants. Anarchism was in a lull at the time of the radical May 1968 events. It was minimally present in, and gained no momentum from, the events. Even the Situationists, who held similar positions, bristled at being publicly grouped with the anarchists. Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice was popular during the May 1968 events.
  During the events of May 68 the anarchist groups active in France were Fédération anarchiste, Mouvement communiste libertaire, Union fédérale des anarchistes, Alliance ouvrière anarchiste, Union des groupes anarchistes communistes, Noir et Rouge, Confédération nationale du travail, Union anarcho-syndicaliste, Organisation révolutionnaire anarchiste, Cahiers socialistes libertaires, À contre-courant, La Révolution prolétarienne, and the publications close to Émile Armand.
  In the seventies the FA evolved into a joining of the principles of both synthesis anarchism and platformism. Today the FA is constituted of about one hundred groups around the country. It publishes the weekly Le Monde Libertaire and runs a radio station called Radio libertaire.
caption: logo of Fédération anarchiste