Education in Turmoil

Abstract

During the early morning of 6 December, 1986 the news slowly filtered through that a student had been killed. The exact circumstances of the death were still unknown, but this tragic event effectively ended what until then had been a massive, but well-ordered movement of student protest, unseen since 1968. For more than a week the nation’s television and radio networks, and its newspapers had been dominated by a single event — the student strike. Government proposals to reform the university system and restructure the baccalauréat had provided a sufficient catalyst to provoke a hostile reaction from a wide spectre of students, surprising ministers and French people alike by its scale and intensity. Yet the carnival-like atmosphere in which the protest marches first took place was not to last and the movement ended in sadness and bitterness. The government was left in disarray, finally forced to withdraw its proposed reforms, while the students’ victory had a hollow ring: had it really been worth it? Government policy might have been misguided and its approach maladroit, but the changes it entailed were hardly revolutionary.