Postwar Culture

Following the Algerian War in the 1950s, France entered a period of relative stability in the 1960s; the country’s colonial outposts were given up and the economy improved. Many people, however, remained discontent with the current social systems. Young people in particular criticized the antiquated national university system and were frustrated by limited employment opportunities for recent graduates. Sporadic student demonstrations for education reform began in 1968. At a protest at the Sorbonne, the most distinguished of the colleges, on May 3, the police broke up the gathering; dozens of students were injured and several hundred were arrested. Courses at the Sorbonne were subsequently suspended and students continued to protest in the streets of the Latin Quarter, surrounding the university colleges, building barricades to keep the police at bay. The student protesters extended their demands beyond education reform, calling for radical, systematic economic and political change in France. Union leaders planned strikes in support of the students, and the situation escalated as a general strike spread to factories and industries across the country, paralyzing newspaper distribution, two major rail lines, and air transit. By the end of the month, millions of workers were on strike.

In an effort to diffuse the situation, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou announced that the Sorbonne would reopen on May 13. On that day, however, students took over the buildings and converting the university into a commune. From this base, students and striking workers continued to protest in the streets of the city. Unrest spread to other French universities and industries around the country over the next few days, eventually involving several million people. The worst fighting occurred on the evening of May 24, when students temporarily seized the Paris stock exchange, flew a communist flag, and then attempted to set it on fire. As the radical student protesters increasingly called for full revolution, they began to lose the support of the mainstream community and union leaders. On May 30, President Charles de Gaulle declared the dissolution of the National Assembly and announced open elections, but also appealed for a return to order, and implied that he would use military force if necessary. The labor strikes were gradually abandoned, although the student protests continued until June 12, when they were banned; shortly thereafter, all protestors were evicted from the Sorbonne. In the two rounds of voting later in June, the Gaullists won a majority in the National Assembly. However, in the wake of the protests, the government implemented a series of reforms, including higher wages, improved working conditions, and a bill to modernize higher education.