Students at the University of Paris–Nanterre occupy an administration building, helping crystallize a radical student current that would feed directly into the May–June national upheaval.
With tensions escalating at Nanterre, authorities shut the campus, pushing the protest focus toward central Paris and the Sorbonne.
Police remove students gathered at the Sorbonne after the rector requests intervention; arrests and street confrontations intensify and broaden support for the student movement.
Large student marches and clashes with police take hold in Paris, setting the stage for the more explosive confrontations that follow.
Overnight fighting (10–11 May) erupts after police block demonstrators; barricades, mass arrests, and injuries help swing public opinion and accelerate escalation beyond campuses.
Major union confederations (including CGT and CFDT) call for a 24-hour strike in response to police violence, marking a decisive move from student revolt toward a worker-student confrontation with the state.
A one-day general strike and huge Paris demonstration bring workers and students together. The Sorbonne is reopened but then occupied, becoming a key hub for assemblies and organizing.
Workers at Sud Aviation near Nantes launch a sit-down strike and occupy the plant—often cited as the first factory occupation of the May–June crisis—helping the strike spread rapidly across industry.
Students and cultural workers seize the Odéon, transforming it into a political forum and symbol of the movement’s cultural challenge to established institutions.
Workers seize control at multiple Renault sites, signaling that the unrest has become a nationwide labor crisis as well as a student uprising.
Prominent student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit is expelled on public-order grounds, becoming an international symbol of the revolt and further polarizing the political situation.
Violence intensifies in several cities; in Lyon, Police Inspector René Lacroix is killed amid clashes, underscoring the rising human cost and volatility of the crisis.
Government, unions, and employers negotiate terms including major wage increases (notably a large minimum-wage rise). The package is widely publicized but strongly contested on the ground, and strikes continue.
Amid uncertainty at the top of the state, President Charles de Gaulle disappears from Paris and goes to Baden-Baden to consult military leadership, fueling rumors of resignation or a potential crackdown.
In a decisive broadcast, de Gaulle asserts authority, dissolves the National Assembly, and calls snap legislative elections—framing the moment as a choice between order and chaos.
Violent confrontations erupt around the Renault plant at Flins as workers resisting a return to work are supported by students, moving conflict from central Paris toward key industrial sites.
High school student and activist Gilles Tautin dies (drowning in the Seine) while fleeing police near the Flins industrial clashes, becoming one of the emblematic deaths associated with the movement’s final phase.
At Peugeot’s Sochaux-Montbéliard site, police intervention turns lethal, with workers killed amid the effort to break strike strongholds and restore production.
The government prohibits street demonstrations nationwide and orders the dissolution of several far-left and student organizations, aiming to curtail mobilization before elections.
France votes in the first round of the snap legislative elections called during the crisis, channeling the confrontation into an electoral test of the Fifth Republic’s legitimacy.
The second round produces a decisive victory for Gaullists and allies, marking a political resolution of the immediate crisis even as social and cultural consequences endure.
May 1968 Protests in France (April–June 1968)
