Journal Mural

The Journal Mural is an oversized wall newspaper produced by the Atelier Populaire from June 10 through 30, 1968. All-together the Atelier produced 5 issues; the Beinecke holds numbers 3 (produced roughly June 17) and 4 (produced roughly June 20). The masthead features the iconic factory profile with a raised fist emerging from the smokestack, below which reads “La Lutte Continue.” The newspaper features short articles about strikes in France and the Paris demonstrations, collected directly from the workers or strike committees, or from Action Committee militants who were also in direct contact with the workers. Issue 3 also features a national news item, the release of right-wing leaders of the Organisation armée secrète, a right-wing paramilitary organization active during the Algerian War. Issue 4 includes a report on the Vietnam War. As Atelier Populaire wrote in the preface to their 1969 poster book Posters from the revolution, Paris, May, 1968 (also in the Beinecke’s collection), the purpose of the wall newspaper was to “inform… to print the truth about the people’s struggle, and to give news which the bourgeois press hides or distorts.” As part of a tradition of insurgent wall newspapers, the format promotes public circulation of underground news amid a local audience, at a large scale that meant it could be read collectively, while posted on the wall.