For those of us in the diaspora, it’s impossible to look at these images and see only the masses, the revolutionaries, or the wretched of the earth. It’s impossible to see fictionalised, fetishised caricatures, because we also see ourselves, in one way or another. We see ourselves in those we look at. We imagine being there, but we also imagine having always been there.

Political unrest had already begun on 22 March, at the new University of Nanterre, a branch of the Sorbonne. Students agitated about their living conditions, the restrictive rules on visiting times to the women’s dormitories and the rigid, archaic academic environment. The police repeatedly broke up protest meetings, provoking the students to go on strike and occupy the campus.