Alfred Courmes – L’intervention de l’armée est demandée, 1969

A new exhibition charts the wild energy of the French counterculture in the wake of the May 1968 protests. L’Esprit français, Countercultures, 1969-1989, is at La Maison Rouge, Paris, 24 February–21 May

Coopérative des Malassis – detail from Qui tue? ou lʼaffaire Gabrielle Russier, subtitled ‘Lʼhistoire vraie dʼune jeune femme, de son histoire dʼamour, de sa mort’

The May ’68 protests by students, artists and workers railed against Charles de Gaulle’s government, and argued for a more socialist, even communist France. The protests were quashed, but the ‘spirit of 68’ galvanised a generation of French artists, characterised by a kind of ironic, amused, somewhat nihilistic temperament

Michel Journiac – Hommage au Putain Inconnu, 1973

‘Here’s an idea: what if France’s “beloved liberty” didn’t actually exist, wasn’t even a dot on the horizon; what if it were just a hypothesis to be experienced in the present tense, a hypothesis whose boundaries need to be pushed at all times?’ wonder the exhibition’s curators Guillaume Désanges and François Piron. ‘Countercultures express this idea by way of a provocative spirit and the symbolic destruction of society’s political, administrative and moral structures’

Jacques Monory – Antoine n° 6, 1973

‘There is indeed a fundamental tendency in France to criticise rather than celebrate. Protest is never-ending, never enough... Instead of trying to build alternatives to the dominant model, it seeks to exercise a kind of self-nourishing, self-sufficient “critical function”. This malefic, insolent poltergeist, shooting down everything in its path, deliberately defies censure and includes its very self in its negativity. The seeds of this opposition – more ironic than idealistic – were sown in the slogans of May 68 and continued to grow throughout the 70s’

Kiki Picasso – 1974, élection de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing à la présidence de la République (19 mai) ; réalisation du dernier des essais nucléaires français atmosphériques (15 septembre)

‘More out of insolence than joy, an enlightened French youth rejected politics, substituting dance floors for debating floors,’ they write. ‘Was Paris still burning? Yes – but this time with lights and sequins, from the decadent parties at Le Palace and La Main Bleue to dazzling ads, video clips and the kitsch, baroque style of the trendsetters’

Alain Le Saux – cover of La Jungle Nue by Philip Jose Farmer, 1974

‘A forerunner of the post-modern power-dressing of the 80s now began to emerge into the daylight (or rather into the dusk); an updated dandyism exhibiting a falsely naive, if not downright cynical, superficiality. Because the only way to deal with despair was to be beautiful, creative, artistic, egotistical – and brainless’

Philippe Morillon – Members of the groups Gazolines and To The Bop in front of the shop Pendora de Luxe in Les Halles, 1975

Amid this potentially apathetic atmosphere, there was still resistance though – groups like the Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire (FHAR) formed to fight for gay rights and sexual liberation. The Gazolines, pictured here, were a spin-off group from FHAR

Régis Cany – taken from Les Photographittis, Paris and Parisian suburbs, 1977-1982

But perhaps thanks to the ongoing rise of capitalism, the growth of increasingly dystopian suburban housing projects, and the aforementioned irony and political apathy, a violent mood descended on the art scene

Alain Bizos – En joue!, 1979

‘Heroin, disillusionment and self-hatred contributed to a tense atmosphere in which young people quickly went from peace and love to punk aggression. This abrupt change in ideology was perhaps less about the arrival of a new generation and more a sign that countercultures had reached the end of the diplomatic road’

Pierre et Gilles – Marie-France, 1980

‘The pervading fascination with violent motifs in the broadest sense of the term (fighting, prison, terrorism, crude pornography, psychiatry) was picked up by a prolific graphic movement, led by groups such as Bazooka and Elles sont de sortie whose graphzines took comics into an angry, adult age. Their provoking images turned their back on the more idealistic political agenda of their elders; their format deliberately harked back to the visual codes of totalitarianism and advertising in a kind of critical mimicry’

Jorge Damonte – Copi posing for one of his roles in the play Le Frigo, 1983

Their work was part of a flourishing DIY scene in France at the time, ‘illustrated by the unprecedented wave of publications in every sphere of society: students, conscientious objectors, prisoners, doctors, psychiatrists, patients, artists, women and homosexuals formed networks through which they wrote, printed, stapled, dispatched and swapped leaflets and handouts – frequently home-made – with an irrepressible desire to express themselves and share their thoughts’

Alain Le Saux – Ma maîtresse a dit qu’il fallait bien posséder la langue française, 1985

This DIY independence led to a huge range of expression. Graphic designer and illustrator Alain Le Saux, for instance, went from 68-era revolutionary to children’s book illustrator – but kept his sense of surrealism and provocation in tact

ORLAN – Titre d’un film virtuel: ORLAN avant Sainte-ORLAN, 1988

The feminist breakthroughs made by the 1968 generation paved the way for the likes of ORLAN, the French performance artist whose body-fixated works became hugely influential