Protests began mostly because of the students at the University of Nanterre were not happy with the conditions at the college. There were many students, about 2,000, at the university and they were overcrowded. They were also not given the education that they thought they deserved. The students also fought for the rides for the opposite sex to visit their dorm rooms. These college students wanted better learning conditions. Some of the students were also mad about the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Others wanted more personal and political freedoms. Charles de Gaulle was president of France and he ruled France as a conservative society. The college kids wanted a more democratic and modern society than what they had now. And with that, they began protesting for change to be made in Paris and throughout all of France.
On March 22, 1968, 142 student radicals protested and invaded an administration building at the Nanterre University. They held a meeting that dealt with the French bureaucracy that controlled the funding and class discrimination. The police were called to put down this meeting. The students left without any problems. This event became known as the Movement of 22 March. Several months of unrest and conflict between students and the administrators led to the closing of the University of Nanterre for a month. Students were mad about the closing and protested on May 3, 1968 at the University of Sorbonne. Sorbonne is the oldest University in Paris. Thirteen students were arrested based on the testimonies of police officers. It is not certain whether they were true or not. Three days later on May 6, 1968, a bigger protest erupted. Students from Nanterre met in the center of Paris and had riots wit...
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...l structure. These protests later encouraged workers to go on strike and demand changes. These protests were a major part of France in 1968.
Works Cited
Ed. 1968: a chronology of events in France, September 8, 2006,http://libcom.org/history/articles/france-1968
Schwarz, Peter. 1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France. World Socialist Web Site, May 28, 2008. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/05/may1-m28.html
French Riots May 1968, Martin Frost. http://martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/paris_1968.html
Poggioli, Sylvia. Marking The French Social Revolution of ‘68. May 13, 2008, npr. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90330162
Bernath-Plaisted, Sandra. French students and workers campaign for reform (May Revolt), 1968. October 20, 2008. http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/french-students-and-workers-campaign-reform-may-revolt-1968
Political turmoil on campus began in 1968 when a Black Panther member, George Murray, was dismissed from school, and student militants called a strike. Using terrorist tactics, these groups intimidated and physically threatened students and professors if they crossed the picket line. Some of their demands included the formulation of an autonomous black studies department, promotion to full professor of a faculty member who had one year's experience, the firing of a white administrator, and the admission of all black students who applied for the next academic year.
Each of the three strikes will be examined from the standpoint of five main factors. First, what were the roles of women in the strike? What kind of work were they involved in? Second, what interest did the women have in the strike? Third, what kind of relationship did the union have with the women? Did it impair their efforts or support them? Fourth, how did the women ultimately impact the strike? Were they seen as a positive influence? In addition, were they seen as positive by the media or ignored by them? And lastly, what happened after the strike? Did the women continue their new, politically active roles or did they go back to the lives they lived before the strike? Each of these questions will be addressed for each of the three strikes discussed...
William H. Sewell, Jr.’s Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (1980) is a qualitative analysis of the French labor movement, sweeping three radical revolutionary eras: 1790’s, 1830’s, and 1850’s. Sewell’s strategy encompasses “aggregating and analyzing” (1980: 5) events that would generally be considered the banal factional struggles and encounters of individual French workers. He amasses these facts into a macro-history of the workers’ plight to class-consciousness from the ancien regime to the repressive post-revolutionary era of 1850’s. Sewell frames his historical analysis within the context of the way the workers’ movement utilized the evolving rhetoric to advocate their pro-rights agenda. He performs a stringent investigation on the progression and determination of the use of specific terminology, focusing his lens on how concepts of culture (i.e., ideas, beliefs, and behaviors) aid in shifts of existing structures.
There are three important and distinct reasons for the French Revolution changing from being about the people to a revolution run by fear and terror. The first was the lack of tradition of a republican rule within France. The revolutionaries were simply not experienced enough in running and managing political parties. The second reason was the constantly growing power of the counter revolutionaries. The third reason was due to the ongoing wars with other countries. All these three reasons were the main contributors for making the revolutionaries go from prioritizing freedom, liberty and brotherhood to a state of total chaos and terror.
In 1969, at its ninth national convention, the organization of college-age activists known as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was in disarray. Having formed only nine years earlier, it became the ideological basis for the New Left -- highly critical of the government’s policies on war and most importantly, fervent supporters of racial equality. By its ninth national convention, it had grown to be 100,000 members strong, consisting of various alliances and parties, with over 300 chapters all across the continental United States. During the convention, the turmoil of its own inner-politics and conflict between parties lead to a splintering (Green, “The Weather Underground”). The expulsion of the Worker-Student Alliance and the Progressive Labor party by the Revolutionary Youth Movement was strategic -- a coup...
Some causes are financial crisis and high taxes, the stamp act, the war with the French, tarantella rule, and the navigation act. Symptoms are angry protesters. In the national assembly each estat got 1 vote and each member received a note. The Tennis Court Oath swore to create a new constitution and Oath taken at the tennis courts to make a better government for French. Storming of the Bastille, King Louis use military force to break up the National Assembly, by the people. The guards were hacked to death and heads out on display. This became the ultimate symbol that the revolution had ...
Over 200,000 demonstrators participated in the March on Washington in the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to gain civil rights for African Americans. There was a wide diversity in those who participated, with a quarter of all the demonstrators being white (Ross). Even southern people came to contribute, which caused them to be harassed and threatened for coming to the march. The March on Washington became a very successful event for the rights of African Americans, and amended several peoples’ view-points towards the topic, even President John Kennedy’s.
The peasant French women played a large role in the Revolution because of their aggression, zeal and participation in the Sans-Culottes’ protests. There was a riot police handled on February 25th 1973 where “there was a new crowd of citizens there… But we had brought along with us many armed citizens who dispersed this mob. We saw there a citoyenne… who was influencing people and stirring up trouble.” Police had to quell another riot caused by the women’s reaction to the high sugar prices when “the women, above all, were the most enraged… and the most threatening… they were real furies,” and the fact that “they didn't burn anything… was a major gain.” ...
The French Revolution started in 1787 because the country was going through financial difficulties and there was unrest between the classes of citizens in the country. The differences between the lower class citizens and higher classes, being nobles and the monarchy were great. The citizens had heard of the revolution that went on in the colonies and they also wanted freedom and independence. The real start of the French Revolution was on July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille. Between 1789 1793, a constitution was written, feudalism was abolished, war had broken out, and King Louis XVI was put to death. In late 1793 and early 1794, Maximilien Robespierre became the head of the Committee of Public Safety in France. This was the new governing body in France; it could be compared to the executive branch of a government. Robespierre was a great leader, he ins...
The French Revolution began after some of the great philosophers such as John Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau were establishing contracts and trying to create a way for people to have a government without a king or at least without a king being in control. The king during that time was King Louie XVI and his queen was a young woman by the name Marie Antoinette. The royal couple was not well liked due to the careless spending and lack of concern for the citizens beneath them. France was on the verge of becoming bankrupt and the crops did very poorly leaving people suffering, starving and fighting for food.
The French peopled stormed Bastille, which is a prison that had the symbol of the absolute monarchy, and contained only seven prisoners. It all started with mob looting another prison called the Invalids prison to search for arms to fight the attack from the army that was loyal to the king. During the raid, over 32,000 rifles were taken but none of the ammunition was removed from the prison. The Bastille was a symbol of brutality and totalitarian power because of many stories of torture and brutality. The storming of the Bastille was a success and it brought freedom to seven prisoners along with the ending of a royal tyranny. It also became a symbol of despotic power to an end. This was a very big turning point in the French revolution, because this is when the people of France really took matters into their own hands and went against the government by raiding the prison and taking all of the weapons. Only one of the guards defending the base was killed and approximately 97 civilians were killed. The thing that really helped the people attacking the base was the fact that they brought in two huge cannons that really solidified their victory against the government. Robespierre was a very important character in all of this, he believed that the power of perfection was the democracy. He came up with an idea of the committee of public city is to get rid of their external and internal enemies (nobles, etc.). He
"There is a serious struggle in Greece for three years. We have the largest number of national strikes in Europe. There are strikes at individual plants, factories, private and public sectors. " - General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece Aleka Papariga, January 30, 2012
One must begin by looking at the intent of the revolution in France and this intent can be seen in the document for rights that was composed
Their initial victory was “followed by an ensuing struggle to implement change”. The people had taken to the streets not knowing what they would do if they did manage to take power. Now that they had, because of their different individual aims, they found it hard to compromise. This eventually led to a growing split between moderates and radicals, as well as between social classes, particularly in France. The moderates did not want a government based on universal male suffrage and the middle classes were determined to resist the demands of the lower classes....
The French Revolution was based a single feeling. This feeling was injustice and the commoners were sick of being persecuted by the higher monarchies. They stood up to the “big guys” and fought for what they believed in and ended up changing History. Throughout all periods of History, there have been many revolutions. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a revolution is a sudden, extreme, or complete change in the way people lived or worked. There are many different reasons why a revolution might happen. Some revolutions were caused due to politics, and others were caused by the economics of a country. There were even social and cultural revolutions. France experienced a revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth century because