Abstract 

This paper examines the rapid mobilisation and subsequent decline of the May 1968 movement in France through the lens of two competing social movement theories: Resource Mobilisation Theory (RMT) and Political Process Theory (PPT). The movement’s initial success was driven by the state’s repressive response, which expanded political opportunities and fostered solidarity among students, workers, and unions. While RMT explains the rational aggregation of resources and initial mobilisation, it struggles to account for why workers continued striking despite material concessions. Instead, PPT provides a stronger framework by highlighting the perceived political instability that enabled continued mobilisation. However, the movement’s lack of internal organisation, as analysed using Tarrow’s framework, ultimately led to its rapid collapse once the state recalibrated its strategy. This case study suggests that RMT is more applicable in politically stable contexts, whereas PPT better explains mobilisation during generalised political instability. 

The purpose of this paper is to adjudicate between two competing theories of movement mobilisation, using May 1968 as a case study. The paper analyses this movement with reference to (1) its rapid mobilisation, (2) its lack of organisation, and (3) the response of the state, which acted as a fulcrum around which the movement both rose and fell. The paper begins with an account of the background to May 1968. The paper continues by outlining contrasting theories about how movements mobilise and will show how Political Process Theory (PPT) and, to a lesser extent (until after May 30th, to be discussed later) Resource Mobilisation Theory (RMT) are supported by the mobilisation of social movement actors in May 1968. The paper then discusses the movement’s rapid decline as a function of its lack of organisation, using Tarrow’s (2011, pp. 123-124) three factors of movement organisation as an analytical framework. The essay outlines how the response from the state initially created political opportunities which enabled the rapid mobilisation of resources and created some sense of solidarity among movement actors. However, once the state had the opportunity to re-evaluate its strategy, particularly after receiving a relative vote of confidence from a countermovement (Meyer and Staggenborg, 1996; Reader and Wadia, 1993), it could effectively dismantle the social movement by exploiting the cracks in its organisational structure.

Background to May 1968 

May 1968 was a social movement that took place in France, in May 1968. The movement followed years of discontent among students and workers in France (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 5). The student population increased by 224% between 1958 and 1968, but resources did not increase adequately (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 5). In 1966, at the University of Strasbourg, a radical group of students took over the students’ union, but this takeover was overturned in court (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p.6). On the side of the workers, housing problems were rampant, and strikes, such as the January 1968 strike at the SAVIEM factory in Caen, increased in frequency and intensity (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 7). The decisive moment for the movement occurred in March 1968, when the Minister for Youth and Sport visited the University of Nanterre to mark the opening of a swimming pool. He was accosted by a student, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, for making no mention of sexual problems in his recently published book on the French youth (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 8). Student protests and grievances were not exclusively related to the university system. The Vietnam War also acted as a point of contention for students in 1968 (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 8). Cohn-Bendit and a group of other students, including Trotskyists of the Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionnaire (JCR), occupied the administrative block of Nanterre University, aiming to transform the 22nd of March into a “day of antiimperialist debate and struggle” (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 8). This series of events seems random and disconnected, but when a committee was established to discipline the student protestors on the 6th of May, a collection of initially small-scale student protests began in support of the students who had occupied the Nanterre campus in March. When the police acted violently to repress the first of the protests on the 7th of May, using tear gas and baton charges, the students fought back with stones and constructed the first barricade of May 1968 (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 10). The brutal police response acted as an impetus for further protest action. Between the 6th and 14th of May 1968, these small-scale protests transformed into a large-scale political movement. The national students’ unions (both secondary and university), the largest national trade unions (CGT and CFDT), individual factory workers (Renault and Sud-Aviation), as well as left-wing politicians (Mitterrand, Mendès-France, etc.), became involved through strike action and solidarity marches (Reader and Wadia, 1993). May 1968 quickly mobilised resources and movement repertoires (building barricades, occupying university buildings, striking) (Mann, 2011, pp.207). At the height of the movement, millions of France’s workers were on strike, the government had ceased to work effectively, and De Gaulle, the president, had left the country (Reader and Wadia, 1993). The movement actors broadly disliked one another, with the unions generally disliking the students and the students generally disliking the politicians (Mann, 2011, pp. 210-211). A large group of Gaullists marched in Paris in an unexpected countermovement, and De Gaulle returned to France on the 30th of May, vowing to regain control of France. Most unions accepted the concessions of the Grenelle agreement, a pay and work conditions agreement between trade unions and the government, and workers began to return to work (Seidman, 1993, p. 266). The movement ended within a few weeks of its beginning. 

Can We Say that the Movement Failed? 

The argument of this paper relies on a conception of May 1968 as a failed movement. Were it not a failed movement, then it would make little sense to analyse the breakdown of the movement and the role that the state played in this breakdown. Before May 1968 can be judged to be a failure, its goals must first be presented. The goals of May 1968 could be construed as the “smashing [of] capitalist society” (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 46), in which case, the movement unequivocally failed. The goals could be construed as the attempt to repair an “ossified university” to end the “university crisis,” in which case, its success or failure is up for debate (Fomerand, 1977). Some (Domenach, 1968 as cited in Reader and Wadia, 1993) argue that the “sense” of May 1968 was aimed at a new form of civilisation, not at a new form of political organisation, and as a result, the maintenance of the old political and economic structures after May 1968 does not necessarily reflect the latter’s failure. The manifold interpretations of May 1968’s goals and causes would make this paper unwritable, thus, the paper will tentatively take it that while May 1968 began as a student strike against an ossified university, it expanded to a larger strike with overt political aims, most of which (excluding some trade union victories) were not realised. 

Resource Mobilisation Theory as the First Explanation of May 1968’s Mobilisation 

Several theories attempt to explain how such rapid mobilisation of movement actors occurs. Resource Mobilisation Theory (RMT) begins from the idea that individuals will not incur the costs of working towards a collective goal in isolation; they will only engage in collective behaviour which incurs personal costs if the collective behaviour (1) rationally aggregates resources, (2) is somewhat organised, (3) can involve actors from outside of the collective behaviour, (4) competes for the limited supply of social movement resources, and (5) is sensitive to costs and rewards for individual and organisational involvement (McCarthy and Zald, 1977; Oberschall, 1973). This theory partly helps to explain the rapid mobilisation of social movement actors in May 1968. It seems as if criteria 1-3 were fulfilled by May 1968 as a movement, but it is not clear if criteria 4-5 were. It appears as if resources were rationally aggregated, for workers made use of their power of striking and students made use of tactics gained from previous protests, bringing these together to effectively bring the state to its knees. Furthermore, the movement was somewhat organised, particularly the trade unions who were able to act collectively and rapidly. The movement was also exceptionally effective at including actors from outside of itself, involving politicians, other student groups, and workers when it initially was composed of a few hundred university students. However, with regard to criteria 4-5, if the collective behaviour of workers was sensitive to costs and rewards for individual workers, and considered the limited supply of resources that the movement had (both individual resources, such as subsistence wages, and collective resources such as group solidarity), then why did the workers (initially) broadly reject the Grenelle protocol when it granted them increased wages, decreased hours and greater union rights? The RMT theorists would predict that the workers would accept this proposal, knowing that continued strike action would impose higher costs upon workers and would possibly reduce the future supply of resources from the state. However, this did not happen. 

To account for why this did not happen, the paper contends that RMT is better suited to account for social movements that exist in fields of power wherein there is no generalised political instability. That is, fields of power wherein social movements are “weak challengers” — such as NGO challengers in the migrant field of power in Ireland, as described by Landy (2014) — and must compete with other weak challengers for resources, particularly those provided by the state. RMT is best able to account for the mobilisation of resources of normalised (Piven and Cloward, 1991) or institutionalised social movements. This paper contends that May 1968 was a moment of generalised political instability. Therefore, a different theory is required to account for why May 1968 mobilised social movement actors so quickly. 

Political Process Theory as the Second Explanation for May 1968’s Mobilisation 

One such theory is the Political Process Theory (PPT), which stresses the importance of political opportunities for social movement mobilisation. McAdam (1999, p. 42), a PPT theorist, argues that expanded political opportunities can augment the possible political actions of challengers in a field by either (1) undermining the stability of the entire political system or (2) increasing the political leverage of a single insurgent group. The increased political opportunity for students to undermine the entire political system was a product of the harsh repression of students by the French police: it provided them with greater legitimacy to act. This repression, in turn, severely weakened the state’s legitimacy and provided greater popular support for the students (Joffrin, 1988 as cited in Reader and Wadia, 1993), in a positive-feedback loop for the movement. The trade unions only got involved when they witnessed the violence against the students by the police (Zancarini-Fournel, 2016, as cited in Davis, 2018). Thus, to reformulate McAdam’s two claims, in May 1968, the stability of the entire political system was undermined, but it was undermined because of the increased political leverage of a single insurgent group: students. This broadly fits the political opportunities theory above, as well as Tarrow’s (2011, p. 33) argument that “contentious politics is produced when threats are experienced and opportunities are perceived, when the existence of available allies is demonstrated, and when the vulnerability of opponents is exposed”. It is not enough to consider RMT alone. The political opportunities played a vital role in the rapid mobilisation of students and workers in May 1968, and the subjective perception of opportunities, that is, the perception that the state was at the point of breakdown (Kurzman, 1996, p. 154), allowed the usually rational evaluation of costs and rewards in a field of power in which there is generalised political stability to be discarded. The generalised political instability of May 1968 allowed social movement actors and organisations to ignore questions of the supply of resources, as the actors saw the state as so weak to the point that their demands superseded the state’s ability to supply resources (Seidman, 1993, p. 265). 

McAdam (1999) argues that Political Process Theory (PPT), in contrast to traditional theories such as RMT, is based on the notion that political opportunities can develop incrementally and do not need to be the result of dramatic changes (social, economic, political) in the period preceding the expanded political opportunities. In the case of May 1968, there were indeed social changes in the period preceding May 1968, such as the fact that 1967 was worse economically for France than any other year in that decade (Reader and Wadia, 1993, pp. 39-40), with four times more workers claiming unemployment benefit in February 1968 than in 1964. Furthermore, there was massive social change in universities, with the number of students in French universities quadrupling in the fifteen years before 1968 (Reader and Wadia, 1993). Whether these changes are incremental or dramatic is up for debate. In either case, expanded political opportunities were created in 1968. Similarly, whether or not there were “structural” opportunities as opposed to subjectively perceived opportunities is irrelevant. For instance, in the Iranian revolution of 1979 (Kurzman, 1996), the protestors’ perception of political opportunities clashed with the state’s structures and ultimately forced the latter to give way, so that structural breakdown may have actually been the outcome of mobilisation (due to perceived breakdown), rather than the other way around. Thus, either way, opportunities were created and produced in a positive feedback loop following the state’s response to the student protestors. 

Up to this point, the state’s repressive response to the student protesters created political opportunities for both students and workers to engage in contentious politics. However, even though millions of France’s workers were on strike, the government had ceased to work effectively, and De Gaulle had left the country (Reader and Wadia, 1993), the movement still managed to dissipate as quickly as it formed by the end of May and early June 1968. This essay argues in the following section that it was the movement’s lack of internal organisation that ultimately led to the movement’s failure, and that this lack of organisation was exploited by the state in order to regain order. 

Lack of Movement Organisation as Cause of the Movement’s Failure

Tarrow (2011, pp. 123-124) argues that movement organisation has three general features or meanings: (1) the organisation of collective action at the point of contact with opponents, (2) an advocacy organisation (making public interest claims or representing an interest group), and (3) connective structures or interpersonal networks that link leaders, followers, etc., together. It is clear from what has already been discussed that the first feature was present in the May 1968 social movement; social movement actors mobilised quickly and organised against the police repression, exemplified by the unions holding a solidarity strike with the students against the police. It is less clear, however, that features (2) and (3) were present in the May 1968 movement, and the movement can then be characterised as organisationally defective. 

However, it is not well established that a formal, hierarchical organisational structure is necessarily better for social movement success. Piven and Cloward (1979) argue that formal organisational structures are inherently conservative insofar as their formalism and accountability structures enable collaboration with the political establishment, or indeed cooptation by the political establishment (Molnárfi, 2023). Others, such as McAdam (1999), argue that formal organisation accounted for the success of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and that without a clear structure and centralised direction, the movement’s effects became localised and ineffective. However, May 1968 was characterised by a coalition of organisations, some of which were formally organised (CGT, CFDT, etc.) whilst others were strictly against the notion of formal organisation, such as the anarchist student groups and their figurehead Cohn-Bendit (Reader and Wadia, 1993). Thus, while it exhibited some level of organisation, that is, it could organise collective action, it did not contain many connective structures (3) above)) between movement actors and coalition partners. In fact, the CGT (closely connected to the Communist Party – PCF) tended to dislike and disagree with the student movement, seeing it as the “sons of bourgeois” trying to “bring revolutionary theory to the working class” (Mann, 2011, pp. 210-211). Similarly, the social movement did not advocate for a single interest group (feature (2) above); it was a coalition of groups with varying desires and goals. As a result, when the Gaullists marched in Paris in an unexpected countermovement, and De Gaulle returned to France on the 30th of May, vowing to regain control of France, most unions representing workers perceived that their political opportunity had shrunk and accepted the concessions of the Grenelle agreement: workers began to return to work (Seidman, 1993, p. 266). The considerations of the supply of resources, costs, and rewards, as in RMT above, began to be seriously reconsidered as the political opportunities for radical victories shrank. The unstable coalition began to fall apart once there was a change in the political environment (Meyer, 2004). It was the response of the state that precipitated the movement’s dissolution, but the structural reason behind its dissolution was the movement’s lack of internal organisation. It was too fragile a coalition between ideologically, organisationally, and demographically different groups, and the state recognised this, used this to its advantage, and effectively regained control over France. 

Conclusion

To conclude, it is difficult to determine whether the movement failed or succeeded due to the wildly differing interpretations of the movement’s goals. Whilst workers and trade unions benefited somewhat, for instance, the Grenelle agreement, the aspiration of “a government for the people” (Reader and Wadia, 1993, p. 14) failed to materialise, with De Gaulle gaining even more power in the next general election. The state played a pivotal role in both the rapid mobilisation of students and workers who perceived increased political opportunities in the light of the state’s repression, as well as in the equally rapid dissolution of the movement due to its lack of internal organisation. That is, the state acted as the fulcrum point around which the movement both rose and fell. However, the movement may not have fallen were it not for the poor organisation of the movement actors. The case of May 1968 has shown that RMT is successful at accounting for the mobilisation of movement actors when there is no generalised political instability. In this situation, movements are focused on costs and benefits and aim to maximise the use of their limited resources. PPT is a useful theory for analysing movements that take place within generalised political instability, where the perception of opportunities becomes more important than the consideration of costs and benefits. The combining of these two theories was necessitated by the case study of May 1968, and the discovery of the place of generalised political instability in mediating between them was made.

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