Two weeks ago, James Norrie wrote a comment piece comparing the Parisian student rebels of 1968 to their presumably apathetic and politically disengaged British counterparts in 2008. But what are the French themselves doing during the 40th anniversary of the student revolts?
Walking through a Latin Quarter swarming with tourists and bouquinistes, it is hard to imagine the violent scenes that took place here in May 1968. The French seem to have forgotten that millions of them marched against the establishment. Perhaps they have taken a leaf out of our book under the new Sarkozy government.
If you’re a bit rusty on your French history, let me enlighten you. On March 22, 1968, a group of students led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit carried out a seemingly innocuous protest in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre following the arrest of five students campaigning against the Vietnam war. This would escalate into the monumental movement that saw the shutdown of universities, the biggest workers’ strike of the century, and the eventual downfall of General de Gaulle.
Slogans such as the infamous il est interdit d’interdire covered the walls of the city. Eventually, students worldwide engaged manu militari against a stagnant society born of the aftermath of the Second World War, unease over the Algerian War, and the antagonism between youth culture and conservative mores.
Nowadays, what makes la une is Sarkozy’s latest gaffe, whether it be his texting during an audience with the Pope, his pleas to his ex-wife posted on the Internet, or the latest outfit that betrays his belief that he is actually Al Pacino in The Godfather. His je-m’en-foutisme, possibly stemming from a short-man-dictator-syndrome, is incredibly amusing, but slightly worrying in a country that prides itself on the spirit of revolution and individualism.
During the transport strike in November last year, polls showed for the first time that the majority of people supported the government rather than the strikers. Increasingly, the French are starting to sympathise with those of British sensibilities who view strikes as an effrontery to the stiff-upper-lip school of thought. ‘It is difficult to care about politics,’ says Bruno Veron, a second-year musicologist at the Sorbonne. ‘It’s all one long Big Brother episode. Politicians are celebrities and it’s only about image now. It’s disgusting.’ French students, once renowned for their political engagement, seem to have been put off by the new brand of Hello! Politics.
And it’s not as if French students have nothing to protest about. Merely to get a temporary post, virtually all of them are subjected to a typically poorly-paid internship related to their studies which amounts to near exploitation. And most have to do several of these even after graduation (sometimes in different sectors within the same company) before they are eventually hired. Consequently, they are forced to live with their parents until well after the embarrassing age of twenty-five.
I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, or, for that matter, anything like the idea of ‘liberté’ held so sacrosanct in the French constitution. A good number of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen head across the channel to London to find jobs, or else struggle for years before they get the golden ticket of a CDI (contrat de durée indeterminé). Add to that the fact that degrees in France are incredibly career-based and one is left with very few options in the job sector.
We should thank our lucky stars that we are free to choose relatively ‘useless’ subjects such as History and still become lawyers at the end. In a country with a red tape preoccupation bordering on fetishism, if you don’t have x qualification then you can’t get y job. So why are French students not building barricades on the Boulevard St. Michel?
Ironically, it was the events of May ’68 that led to this impasse in the students’ situation. In the aftermath of the uprisings, universities suffered from a political backlash. ‘The right did everything in their power to curb the autonomy of public universities such as the Sorbonne,’ says Régis Michel, head curator at the Louvre and visiting lecturer in Political Philosophy and Art at Northwestern University and UCL. ‘The grandes écoles [private establishments such as ENA or HEC] were encouraged to counter mutinous tendencies in leftist centres. We might well say the right succeeded, as the public education system is now in tatters.’
In spite of this hiatus in academia and political engagement, there is still hope for change. Interestingly enough, the depressed situation in French education is remarkably similar to the conditions pre-May 1968. Historians recognise the difficulty of pinpointing the causes of the uprising, precisely because it sprung from a general malaise amongst students due to differing factors.
‘The soixante-huitards felt like they had no real place in society. Above all, they had an overwhelming desire to change the world and to destroy the old values of the time,’ continues Régis Michel. Daniel Cohn-Bendit himself stated in an interview after the movement of March 22nd that students did not want to become the ‘cadres of tomorrow’ – a clear declaration of their refusal to be shoe-horned into nine-to-five jobs for the sake of it. Ten points if you spot the similarities with the status quo today. If Sarkozy continues to plummet in the opinion polls and ignores the ever more restricted opportunities for students, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was trouble down the line.
To be fair, French students do have one thing going for them: the vast majority do not pay tuition fees. At most, they pay about 100EU a year to cover administration costs – a mere pittance. What about les rosbifs? Doing countless internships isn’t obligatory, but we all know we’ll be about £12,000 out of pocket when we graduate. At least.
A thousand students or so demonstrated in London a few years back. But in reality, the lack of political engagement on the student level is, frankly, embarrassing. We can all play political parties at the various student associations at Oxford, but what about real involvement? Granted, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are about as inspiring as stick insects on valium, but George Pompidou wasn’t that much better, and we shouldn’t let ourselves be outdone by the French!
In May ‘68, students of our age assumed very real political responsibilities, and not just in France. There were also widespread protests in Belgium, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Czechoslovakia and Mexico, where 300 students were killed in the Tlatelolco Massacre before the Olympic Games. Students took to the streets to make their voices heard, and they were. Can we really say the same?
Given that the movement began with a small protest against the Vietnam War, it must be said there is something commendable about French conviction, whatever one’s views on strikes and protests. Better that than our own blasé attitude towards current events. And from what I hear, there is little sympathy among British students for the Iraq War. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Frenchman’s book, instead of sitting around discussing it over a pint in the KA.
