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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesStudent protests in France became a nationwide crisis when police action and campus closures intensified demonstrations, then a May 13 general strike carried the unrest into workplaces and public services. By June, millions of workers had joined stoppages and occupations, the government had faced a political confrontation, and elections were underway. The episode did not begin or end in May, and it cannot be explained by student grievances alone.
Why students were protesting before May 1968
The unrest had been building for years. Historian Michelle Zancarini-Fournel says student discontent had simmered since 1963, shaped by opposition to traditional university structures and examinations, concerns about selection and opportunity, and demands about student life. Police had also intervened at universities outside Paris earlier in 1968, including during disputes over movement between male and female students’ residences. CNRS News’ 2018 interview with Zancarini-Fournel places these grievances in a longer history rather than treating the May street clashes as a spontaneous beginning.
In March, about 150 students led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit occupied an administrative building at Nanterre. Zancarini-Fournel describes this as a trigger identified in hindsight, not a complete explanation for the crisis. The distinction matters: Nanterre was one point in a wider set of disputes, and the state’s response helped turn university conflict into a larger confrontation.
How campus closures and police action intensified the protests
Nanterre’s dean suspended classes amid incidents on May 2. The next day, police evacuated the Sorbonne; clashes followed, and the university closed the following day. Arrests and the police response generated solidarity among students, while closures and demonstrations brought the conflict into the streets. Larousse’s account describes the arrests and the solidarity they prompted; the Fondation Charles de Gaulle chronology records the university closures and ensuing disturbances.
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On May 10, demonstrators erected barricades in Paris’s Latin Quarter. The government announced that faculties would reopen, and Prime Minister Georges Pompidou returned to Paris and addressed the country. These events escalated the student conflict, but neither student complaints nor policing by itself explains the crisis that followed: the decisive expansion came when workers joined the movement.
How the movement spread from universities to workplaces
On May 13, students demonstrated in Paris and provincial cities. Students occupied the reopened Sorbonne, and a general strike began alongside occupations. The next day, workers occupied the Sud-Aviation plant in Nantes. Strikes and occupations then spread to factories, while public services were also affected. The crisis was no longer confined to campus or to Paris.
The phases overlapped rather than forming a clean handoff from students to workers. Zancarini-Fournel describes a student uprising from May 3 to 11, a strike-and-occupation wave from May 13 through June, a political crisis from May 24 to 30, and a period of compromise and election campaigning as strikes and occupations receded during June. The sequence shows how an initial student revolt became a national labor and political crisis without ceasing to involve students.
How many workers went on strike?
Estimates depend on the source and the date, so they should not be treated as one definitive peak count.
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- The Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA), writing in 2023, says the student and worker movements together involved up to 7 million strikers.
- In a 2018 interview, Zancarini-Fournel describes a walkout by 7 million employees.
- A May 22, 1968, US National Security Council summary note estimated that 8 million workers were on strike by May 21. This was a contemporaneous US government estimate, not a French official count; it appears in the US Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States archive.
The figures differ in wording, reference date, and source. Together, they indicate that millions of workers took part and that the stoppages disrupted everyday activity, industry, and transportation.
Why negotiations did not immediately end the crisis
Government representatives, trade unions, and employers began talks at the Ministry of Social Affairs on May 25. A protocol was signed at Grenelle on May 27, but workers at Renault and other major companies rejected it. Calling the document the “Grenelle Agreements” can therefore be misleading if it suggests workers accepted it as a settlement. The CNRS interview notes that later gains included significant pay increases and a December law legalizing trade-union branches within companies.
Political uncertainty continued alongside the labor conflict. On May 30, President Charles de Gaulle announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling legislative elections. The Fondation Charles de Gaulle chronology records a large pro-de Gaulle demonstration in Paris that day. In the June 23–30 election, the presidential majority won a major victory.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How strikes and occupations wound down in June
The return to work was gradual, not a single event that followed the election announcement. Some workplaces and public services resumed activity in early June. The Fondation Charles de Gaulle chronology records work resuming in metallurgy and automobile production on June 18, while strikes and occupations subsided over the course of the month.
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The crisis thus moved through several connected arenas: university grievances and policing, street demonstrations, workplace occupations and strikes, government negotiations, and electoral politics. The shorthand “May 1968” can obscure that the labor action and political resolution extended into June and reached well beyond Paris; Zancarini-Fournel specifically cautions against reading the label as a literal description of the episode’s timing or geography.
What changed after the immediate crisis
University reform was among the institutional consequences. The CNRS interview identifies the Edgar Faure law of November 1968 as a major reform of universities. A separate law in December legalized company-level trade-union branches. These measures followed a crisis that had exposed grievances within both higher education and workplaces.
Zancarini-Fournel describes the episode as a lasting social and political turning point, while broader claims about cultural change are best understood as historical interpretation rather than as simple, direct consequences of the protests. As she put it: “The ‘68 moment’ had a deep and lasting effect on our recent history and the national collective memory.” — Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, emeritus professor of contemporary history at the University of Lyon, interviewed by CNRS News.
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