What 1967 was and was not
France did not experience a mass revolt against its government in 1967. The great upheaval, with its student barricades and a general strike involving millions of workers, came in May 1968. The year before is better described as one of mounting friction: an election in which General Charles de Gaulle’s supporters came close to losing their parliamentary majority, a bitter dispute with the trade unions, local strikes that attracted national attention, and a foreign-policy scandal in Canada. Together these showed that the Fifth Republic was less secure than it looked.
The political background
De Gaulle returned to power in 1958 in the crisis over Algeria and introduced a new constitution that gave the president strong powers. By the mid-1960s he was a towering figure, associated with the end of the Algerian war in 1962, an independent foreign policy and economic modernisation. But the first signs of fatigue had appeared. In the presidential election of December 1965, the first by direct popular vote under the Fifth Republic, he failed to win outright in the first round and had to go to a runoff against the left-wing candidate François Mitterrand, whom he beat.
The de Gaulle opposition on the left reorganised after that result. Mitterrand’s federation of non-communist left groups worked alongside the Communist Party, and both prepared for the legislative elections of March 1967.
The March 1967 elections
The two rounds of voting took place on 5 and 12 March 1967. The outcome was a shock for the Gaullists. They remained the largest group and kept control of the National Assembly, but their majority shrank dramatically from the landslide of 1962 to a margin of only one or two seats, depending on how allies and the overseas seats were counted. The Communists and the allied non-communist left made substantial gains.
The election did not threaten the regime directly, since the president did not depend on the assembly in the same way as under earlier republics. It did, however, weaken the prime minister, Georges Pompidou, and it showed that a large part of the electorate was tired of the government. Commentators began to ask whether the Gaullist system could last without its founder.
Special powers and the social security ordinances
Faced with a narrow majority, the government asked parliament in the spring of 1967 for special powers, allowing it to issue ordinances on economic and social questions without a normal legislative debate. A motion of censure against the government in May failed to pass by only a few votes, and the powers were granted. The trade unions and the left saw this as a way of avoiding a public argument.
The ordinances that followed were issued in the summer, and the most controversial concerned social security. They reorganised the system into separate branches and changed how it was managed and financed, including the balance of representation between employers and employees. The unions argued that the changes would reduce workers’ control and threatened their benefits. The main union federations, which usually competed, found common ground, and there were protest days and demonstrations against the ordinances in the following months. These were not violent events, but they marked the first period of real cooperation between the largest unions in years.
Sources differ on some details of the timing of the ordinances and the days of action, and it is safest to say that the dispute ran through the second half of 1967. It left a legacy of distrust that would shape the response to the crisis in 1968.
Rhodia and the Besançon strikes
Industrial conflict had been building too. In early 1967 workers at the Rhodiaceta textile plants, including the one at Besançon, went on strike over job security, working conditions and changes to shift patterns. The factories produced synthetic fibres and had been reorganised to cut costs. The stoppage lasted some weeks and drew national attention.
What made the Rhodia dispute notable was the way it linked workers and intellectuals. Film-makers visited the factory and recorded interviews with strikers, and the discussion of culture and leisure, not only wages, became part of the dispute. A documentary on the strikes appeared in 1968. Strikes of this kind, which combined social demands with a wider sense of dissatisfaction, were a sign of what was coming. Other disputes followed in late 1967 and early 1968, among them a strike at a vehicle plant in Caen in January 1968 that was accompanied by street clashes.
De Gaulle abroad: Quebec libre
De Gaulle’s international actions brought other criticism. In July 1967 he made a state visit to Canada, arriving by warship at Quebec City, driving along the St. Lawrence to Montreal and visiting Expo 67. On 24 July, from the balcony of Montreal’s city hall, he ended a speech with the cry “Vive le Québec libre!” The remark was greeted with enthusiasm by part of the crowd and with anger by the Canadian government. Prime Minister Lester Pearson publicly rejected it, and de Gaulle cut his visit short and returned to France without going to Ottawa. The episode was widely discussed in French newspapers, where opinion was divided, and many opposition politicians thought it damaged France’s reputation. Other foreign policy decisions were also controversial. After the Six-Day War in June, France distanced itself from Israel, and de Gaulle’s later press conference comments on the subject attracted criticism at home and abroad. In late November, days after the pound devaluation, he again blocked Britain’s application to join the European Community, a decision known as the Common Market veto. Supporters saw an independent France; critics saw an old man out of touch.
The student scene before May
Students were not yet at the centre of the opposition. Tensions at the new Nanterre campus, debates over university reform, and a small movement against the Vietnam War escalation existed, but they involved few people compared with the strikes. Student unrest only moved to the centre of events in 1968.
The shift to 1968
Several things changed in early 1968. The government’s authority was shaken by unemployment concerns, the Caen violence and the Nanterre disturbances. In May the police entry into the Sorbonne and the clashes in the Latin Quarter triggered a crisis in which strikes spread across the country. The May 1968 strikes are often described as involving around ten million workers, though estimates vary. De Gaulle briefly left Paris, returned, dissolved the assembly and won a large majority in the elections of June 1968, but he resigned in April 1969 after losing a referendum.
Looking back, 1967 matters because it shows that the government was already under strain. The narrow election, the union disputes and the quarrels over foreign policy were not enough to cause a revolt, but they helped create the climate in which one could happen.