Editing University of Paris (section)

===May 1968–1970: Shutdown===
{{further|May 68}}

The student revolts of the late 1960s were caused in part by the French government's failure to plan for a sudden explosion in the number of university students as a result of the [[Mid-twentieth century baby boom|postwar baby boom]]. The number of French university students skyrocketed from only 280,000 during the 1962–63 academic year to 500,000 in 1967–68, but at the start of the decade, there were only 16 public universities in the entire country.  To accommodate this rapid growth, the government hastily developed bare-bones off-site faculties as annexes of existing universities (roughly equivalent to American [[satellite campus]]es).  These faculties did not have university status of their own and lacked academic traditions and amenities to support student life or resident professors. One-third of all French university students ended up in these new faculties, and were ripe for radicalization as a result of being forced to pursue their studies in such shabby conditions.<ref name="Legois">{{cite book |last1=Legois |first1=Jean-Philippe |last2=Monchablon |first2=Alain |editor1-last=Dhondt |editor1-first=Pierre |editor2-last=Boran |editor2-first=Elizabethanne |title=Student Revolt, City, and Society in Europe: From the Middle Ages to the Present |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9781351691031 |pages=67–78 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DkgrDwAAQBAJ&dq=University%20of%20Paris%201968%20split&pg=PA68 |access-date=5 February 2021 |chapter=From the Struggle against Repression to the 1968 General Strike in France}}</ref>

In 1966, after a student revolt in Paris, [[Christian Fouchet]], minister of education, proposed "the reorganisation of university studies into separate two- and four-year degrees, alongside the introduction of selective admission criteria" as a response to overcrowding in lecture halls.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Readings |first=Bill |title=The university in ruins |date=1996 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-92952-4 |location=Cambridge, Mass |pages=136–137}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> Dissatisfied with these educational reforms, students began protesting in November 1967, at the campus of the University of Paris in [[Nanterre]];<ref name=":0" /> indeed, according to James Marshall, these reforms were seen "as the manifestations of the technocratic-capitalist state by some, and by others as attempts to destroy the liberal university".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Marshall |first=James Derek |title=Postructuralism, philosophy, pedagogy |date=2004 |publisher=Kluwer academic |isbn=978-1-4020-1894-7 |series=Philosophy and education |location=Dordrecht |page=xviii |chapter=Introduction}}</ref> After student activists protested against the [[Vietnam War]], the campus was closed by authorities on 22 March and again on 2 May 1968.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Pudal |first=Bernard |title=Mai - juin 68 |date=2008 |publisher=Ed. de l'Atelier |isbn=978-2-7082-3976-0 |location=Ivry-sur-Seine |pages=190–191 |language=FR}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last1=Rotman |first1=Patrick |title=Mai 68 raconté à ceux qui ne l'ont pas vécu |last2=Devillairs |first2=Laurence |date=2008 |publisher=Seuil |isbn=978-2-02-096596-5 |location=Paris |pages=10–11 |language=FR}}</ref> Agitation spread to the [[Sorbonne (building)|Sorbonne]] the next day, and many students were arrested in the following week.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Giles |first1=Robert |last2=Snyder |first2=Robert |title=1968: year of media decision |date=2001 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |location=New Brunswick [N.J.] |isbn=9780765806215 |page=86}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> Barricades were erected throughout the [[Latin Quarter, Paris|Latin Quarter]], and a massive demonstration took place on 13 May, gathering students and workers on strike.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> The number of workers on strike reached about nine million by 22 May.<ref name=":0" /> As explained by Bill Readings:
<blockquote>
[[Charles de Gaulle|De Gaulle]] responded on May 24 by calling for a referendum, and [...] the revolutionaries, led by informal action committees, attacked and burned the [[Euronext Paris|Paris Stock Exchange]] in response. The [[Gaullism|Gaullist]] government then held talks with union leaders, who agreed to a package of wage-rises and increases in union rights. The strikers, however, simply refused the plan. With the French state tottering, de Gaulle fled France on May&nbsp;29 for a French military base in Germany. He later returned and, with the assurance of military support, announced [general] elections [within] forty days. [...] Over the next two months, the strikes were broken (or broke up) while the election was won by the Gaullists with an increased majority.<ref name=":0" />
</blockquote>