The slogan “It is forbidden to forbid” was popularized after May 1968, but its origin goes back to a joke by the humorist Jean Yanne, probably before the events.
Origin and context
Presumed author: Jean Yanne, a French humorist, reportedly launched this phrase on the airwaves of RTL as a mocking joke, well before May 1968.
Despite its fame, this slogan appears on no official poster nor in the authenticated graffiti of May 1968. It is often wrongly attributed to that movement.
The expression is a figure of speech that plays on repetition and apparent contradiction, which strengthens its rhetorical impact.
Use and legacy
Although absent from the original slogans of May 1968, “It is forbidden to forbid” has become emblematic of the libertarian and anti-authoritarian spirit of that period.
It has been recycled in advertising, political and social contexts as a symbol of protest against any form of censorship or excessive authority.
Edwy Plenel, former editor of Le Monde, has pointed out that this phrase was never a demonstration slogan, but that it was used to sum up the spirit of May 1968 in a reductive way in the following decades.
Philosophical meaning
The slogan expresses a desire for total liberation, rejecting any norm or restriction.
It embodies a radical critique of authority, but also a paradoxical tension: forbidding forbidding amounts to laying down a prohibition, which makes it a provocative and self-refuting formula.