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In 1959 Charles de Gaulle, iconic wartime leader of the French Resistance movement, assumed the role of President of France.
His appointment came as a relief for much of France. The years following the Second World War had seen the French economy crippled; a consequence of years of colonial war in Algeria and elsewhere; and a series of unstable governments rarely lasting longer than six months.

While his presidency ushered in a new era of political and economic stability, his old fashioned, formal attitudes and paternal demeanour were in stark contrast to the huge social changes sweeping the globe.

Paris' police force had an already fearsome reputation. In 1961, a demonstration by Algerian pro-independence movement the FLN was brutally quashed under orders from Parisian police chief Maurice Papon. Official figures put the death toll at forty, the actual figure was nearer to three hundred, with dozens of bodies found floating in the Seine.

In February 1968 culture minister Andre Malraux removed Henri Langlois as director of the government-funded Cinémathèque Française citing poor management.
Telegrams of support for Langlois poured in from directors from all over the World, from Charlie Chaplin to Kurosawa and Fellini.
On February 14th, a protest was organised and three thousand of Langlois' supporters rallied at the Cinémathèque's location at the Palais de Chaillot. The protesters were brutally charged by riot police, Truffaut was injured and Godard was roughed-up.
Though Langlois was eventually re-instated, with reduced powers and funding; the shockwave continued through to May, culminating in the cancellation of that year's Cannes film festival.

De Gaulle's authoritarian stance put him at odds with the poor and the young, stifled by lack of social progress, concerned by youth unemployment and low wages during a time of economic boom, radicalised by Vietnam and idealistic left-wing and anarchist causes.

University overcrowding was endemic, a consequence of France's arcane bureaucracy. The student population had almost tripled in the preceding ten years but funding for facilities and building of new premises proved desperately inadequate.
Nineteen thousand students were crammed into a new, but small, university built in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

On March 22nd, a sit-in was staged at Nanterre by German sociology student Danny Cohn-Bendit, nicknamed "Danny the Red" by the press on account of the colour of his hair and his politics.

A further demonstration in April resulted in Cohn-Bendit's arrest and the government's attempt at his deportation.
Conflict continued with the authorities, leading to the closure of Nanterre on 2nd May.

The next day, four hundred students traveled from Nanterre to Paris and the Sorbonne, France's most prestigious seat of learning, to protest the arrest of Cohn-Bendit and his cohorts 'The Nanterre eight'.

The Sorbonne's authorities panicked and called in the police who acted with their customary restraint. News of the conflict spread, the protesters numbers swelled from hundreds into thousands and soon a five hour street battle was under way.

On May 4th courses at the Sorbonne were suspended indefinitely.
On May 6th, 20,000 students, teachers and their supporters marched towards the Sorbonne; the subsequent police confrontation led to full-scale riots.

The students formed make-shift barricades and hurled cobblestones and Molotov cocktails in retaliation to the Police's tear gas and baton charges.

Alarmed and sickened by the images seen broadcast on television each evening, public opinion turned in favour of the protesting students.


Initially opposing the uprising, the continued police violence prompted the Trade Unions and eventually The Communist Party to support the students and from May 13th France was struck by a series of General strikes. In the following weeks, almost ten million workers went on strike, roughly two-thirds of the workforce.


A one-day general strike was called for May 13th. Over a million protesters marched through Paris, the police, wisely, stayed out of sight. Prime Minister Georges Pompidou announced the release of all jailed protesters and the re-opening of the Sorbonne. Students immediately occupied the Sorbonne, the École des Beaux-Arts on the 14th May and the Théâtre de l'Odéon, France's National theatre, the day after that.


Behind the scenes, Pompidou negotiated with the unions. On May 27th an agreement was reached; the minimum wage was raised, working hours were cut, the age of retirement was reduced, and the right to organize was granted. The Minister of Education resigned the same day.

De Gaulle briefly fled to Germany but, after assurances of support from his military top-brass, returned to Paris, announcing legislative elections for June. On May 30th tens of thousands of Gaullist supporters marched along the Champs-Élysées. Protests in support of the government followed through out France.

In June, most of the strikes were abandoned and demonstrations were banned. The students were evicted from the Odéon and the Sorbonne.
In the election, divided leftwing parties and a desire for conformist certainties led to a decisive win for the Gaullist party.
However, the next year after the failure of a referendum on his presidency, De Gaulle resigned and Pompidou was elected in his place.

De Gaulle retired to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises and died in 1970.