Interview with Hélène Bleskine

Radical theatre / Comités Vietnam de base/ Comités d’Action/ Gargenville/Flins

Born 26 August 1946, Argenteuil. Father an engineer from St Petersburg, left USSR in the 1920s married a Norman woman 1940 and naturalised after 1945. ‘Myth of the Bolshevik Revolution’ haunted Hélène.

Lycée of Nancy, up to baccalauréat. Involved in Théâtre universitaire at Nancy with Jacques Lang c. 1965. This set up the Festival international du Théâtre, brought in radical American companies like Bread and Puppet, Campesino. Involved in Université Internationale du Théâtre des Nations, Châtelet.

Her brothers were in French Communist Party and opposed to the Algerian war. Her own activist apprenticeship was really through theatre, but also through Comités Vietnam de base, in both Nancy and Paris.

Organised lycéen drama group at Clamart and in Comité d’Action of 14e arrondissement. Lived in an activist commune at Gargenville, which set up a base ouvrière at the car factory of Flins, supposed to be a focus for the continuing workers’ movement, 1970, and produced a play there.

Became a novelist and kept faith with the libertarian vein of 1968.

L’Espoir gravé (1975). ‘Mai 68. Quelques pas tout autour’ (podcasts, 2018) https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/fictions-le-feuilleton/mai-68-quelques-pas-tout-autour-par-helene-bleskine