26 - Afrique(s), entre histoire et mémoire(s)
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Bocar Niang, Pascal Scallon-Chouinard
Questioning the memory of ‘May 68’in Senegal from its media coverage
Le Temps des médias n° 26, Printemps 2016, p. 163-180.
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The political and social protest movement that swept the world in 1968 did not leave Africa unaffected. In Senegal, the year was characterized by a prolonged general strike spearheaded by the students of the Université de Dakar and the Union nationale des travailleurs du Sénégal, the country’s most important trade union, despite its affiliation with the governing political party, the Union Progressiste sénégalaise. This combined worker and student strike quickly turned into an open defiance against President Leopold Sedar Senghor’s regime, incurring the hostility of various French lobbies and most conservative elements of Senegalese society. The dispute inevitably received wide coverage in France as well as in Senegal. This media coverage, which took place in a highly polarized environment, was characterized by censorship and manipulation of all kinds, allowing an analysis in a new light of the reporting by French and Senegalese media on these events.