Abstract
In May 1968, France experienced a political and social upheaval that shook the regime to its foundation.
May 1968, also called May 68, is the name given to a series of events that started with a student strike in France, which broke out at a number of universities and high schools in Paris.
In Homo Academicus, Pierre Bourdieu defined May 68 as a “critical event”, “the chronological roof of a general crisis born of the sudden conjunction of independent causal series”.
Alain Touraine defined these events as “a new social conflict”. It was like “the revolt of a new generation” according to Egdar Morin, and “an institution's crisis” according to Michel Crozier.
The sociological constructions are different, and a whole conception of these events is missing, because it was defined as a “revolt” , a “quasi-revolution” , “an imaginary revolution” and “a cultural crisis” . Though each of these qualifications put the accent on some elements of the protestations, none succeed in giving an account of the dynamic of the mobilization, and of its consequences.
In 1967 the student movement started in France, creating an amelioration of the conditions of their daily life. This movement met few echoes. In 1968, the “movement of 22 March” took over the relay of the contestation, led by some small groups such as the anarchists, the enraged people from René Riesel, who became famous due to the occupation of Nanterre University. The main character of this movement was Daniel Cohn Bendit who became the symbol of the reappraisal of the authoritarianism. The causes of this movement were diverse according to the analysts, but all of them revolve around the idea that a great rigidity erected barriers in human relationships and mores in the whole society.
