Since last February, thousands of students and blue-collar workers from all across France have taken to the streets to protest President Macron’s proposed education and economic reforms. As the country commemorates the 50th anniversary of the May 1968 protests, it is difficult not to draw parallels between the protests of then and now, in which “convergences des luttes,” or the convergence of struggles, has demanded a reckoning of the ruling government. Indeed, protestors have supported the comparison with pride—at marches, banners wave reading slogans such as “Ni 1968, ni 2018” (“Not 1968, Not 2018”), or “Mai 68: Ils commemorent, on recommence” (“May 68: They commemorate, we begin again”). What is most striking, however, when comparing these two moments, is how little has truly changed in France’s socio-political fabric: Just as in 1968, the protests of 2018 are controlled by the white upper-middle class of French society. Meanwhile, the communities most sorely in need of reform remain disenfranchised, rendered invisible by the “rising tide lifts all boats” attitude on which France so prides itself.
The events of May 1968 are often romanticized as a defining movement against a conservative, aristocratic government, in which citizens united to usher in a new age of equal opportunity. For instance, when reporting on the protests’ 40th anniversary in 2008, the New York Times wrote: “May 1968 was a watershed moment in French life, a holy moment of liberation for many, when youth coalesced, the workers listened and the semi-royal French government of de Gaulle took fright.” Protestors, ostensibly, were spurred to action in order to declare war on poverty and inequality. However, France of 1968, and in particular the overwhelmingly white, middle-class population which carried out the demonstrations, was actually remarkably prosperous. Why, then, did this year become the moment for an economic referendum?
The answer lies in the origins of the movement. Students at the University of Paris at Nanterre are credited with beginning the outcry for the sake of social justice. This righteous cause, however, was a narrative used to justify a more abstract hunger for revolution by a young population electrified by a turbid era of social upheaval, including the sexual revolution; disdain for an out-of-touch, aging government; anti-Vietnam protests; and the civil rights movement in the U.S. Their goals, like the sources of their frustration, were scattered and murky. The event which sparked their outcry, in fact, came when the university banned male and female students from cohabitating. Now the students needed a clear cause behind which to stand.
They found their cause célèbre in the banlieue, or outer district of Paris, in which the university was located. In 1968, an American-style extension of the Sorbonne was being built in Nanterre next to a bidonville, or shantytown, containing about 10,000 Algerian immigrants segregated from the white population of the suburb. This gentrifying intrusion was a huge threat to the already impoverished community, which had been restricted from the economic prosperity enjoyed by the middle-class as a result of the policy of denying Algerians’ French identity papers, which prohibited them from joining unions. Nonetheless, even with this latest insult, they could not afford to protest. For one thing, they (justifiably) feared deportation. For another, they remained terrified of the consequences of protesting. They were traumatized by the aftermath of the only peaceful march for Algerian independence in Paris of 1961, where over 200 Algerians were murdered and thousands more rounded up and beaten by the French National Police. It is worth noting that although both police and civilian violence did occur in May 1968, there were still no fatalities at any of the many demonstrations.
Enabled by this forced silence, students co-opted the injustice inflicted upon this community and declared a war on socioeconomic inequality. Union workers followed suit by staging a massive strike. As historian Donald Reid outlines, they did so not out of dire need but saw a chance to gain “somewhat better pay and somewhat better access to consumer goods.” In the aftermath of May 1968, reforms did indeed pass, increasing the minimum wage 35%, guaranteeing four weeks of paid leave for all French workers, and universally increasing wages by 10%. In addition, discussion opened gradually around feminism, ecology, and LGBTQ rights. Algerian workers were not privy to these victories, unable to benefit from worker reforms because they had been excluded from the job market in the first place. Conversations about the legacy of colonialism, unlike at virtually every other site of the global 1968 movement, never began, much less were they nuanced or improved upon. Over time, in fact, the French elite have taken increasing ownership over this supposed socialist revolution—the student leaders went on to be journalists, politicians, and leading activists, thus controlling its narrative.
Now, workers and students are again protesting socioeconomic disparities of which they are not the primary victims and proposed policies to which they are not the most vulnerable. Since this February, France Insoumise, trade unions, and eighty other organizations led several thousand predominantly white, middle-class, demonstrators to protest Macron’s labor and education reform agenda. The main student grievance is Macron’s proposal to institute competitive selection processes at public universities, which have historically been open to all who pass the baccalauréat (the standard French university entrance exam), in order to prevent oversubscription and lower the failure rate upon matriculation. Opponents of the law argue that it will alienate low-income students—which is true— but the vast majority of student protestors do not fall into that category. What is more, they predicate their concern upon the idea that French education has always been universally available, therefore that implementing such a policy would impinge upon one of the shining examples of French égalité. This broadly-held assumption is, again, true—as long as you’re white, middle or upper class, and Catholic. Forget obtaining a “competitive” score: children from low-income backgrounds are currently ten times less likely to pass the bac as it is. These students most often come from the poorest banlieues of France, referred to euphemistically as “quartiers sensibles,” (“sensitive neighborhoods”), or more explicitly as “no-go zones.” The French media frequently depicts these areas, home to most of France’s North African immigrants, as breeding grounds of “radical” Islam. The public schools in these areas funnel students into “priority education” sectors which emphasize vocational training and neglect preparation for the bac.
Likewise, while worker protests are legitimate in their concern of Macron’s nakedly pro-business labor overhauls, they fail to include or support those most economically vulnerable. Many of the broad frustrations felt by France’s labor force—Macron’s reduction of emplois aidés, or short-term jobs designed to help those with fewer resources gain employment, rising unemployment, and increased poverty— are disproportionately shouldered by Muslim, black, and immigrant populations. The research director at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) has produced studies indicating that it is 2.5 times harder for the descendent of an immigrant to find work; a 2015 study found that job applicants with a Muslim or African-sounding name are four times less likely to be hired than their equally-qualified Catholic counterparts.
What has gone virtually unnoticed amidst all this outrage is Macron’s burial of a report by former Minister of Development Jean-Louis Borloo analyzing the ghettoization of the banlieues and offering 19 major actions through which to rehabilitate them. Despite promising to reduce urban inequality, he has punted responsibility to 120 top companies and grassroots players to find solutions. No, this lapse is perfectly fine, because, to quote Patrick Simon, an INED demographer, “Arabs are poor because they’re poor, not because they’re discriminated against; blacks have lower-skilled jobs because they’re less qualified.” In fact, the only major complaint protestors have raised about the banlieues is that there isn’t enough police surveillance. And like in 1968, those from bidonvilles are wont to raise the issue, scared by the precedent of prior protests, such as when 2005 riots in Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest suburb in France, resulted in two teenagers being electrocuted by a transformer while hiding from the police.
So why is France unable to so much as acknowledge questions of race? To say, for example, that the United States has a lot to work on is an understatement, but the national conversation about race has, at the very least, not remained static since 1968. The French are not incapable of recognizing racism. Thousands called upon Italy to rescue an immigrant ship it had blocked from entrance at its ports this June, and Paris streets overflowed with dissenters when President Trump visited in July. Rather, they have exceptionalized their country as “color-blind,” thereby creating a national psyche that condemns the very acknowledgement of race and inhibits self-criticism. It’s an ideal as deeply embedded as it is inherently racist: It was invented when Napoleon, in order to mitigate the fall-out of the Haitian Revolution and undermine ex-slave participation in “The Rights of Man,” claimed it was successful because French liberté et égalité “crossed borders indiscriminately.”
What makes this discourse so resistant to change is that it has been codified: The French government does not collect any data on race or ethnicity. The statistics cited in this article? According to the French government, they do not exist. And without the basic tools to prove that inequality exists, as the National Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) explains on their website, it is impossible to combat. In fact, the main priority of the Representative Council of France’s Black Associations (CRAN), France’s largest civil rights organization, is simply to legalize racial statistics, for as its president has stated, “If you aren’t counted you don’t count.” Although a bill was proposed to collect ethnic data in 2007, the measure was shut down, in large part due to its uncomfortable evocation of the “black codes” of the 17th and 18th centuries and racial identity data collected under the Vichy regime.
More ought to be expected of protestors in 2018 than to repeat May 1968. As sociologist Nacira Guénif-Souilamas argued at the Bandung of the North Conference this May in Saint-Denis, “things are happening now that require another narrative of what 1968 was.” The best way to honor the legacy of les événements would be to recognize its progress but rectify its failures; to critically examine racism and inequality as it exists in France; and to support African, Muslim and immigrant populations—at the very least by demanding that they be included in the census. And even if that standard is somehow too hard of a pill to swallow, discrimination costs French businesses an estimated €150 billion annually, 7% of the country’s GDP. If nothing else, embracing identity politics really could be the tide that lifts all boats.
Photo: “Manif Gaulliste”
