From Nanterre to Vincennes: the French University and May 1968

The objectives of this article focus principally on the most controversial aspects of what happened to the French university system during the period of reform which General Charles De Gaulle felt obliged to implement after the events of May 1968. Long before the “student revolt”, however, the structures of the educational system had fallen into decadence. The Law of Orientation, which was passed in 1968, failed to solve the deeper conflicts that had been plaguing the university system for years. Nor did it provide the educational community with a project for the future built on guarantees of academic freedom. Two universities are offered as examples: Nanterre, which lay at the core of the student revolt, and Vincennes, a failed educational project of “post-revolutionary” France. Together, they provide a sample of the difficulties faced by any university reform in reaching beyond the urgent conditions that make it historically necessary.