France riots

Barricades of May ’68 Still Divide the French

Forty years ago, French students demanded that the system change. Today, French students, worried about losing state benefits, are demanding that nothing change at all.

For the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, May 1968 represents anarchy and moral relativism, a destruction of social and patriotic values that, he has said in harsh terms, “must be liquidated.”

But according to Alain Geismar, a former 68-er, both the vivid personal life and political success of Mr. Sarkozy, with foreign and Jewish roots, “are unimaginable without 1968,” he said. “The neo-conservatives are unimaginable without ’68.” Forty years ago, French students demanded that the system change. Today, French students, worried about losing state benefits, are dem... more

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