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Dany the Red Cohn-Bendit awarded degree 46 years after May 68

Ex-MEP and former student revolutionary leader "Dany the Red" Cohn-Bendit was at last awarded a degree at Paris's Nanterre University where he won international fame for leading student unrest in May 1968.

Dany the Red leading a demonstration on 13 May 1968 in Paris
Dany the Red leading a demonstration on 13 May 1968 in Paris AFP
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Receiving his doctorat honoris causa on Friday at  the University of Nanterre, Cohn-Bendit was honoured Doctor Honoris on Friday facetiously greeted the "comrade president", recalling the impertinence of his revolutionary youth.

"It's a bit of a paradox that the president of the university of Nanterre sings the praises of the most famous student rebel the university has ever had," the university's president Jean-François Balaudé commented. 

Cohn-Bendit, 69 and an ardent football fan, dedicated his degree to  Brazilian footballer Socrates and to French Green activist Rémy Fraisse, who died in a demonstration last October. 

"Europe is the only worthwhile utopia today", said Cohn-Bendit, who went from street-fighting anarchist to being a Green MEP in a long and controversial political career. "It doesn't work but still it's a fabulous dream."

Cohn-Bendit was born in the French town of Montauban to German-Jewish parents but chose German citizenship at the age of 14 in order to avoid conscription in France.

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