French Students Invoke 1968 Legacy Amid Ongoing Education Protests

French students resumed street demonstrations on Thursday, blockading educational institutions and marching nationwide to protest what they describe as severe underfunding of the country’s education system. Now in its third week, the mobilization has drawn hundreds of thousands of participants and escalated into violent clashes, with police deploying tear gas and water cannons against protesters who have lit fires and thrown projectiles.

The unrest spread nationally on Tuesday after student unions called for broader solidarity. Teachers, parents, and activists joined the ranks, bringing the total number of arrests or stops by police to at least 6,547 since the protests began. According to France’s Interior Ministry, both students and officers have sustained numerous injuries. As of midday Thursday, the Education Ministry reported that 157 schools remained closed.

A recurring motif in the demonstrations has been references to May 1968, a pivotal period of civil unrest that nearly toppled the French government. At the University of Perpignan Via Domitia, a banner warned authorities: “You’re trying to pull a fast one on us, we’ll give you May ’68.” In Marseille’s Reforme Square, a sign read “Generation 67 is doing May 68,” likely referencing the Gen Alpha 6-7 trend. Meanwhile, protesters in Paris brandished signs echoing the 1968 slogan “sois jeune et tais-toi” (be young and shut up).

Chris Reynolds, a professor of contemporary European history at Nottingham Trent University, noted that 1968 remains a seminal reference point in French protest history. “Not only because of the sheer enormity of what happened, but that it started out as a smallish student protest that within a very short space of time mushroomed to become arguably the greatest strike in French history,” Reynolds said. He added that the state has harbored fears since then that a student movement could reignite and draw support from other sectors, leading to a wider crisis.

The May 1968 protests originated at the Nanterre campus of the University of Paris, where students opposed restrictive and conservative university rules throughout 1967 and early 1968. Robert Gildea, a professor of European and French history at the University of Oxford, described the era as a “crisis of education” driven by rapid university expansion and hierarchical structures that lacked communication between faculty and students.

When the Nanterre campus was shut down in May 1968 to quell the unrest, the movement migrated to the Sorbonne in Paris’ Latin Quarter. Students barricaded themselves inside the university, demanding systemic reform and accusing President Charles de Gaulle of establishing a “police state.” Violent confrontations with riot police ensued, resulting in hundreds of arrests. The situation intensified when trade unions organized general strikes, bringing approximately 10 million workers out of factories and onto the streets. The economic disruption prompted De Gaulle to dissolve parliament, declare a state of emergency, and call for snap elections in June. His conservative party won, and the protests eventually lost momentum, though they left a lasting cultural impact.

Gildea observed that contemporary students reference 1968 with pride while issuing a warning that unity among youth could spark revolution. “The French are very proud of their revolutionary tradition and all subsequent revolutions want to reference it as an appeal for legitimacy,” he said. Previous major student demonstrations in 2006 and 2018 also drew comparisons to the 1968 events, underscoring what Reynolds described as a recurring historical touchstone passed down through generations.