Ne travaillez jamais  

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"Ne travaillez jamais"[1] ("Never work") is a Situationist International slogan.

It first appeared in the streets of Paris in 1953 when Guy Debord inscribed the message as a graffito on a wall at the corner of the Rue de Mazarine and Rue de Seine. The slogan would later reappear in May 1968, and summed up the ethos of both the Letterist International and the Situationist International after them.

In January 1963, this inscription was published in n° 8[2] of Internationale Situationniste publication[3] where it is labelled as a "programme préalable au mouvement situationniste". The photo was accompanied by the text:

"cette inscription, sur un mur de la rue de seine, remonte aux premiers mois de 1953 (une inscription voisine qui relève de la politique traditionnelle aide à dater avec la plus sûre objectivité la trace de celle qui nous intéresse : appelant à une manifestation contre le général Ridgway, elle ne peut donc être postérieure à mai 1952). L'inscription que nous reproduisons ici semble être la plus importante trace jamais relevée sur le site de Saint-Germains-des-Prés, comme témoignage du mode de vie particulier qui a tenté de s'affirmer là."

On June 27, 1963, Guy Debord sent a letter[4] to the Cercle de la Librairie in response to a letter on their part which demanded a recompensation for intellectual property. Debord had taken the photo from a postcard[5][6] by Louis Buffier. In this letter, Debord asserted that the graffito was of his hand.

Furthermore, Debord objected to the humorous caption by Buffier, "Les conseils superflus" (Superfluous advice), printed in the left hand bottom corner of the postcard since Debord considered the advice far from superfluous.

See also

• List of Situationist International slogans
• Laziness