Post-War France and the Trente Glorieuses

In the spring of 1968, France appeared to be at the pinnacle of its post-war prosperity. The country was experiencing what economist Jean Fourastié had dubbed "Les Trente Glorieuses" — the Glorious Thirty — three decades of unprecedented economic growth that had transformed French society beyond recognition. Yet beneath this gleaming surface of progress, tensions were building that would soon erupt into the most significant social upheaval in modern French history.

A Nation Transformed

The France of 1968 bore little resemblance to the war-torn nation that had emerged from World War II. In 1945, much of the country lay in ruins. Bridges had been destroyed, railways torn up, factories bombed, and entire cities reduced to rubble. The economy was in shambles, with industrial production at barely half its pre-war levels and severe shortages of food, fuel, and basic necessities.

But by 1968, France had become the world's fifth-largest economy. The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Industrial production had tripled since 1950. Real wages had doubled. The average French family now owned a car, a television, and a refrigerator — luxuries that would have been unimaginable for most just two decades earlier. New apartment blocks sprouted in the suburbs of every major city, offering modern conveniences like running water, central heating, and private bathrooms to families who had previously lived in cramped, antiquated housing.

This economic miracle was driven by a unique combination of factors. The Marshall Plan had provided crucial initial capital for reconstruction. State-led planning through the Commissariat général du Plan had directed investment into key sectors like steel, cement, and electricity. The Common Market, established in 1957, had opened new opportunities for French exports. And a young, growing population — the result of a post-war baby boom — provided both workers for expanding industries and consumers for their products.

The Paradox of Prosperity

Yet this very prosperity contained the seeds of discontent. The speed of change had created profound dislocations in French society. Traditional ways of life were vanishing almost overnight. In 1945, nearly a third of French workers were employed in agriculture; by 1968, that figure had fallen to just 15 percent. Millions had migrated from rural villages to cities and their expanding suburbs, leaving behind communities and customs that had endured for centuries.

The new suburban housing estates, while offering material comfort, often lacked soul. Built hastily to accommodate the urban influx, these "grands ensembles" were frequently isolated, poorly served by public transport, and devoid of the cafés, shops, and public spaces that had traditionally fostered community life. Sociologists began to speak of "métro-boulot-dodo" — subway-work-sleep — as the dreary routine that defined modern urban existence.

Consumer society, too, brought its own anxieties. The flood of new products — washing machines, televisions, automobiles — promised liberation but often delivered debt and status anxiety instead. Advertising, still a relatively new force in French life, created desires that outpaced many families' ability to satisfy them. The installment plan, or "crédit," became a way of life, binding workers ever more tightly to jobs they might otherwise have left.

The University Crisis

Nowhere were the contradictions of rapid modernization more apparent than in France's universities. The same baby boom that had fueled economic growth was now sending unprecedented numbers of young people into higher education. In 1950, French universities had enrolled just 123,000 students; by 1968, that number had swelled to over 600,000.

The university system, however, had barely changed since Napoleon's time. Designed to educate a small elite for careers in the civil service and professions, it was utterly unprepared for mass education. Lecture halls built for 500 students often held twice that number. Libraries were woefully inadequate. Laboratory equipment was scarce and outdated. Many professors, accustomed to teaching small groups of devoted disciples, now faced anonymous crowds of students they would never know by name.

The curriculum, too, seemed increasingly divorced from contemporary reality. Students spent years memorizing classical texts and abstract theories with little apparent relevance to the modern world. The rigid French educational system, with its emphasis on competitive examinations and rote learning, left little room for creativity or critical thinking. Many students felt they were being prepared for a world that no longer existed.

The situation was particularly acute in the newer universities built to accommodate overflow from the traditional institutions. The University of Nanterre, opened in 1964 on the western outskirts of Paris, epitomized these problems. Built on a former military depot surrounded by shanty towns housing immigrant workers, its modernist concrete buildings were a world away from the historic Latin Quarter. Students commuted long distances to attend overcrowded classes in a cultural wasteland, then returned to dormitories where archaic rules governed every aspect of their lives.

The Cultural Divide

The generation gap in 1968 France was more than a difference in age — it was a chasm between worldviews. Those who had lived through the Depression and World War II valued security, order, and material progress above all. They had built the new France through hard work and sacrifice, and they expected gratitude from their children.

But the generation born after the war had known only prosperity and peace. They took material comfort for granted and yearned for something more — personal freedom, authentic experience, meaningful work. They had grown up with jazz and rock music, New Wave cinema, and existentialist philosophy. They read Sartre and Camus, listened to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and watched films by Godard and Truffaut that questioned every aspect of bourgeois society.

This cultural revolution was already well underway before May 1968. Young people were experimenting with new forms of music, art, and lifestyle. The contraceptive pill, legalized in France in 1967, promised to revolutionize sexual relations. Mini-skirts and long hair challenged conventional notions of propriety. Student magazines and underground newspapers circulated ideas that would have shocked their parents.

But French society remained deeply conservative in many ways. Television and radio were state monopolies that offered a steady diet of official propaganda and bland entertainment. Censorship was common — films could be banned, books seized, magazines shut down. The sale of contraceptives, while legal, was restricted. Abortion remained illegal. Unmarried couples could not share hotel rooms. Women needed their husbands' permission to open bank accounts or take jobs.

The Authoritarian State

At the apex of this contradictory society sat Charles de Gaulle, the 77-year-old President of the Republic. A towering figure who had led the Free French during World War II, de Gaulle had returned to power in 1958 amid the crisis of the Algerian War. He had given France a new constitution that concentrated power in the presidency, ended the colonial war, and restored French prestige on the world stage.

But by 1968, de Gaulle seemed increasingly out of touch with the country he led. His paternalistic style — he habitually referred to the French as "mes enfants" (my children) — grated on a younger generation that wanted to be treated as adults. His vision of France, rooted in military glory and national grandeur, meant little to those who had never known war. His moral conservatism seemed antiquated in an age of rapid social change.

The Gaullist state was remarkably centralized and hierarchical. All major decisions flowed from Paris. The prefects who governed the provinces were appointed by the president. The education minister determined what every child in France would study on any given day. The state controlled not just television and radio but much of the economy through nationalized industries and planning mechanisms.

This concentration of power extended into daily life. Police were omnipresent, identity cards mandatory, and administrative regulations governed everything from store hours to apartment renovations. The French spoke ironically of living in a "hexagonal Albania," referring both to France's six-sided shape and its authoritarian tendencies.

Labor Under Pressure

The French working class had shared in the prosperity of the Trente Glorieuses, but unevenly and at a price. Real wages had indeed risen dramatically, and social benefits — health insurance, family allowances, paid vacations — provided security unknown to previous generations. The 40-hour work week, won by the Popular Front in 1936, remained the legal standard.

But inflation continually eroded wage gains, forcing periodic struggles just to maintain living standards. More importantly, the nature of work itself was changing in ways that created new forms of discontent. The old skilled trades were disappearing, replaced by assembly-line production that reduced workers to automatons. The pace of work intensified as employers sought to maximize productivity. New management techniques, often imported from America, treated workers as interchangeable parts in a vast machine.

Young workers, in particular, chafed under these conditions. Better educated than their parents, they were less willing to accept mindless repetition and arbitrary authority. They had higher expectations — not just for material goods but for interesting work and a voice in decisions affecting their lives. Many had experienced the relative freedom of student life before entering factories, making the contrast even starker.

The trade unions, dominated by the Communist-linked CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), seemed ill-equipped to address these new concerns. Focused on bread-and-butter issues like wages and job security, they had little to say about alienation, boredom, or the quality of work life. Their hierarchical structures and bureaucratic methods alienated many young workers who wanted more direct, democratic forms of organization.

The International Context

France's domestic tensions unfolded against a backdrop of global upheaval. The Vietnam War had become a rallying point for youth protest worldwide. Images of American bombs falling on Vietnamese villages appeared nightly on television, radicalizing a generation that had been taught to believe in progress and Western civilization.

The Civil Rights movement in the United States provided another model of successful challenge to established authority. The Black Panthers, with their militant rhetoric and dramatic actions, inspired radicals everywhere. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968 seemed to confirm that peaceful reform was impossible.

Closer to home, the Prague Spring offered hope that socialism could take a human face. Alexander Dubček's reforms in Czechoslovakia suggested an alternative to both Western capitalism and Soviet totalitarianism. Student movements were erupting across Europe — in Germany, Italy, and Britain — creating a sense that change was not just possible but inevitable.

Revolutionary movements in the Third World — Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam — provided romantic heroes and theoretical frameworks. Che Guevara, killed in Bolivia in 1967, became an icon. His call to create "two, three, many Vietnams" resonated with young radicals who saw revolution as both a moral imperative and a practical possibility.

The Gathering Storm

By early 1968, all these tensions were reaching a critical point. Student unrest had been building for months, with protests over dormitory rules, curriculum reform, and the Vietnam War. Workers were growing restive as inflation outpaced wage gains. Cultural conflicts between generations were intensifying.

Yet few predicted the explosion that was about to occur. The government seemed firmly in control. The economy was still growing. De Gaulle's prestige, while diminished, remained substantial. The Communist Party, the traditional vehicle for radical opposition, showed no signs of revolutionary fervor.

What transformed these disparate discontents into a revolutionary moment was a unique confluence of circumstances — a spark at Nanterre University, heavy-handed police repression, and the spontaneous solidarity between students and workers. The very prosperity of the Trente Glorieuses had created new expectations and new subjects — educated youth and modernized workers — who would no longer accept the old order.

France stood on the brink of its most dramatic upheaval since the Liberation. The comfortable certainties of the post-war era were about to be shattered. What emerged from the wreckage would transform not just France but the very idea of what was possible in advanced industrial societies. The events of May 1968 would demonstrate that even in the midst of prosperity — perhaps especially in the midst of prosperity — the desire for freedom, authenticity, and human dignity could explode with revolutionary force.# The Spark at Nanterre