The Tide Turns

The massive pro-government demonstration on May 30, 1968, marked the beginning of the end. As hundreds of thousands marched down the Champs-Élysées singing the Marseillaise and waving tricolor flags, the psychological momentum shifted decisively. The "party of order" had found its voice, and it was louder than anyone had anticipated. What followed was not the violent repression many feared, but a slow, inexorable return to normalcy that proved more effective than any police charge.

The Return to Work

The general strike's collapse didn't happen overnight. It unraveled factory by factory, sector by sector, as the revolutionary tide receded. The process revealed much about why the movement ultimately failed and how modern states can absorb and deflect even the most serious challenges to their authority.

At Renault-Billancourt, the fortress of French labor militancy, the return to work was particularly bitter. On June 17, after weeks of occupation, workers voted to end their strike. The decision split the workforce. Young militants felt betrayed by older workers worried about mortgages and families. Immigrant workers, who had gained unprecedented voice during the occupation, watched their French colleagues accept deals that ignored specific immigrant demands.

The scene was repeated across France with variations. At some factories, workers extracted significant concessions — wage increases, reduced hours, improved conditions. At others, management made vague promises quickly forgotten. The CGT union leadership, desperate to reassert control, pushed for returns to work even when rank-and-file members wanted to continue.

The Election Campaign

De Gaulle's call for legislative elections transformed the political landscape. Instead of revolution versus reaction, the choice became order versus chaos, framed in familiar electoral terms. The Gaullist party, hastily renamed Union for the Defense of the Republic (UDR), ran a campaign of fear. Their posters showed burning factories and empty shops with the slogan "This is what they offer you."

The left entered the campaign divided and demoralized. Communists blamed students for adventurism. Socialists blamed Communists for betrayal. Students blamed both for reformism. The far left, advocating electoral boycott, was ignored by most voters. The movement that had united millions in the streets couldn't agree on electoral strategy.

The campaign itself was surreal. Politicians who had been powerless weeks earlier now promised to solve problems through parliament. Television, which had shown revolutionary creativity, returned to standard propaganda. The extraordinary energy of May dissipated into ordinary electoral politics.

The June Landslide

The election results on June 23 and 30 shocked even the Gaullists. The UDR won 293 of 487 seats, an absolute majority. Including allied parties, the government controlled over 350 seats. The Communists lost half their deputies. The non-Communist left was decimated. It was the largest conservative majority in French republican history.

Multiple factors explained this landslide. Fear of disorder motivated middle-class voters. Rural areas, barely touched by the movement, voted overwhelmingly conservative. Many workers, exhausted by strikes and worried about economic consequences, chose stability. The electoral system, designed to produce strong majorities, amplified the conservative advantage.

But the results also reflected deeper realities. The revolutionary coalition of May had always been a minority, albeit a large and active one. When given a choice between uncertain transformation and familiar order, most French citizens chose the latter. The silent majority had spoken through ballots rather than barricades.

Repression and Revenge

With electoral legitimacy restored, the government began systematic repression. It proceeded carefully, avoiding the massive violence that might reignite protest. Instead, it used legal mechanisms to dismantle the movement piece by piece.

Foreign activists were expelled first. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the symbolic leader, was banned from France. Hundreds of other foreign students and workers were deported. The message was clear: revolution was an alien import, not authentically French.

French activists faced prosecution for violence, property damage, and subversion. Trials dragged on for years, draining energy and resources. Prison sentences were generally light — the government wanted to avoid creating martyrs — but the legal harassment was effective. Many militants spent more time preparing legal defenses than organizing new actions.

In workplaces, the repression was economic rather than judicial. Militant workers found themselves transferred, demoted, or laid off. Union activists were isolated. The immigrant workers who had been so visible during strikes returned to invisibility and vulnerability. Management reasserted authority with vengeance.

The Reforms That Came

Despite conservative victory, May 1968 forced significant reforms. Education Minister Edgar Faure, a shrewd politician, recognized that returning to the status quo was impossible. The Orientation Law of November 1968 transformed French universities. Student participation in governance, previously unthinkable, became mandatory. New universities were created. Curricula were modernized. The rigid separation between disciplines began breaking down.

Workers won substantial gains. The minimum wage increased 35%. All wages rose by at least 10%. Union rights were strengthened. Works committees gained new powers. The 40-hour week, theoretical since 1936, became closer to reality. These material improvements, while falling short of revolutionary transformation, significantly improved working-class life.

Cultural changes proved most lasting. Censorship, already weakening, virtually disappeared. The state broadcasting monopoly ended. Contraception became widely available. Divorce laws were liberalized. The rigid authoritarianism that had characterized French society began its long retreat.

Personal Aftermaths

For participants, May's end brought diverse consequences. Some returned to interrupted lives, treasuring memories of extraordinary weeks. Others couldn't readjust to normalcy. Marriages strained by political differences ended. Careers derailed by activism never recovered. The return to ordinary time after experiencing revolutionary time proved psychologically devastating for many.

Students faced particular dilemmas. Some abandoned studies permanently, seeking authentic lives outside conventional careers. Others completed degrees but carried May's spirit into professions, becoming radical teachers, doctors, or social workers. Still others underwent complete transformation, former revolutionaries becoming successful businesspeople or conservative politicians.

Workers' experiences varied by age and circumstance. Young workers often left factories for education or different careers, refusing to accept the industrial discipline they had challenged. Older workers frequently felt defeated, returning to routines they had briefly escaped. Immigrant workers faced the harshest consequences, their moment of visibility ending in renewed marginalization.

The New Left Emerges

May's failure to achieve revolution paradoxically ensured its long-term influence. Traditional parties and unions had proven inadequate. From their failure emerged new movements that would reshape French politics for decades.

The women's liberation movement exploded after 1968. Women who had experienced both revolutionary possibility and masculine dominance within the movement organized autonomously. The MLF (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes) formed in 1970, making demands that May had barely articulated. Abortion rights, workplace equality, and freedom from domestic violence became central political issues.

Ecologism emerged from May's critique of industrial society. The movement's questioning of productivist logic — both capitalist and communist — created space for environmental politics. Former soixante-huitards (sixty-eighters) founded pioneering ecological organizations. The anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s drew heavily on May's participatory methods.

Regional movements gained strength from May's challenge to centralization. In Brittany, Corsica, and Occitania, cultural and political autonomy movements flourished. The rigid Jacobin model of French unity faced unprecedented questioning. Local initiatives and grassroots democracy, central to May's practice, spread throughout France.

International Impacts

May 1968's defeat in France didn't prevent its international influence. Italian workers launched their "Hot Autumn" of 1969, explicitly inspired by French example. The Prague Spring, crushed by Soviet tanks in August 1968, drew inspiration from French students' anti-authoritarian socialism. Even in the United States, tactics and ideas from May influenced anti-war and Black liberation movements.

In Latin America, students and workers studied May's successes and failures. The Chilean Popular Unity government attempted to avoid May's mistakes by maintaining institutional legitimacy while pursuing radical reforms. Argentina's Cordobazo of 1969 showed French influence in its alliance of students and workers.

The global New Left that emerged in the 1970s owed much to May 1968. Its emphasis on cultural revolution, participatory democracy, and personal liberation reflected lessons learned in French streets. Its skepticism toward both Western capitalism and Soviet communism echoed May's search for a third way.

Generational Divides

May 1968 created a generational marker as significant as world wars. Those who participated carried shared experiences that shaped their entire lives. They recognized each other through cultural references, political attitudes, and lifestyle choices. "Soixante-huitard" became both badge of honor and term of mockery.

For the generation that followed, May was both inspiration and burden. Younger activists faced constant comparisons to the mythical events of 1968. Some embraced this heritage, trying to recreate May's spirit in new circumstances. Others rejected it, seeing nostalgic sixty-eighters as obstacles to contemporary struggles.

The generation that had opposed May aged into resentment. They saw moral decline in every social liberation. They blamed May for everything from drug use to family breakdown. This cultural war between May's supporters and opponents would define French politics for decades.

The Government's Learning

The French state learned crucial lessons from nearly losing control. Future protests would face more sophisticated responses. Instead of crude repression that created martyrs and solidarity, authorities developed strategies of division, co-optation, and gradual deflation.

Police tactics evolved significantly. The CRS received new training in crowd control emphasizing containment over confrontation. Intelligence services improved surveillance of radical groups. Most importantly, authorities learned to distinguish between reformable demands and revolutionary challenges, conceding the former to prevent the latter.

The state also modernized its propaganda capacities. Television coverage became more sophisticated, showing protester violence while minimizing police brutality. Government spokespeople learned to use revolutionary language while defending order. The crude authoritarianism that had provoked May gave way to subtler forms of control.

Memory Battles

How May 1968 would be remembered became itself a political struggle. The government promoted a narrative of youthful excess corrected by mature democracy. Former participants insisted on May's transformative vision. Historians debated whether May was revolution betrayed or impossible dream.

Cultural production shaped collective memory. Films like "The Dreamers" romanticized May's liberation. Novels explored personal transformations within political upheaval. Photo exhibitions froze moments of extraordinary possibility. Each representation influenced how new generations understood those crucial weeks.

The French education system struggled with teaching May 1968. How could officials explain when students had occupied schools? How could order be maintained while discussing its fundamental challenge? The resulting presentations often sanitized May's radical essence while acknowledging its historical importance.

Unfinished Business

By autumn 1968, France had returned to apparent normalcy. Students attended reorganized universities. Workers returned to modified routines. Politics proceeded through familiar channels. Yet nothing was quite the same. Questions raised in May — about hierarchy, alienation, and the meaning of progress — remained unanswered.

The movement's concrete achievements — educational reform, wage increases, cultural liberalization — were significant but limited. Its deeper aspirations — for self-management, authentic existence, and revolutionary transformation — remained unfulfilled. This gap between dream and reality would haunt French society.

May 1968 ended not with revolutionary triumph or crushing defeat but with ambiguous transformation. It changed everything and nothing. It opened possibilities while demonstrating their limits. It created memories of extraordinary freedom that made ordinary life harder to bear. Its end was really a beginning — of movements, ideas, and conflicts that continue shaping our world today.# Legacy and Impact - How May '68 Changed France