‘Power is in the Streets’: Protest and Militancy in France, Italy and West Germany, 1968–1979

This article explores cultures of militancy in public space among currents the revolutionary left France, Italy and West Germany during ‘red decade’. It shows how radicals embraced convergent strategic perspectives, discourses on violence insubordinate practices for confronting police. However, patterns subsequently diverged along national lines face different experiences neo-fascist violence, domestic social conflict, legacies armed resistance civil war. In particular, relatively frequent use lethal force by Italian police defence order motivated a current to endorse firearms protests. Across experiences, protest policing conditioned protestors transformation – or not into terrorists.