May 68 from the perspective of Claude Lefort: the reinvention of political action in the decline of the revolutionary horizon

Abstract

The article aims to situate Claude Lefort's interpretation of the protest wave that took France in May 1968 and to highlight the impacts that this historical event provoked in his political thought, especially with regard to the understanding of the status of political action within contemporary democratic societies. First of all, we seek to show that his reading of the event is anchored in a mature reflection on the bureaucratic phenomenon, which allows Lefort to discern the generalized social contestation, which occurred not by chance at the University, as a refusal of the capitalist-bureaucratic logic present in the institutions French of the time. After, we address the repercussions of May 68 in the scope of Lefort's theoretical reflection and the way in which the philosopher is instigated to rethink the notions of history, political subject and revolution at a distance from a matrix of Marxist thought. Finally, it is about following the author’s philosophical effort in its double dimension: the critique of the present and the elaboration of a new paradigm of emancipation.