May 1968 in France: Student Revolt and General Strike

May 1968 was a period of mass protest in France that began with a student revolt in Paris and grew into the largest general strike in the country’s history. At its height in late May, millions of workers occupied factories and offices, and President Charles de Gaulle’s government seemed close to collapse. Although the political order survived, “Mai 68” changed French society and culture and became a symbol of the global protests of 1968.

Background: a frustrated generation

France in the 1960s was prosperous and modernising, but many young people felt stifled. University enrolment had more than doubled during the decade, and campuses such as the new faculty at Nanterre, west of Paris, were overcrowded and impersonal. Rules on student life, including bans on men visiting women’s dormitories, were strict.

The wider political climate was also tense. De Gaulle had governed since 1958 with strong presidential powers and tight control of state radio and television. Opposition to the Vietnam War energised left-wing student groups, and Marxist, Trotskyist, Maoist and anarchist ideas circulated widely. Workers faced low wages, long hours and rising unemployment.

At Nanterre, students led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit occupied an administration building on 22 March 1968, giving their name to the “22 March Movement”. After further disturbances, the authorities closed the Nanterre campus on 2 May.

The student revolt

On 3 May police entered the courtyard of the Sorbonne in central Paris to break up a student meeting and arrested hundreds of people. The Sorbonne was closed, and spontaneous fighting broke out in the Latin Quarter. The national students’ union (UNEF), led by Jacques Sauvageot, and the lecturers’ union under Alain Geismar called for protests.

Clashes grew over the following week. On the night of 10–11 May, known as the “Night of the Barricades”, students built dozens of barricades from paving stones and cars in the streets around the rue Gay-Lussac. Riot police of the CRS attacked them with tear gas and batons in the early hours. Hundreds were injured, and radio reports carried the violence live into French homes, turning much of public opinion against the police.

The general strike

Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, returning from a trip to Afghanistan, announced on 11 May that the Sorbonne would reopen, but it was too late to calm the situation. On 13 May the main trade unions called a one-day general strike, and hundreds of thousands of people marched through Paris. Students occupied the Sorbonne and turned it into a permanent assembly.

On 14 May workers at the Sud Aviation plant near Nantes occupied their factory and locked in the managers. The movement spread to Renault factories at Cléon, Flins and Boulogne-Billancourt, and then across the country. Railways, post offices, ports, mines, banks, schools and broadcasting were affected. Estimates of the number of strikers at the peak, around 22 to 27 May, range from about 7 million to more than 10 million.

Artists in the occupied École des Beaux-Arts produced hundreds of screen-printed posters, and slogans painted on walls captured the mood: “Beneath the paving stones, the beach”, “It is forbidden to forbid” and “All power to the imagination”.

De Gaulle’s response

De Gaulle cut short a state visit to Romania and returned on 18 May. His television address of 24 May, proposing a referendum on “participation”, fell flat, and that night there was renewed rioting in Paris. On 25–27 May Pompidou negotiated the Grenelle agreements with unions and employers, which raised the national minimum wage by 35 per cent, granted general pay rises and recognised union rights in the workplace. Workers at Renault-Billancourt rejected the deal, and the strikes continued.

On 29 May de Gaulle left Paris without explanation and flew secretly to Baden-Baden in West Germany to meet General Jacques Massu, commander of French forces there. The next day, back in Paris, he announced on the radio that he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling elections. That evening a huge crowd of his supporters marched along the Champs-Élysées; estimates range from a few hundred thousand to around a million.

The end of the movement

Through June, workers gradually returned to work, often after winning local concessions. Police cleared the Odéon theatre on 14 June and the Sorbonne on 16 June. There were several deaths during the unrest, including a police officer in Lyon in May, and a schoolboy and two workers during clashes near the Renault plant at Flins and the Peugeot plant at Sochaux in June.

In the elections of 23 and 30 June 1968, the Gaullists won a landslide, gaining an absolute majority on their own in the National Assembly. Many voters had been alarmed by disorder and the fear of revolution.

Key people

• Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970), President of France since 1959, was initially slow to grasp the scale of the crisis but regained control with his announcement of 30 May.
• Georges Pompidou (1911–1974), prime minister, favoured negotiation, reopened the Sorbonne and led the Grenelle talks; his handling of the crisis strengthened his own standing.
• Daniel Cohn-Bendit (born 1945), a sociology student at Nanterre of German nationality, became the best-known face of the student revolt. The government barred him from returning to France after a trip abroad in late May, prompting the slogan “We are all German Jews”.
• Alain Geismar and Jacques Sauvageot led the lecturers’ and students’ unions that called many of the early protests.
• Georges Séguy, leader of the CGT, France’s largest and Communist-led trade union federation, negotiated at Grenelle; the CGT kept its distance from the student radicals and focused on wages and union rights.

Consequences

Pompidou was replaced as prime minister in July 1968. Later that year the Faure law reformed higher education, giving universities more autonomy and students a say in governance. Workers kept their wage gains and new union rights.

De Gaulle’s authority, however, was weakened. When voters rejected his referendum on regional and Senate reform on 27 April 1969, he resigned the next day. Pompidou was elected president in June 1969.

Legacy

The meaning of May 1968 has been debated ever since. For some it was a failed revolution; for others it was a cultural turning point that loosened hierarchies in families, schools and workplaces and opened the way for feminism, environmentalism and gay rights movements in France. Critics on the right have blamed it for a decline in authority, and some politicians have called for its legacy to be “liquidated”.

May 1968 is also remembered as part of a worldwide wave of protest that year, from the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia to campus revolts in the United States, Mexico, West Germany and Italy.

Timeline

• 1968, 22 March: Students occupy an administration building at Nanterre; the 22 March Movement is born.
• 1968, 3 May: Police clear a meeting at the Sorbonne; fighting erupts in the Latin Quarter.
• 1968, 10–11 May: The Night of the Barricades in the Latin Quarter.
• 1968, 13 May: One-day general strike and mass march in Paris; students occupy the Sorbonne.
• 1968, 14 May: Workers occupy the Sud Aviation plant near Nantes; strikes spread.
• 1968, 25–27 May: The Grenelle negotiations produce a wage agreement.
• 1968, 29–30 May: De Gaulle flies to Baden-Baden, then dissolves the National Assembly.
• 1968, 23 and 30 June: The Gaullists win a landslide election.
• 1969, 28 April: De Gaulle resigns after losing a referendum.

Why it matters

May 1968 showed how quickly a student protest could spread into a national crisis in a modern democracy. Its slogans, posters and ideas still shape debates in France and beyond about authority, freedom and the relationship between students, workers and the state.