May 1968 protests

May 1968 is invoked as a moment when the design of Paris became part of the struggle between angry crowds and the authorities. In Jacopo Belbo’s recollection, the contrast between broad, controllable boulevards and the narrow lanes of the Latin Quarter turns an episode of political unrest into practical knowledge about how to flee.

Urban Design and Crowd Control

Belbo traces Paris’s broad, straight streets to Napoleon III, who, following the example of the Savoys in Turin, had the city disemboweled and remade as a network of boulevards. He admires the result as intelligent city planning, but stresses its other purpose: wide, straight streets made it easier to control angry crowds. Even where the terrain did not permit such avenues, he says, streets were made broad and straight where possible, including the Champs-Elysees.

The Latin Quarter and Escape

The narrow streets of the Latin Quarter offered a different advantage. Belbo presents them as the place where May 1968 was seen to best effect: unlike the boulevards, the smaller lanes could not all be watched at once, and police were reluctant to enter them in small numbers. If a few officers encountered a few fleeing people, he suggests, both sides might be frightened enough to run in opposite directions.

His advice is concrete: when attending a mass rally in an unfamiliar area, reconnoiter the neighborhood the day before and wait at the corner where the little streets begin. The political lesson is therefore also spatial and tactical. A city planned to discipline crowds still contains gaps in that control, and the alley becomes a route of escape.