First, it is the revolutionary fever that is evident. A modern remake of Liberty Leading the People, the famous painting by Eugène Delacroix inspired by the July 1830 revolution in Paris, which overthrew King Charles X. A van has replaced the barricade, but the human pyramid is there, jubilant. The flag too, brandished by the Portuguese like the Marianne of the canvas. In this photo taken on 1er May 1974 in the streets of Lisbon by the Franco-Haitian photographer Gérald Bloncourt (1926-2018), it is indeed about freedom that we are talking about. But also of a people.
A few days earlier, in the early hours of April 25, the Portuguese army launched a coup d’état against the dictatorial regime, in the process of decay, established in 1933 by António de Oliveira Salazar (died in 1970). But nothing goes as planned. Instead of hiding in their homes, the population takes to the streets and meets the soldiers. As she approaches the flower market, she grabs armfuls of carnations to distribute them to the insurgent soldiers, who will soon put them into the barrel of their rifles.
Close friend of Gérald Bloncourt, the writer and former filmmaker based in Paris José Vieira, 66, retains a keen memory of the events. “During the forty years that the dictatorship lasted, hypnotized crowds were summoned to parades of Salazar, this kind of priest with a falsetto voice who, moreover, had a horror of gatherings and always seemed embarrassed, not knowing how to behave in public, relates the director of numerous documentaries for French television. From April 25, these crowds transformed into people, a people on the march, shouting slogans. A people who, from 1er May, will occupy land and factories, to bring down the regime, with the support of the military. »
“Applause as military trucks pass”
Gérald Bloncourt had succeeded, on the 28th april 1974, jumping into the caravel that brought Álvaro Cunhal, general secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, then exiled in France, from Paris to Lisbon. During the flight, the activists returning to the country sang revolutionary songs while stamping their feet with energy, to the point of frightening the captain, the photographer will recount in a booklet published in 2019 for the exhibition For a better life, at the La Lanterne cultural center, in Rambouillet: “Arriving without a visa, we were greeted by a huge crowd surrounding the tanks of the revolting army. Cunhal, hoisted on one of them, harangued his supporters. » Gérald Bloncourt then went through sleepless nights to immortalize “the laughter, the tears, the flowers at the gun barrels, the meetings between newly released prisoners, the applause as the military trucks loaded with smiling soldiers pass”.
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