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mounting the barricades. We prefer parliamentary to illegal methods. We would not have French conditions here for anything in the world." FRANCE

EXAMINATIONS, REFORMS AND IRRECONCILABLES On 16 September, 1968, 200 students attempted to prevent entry int.o the medical faculty of the University of Paris where examinations were to be held; 50 uniformed police cleared a pathway through the demonstrators who demanded the postponement of the examinations, the revision of examination procedures and the removal of all police from the university. The medical student action committee opposed the examinations, demanding that "continuous assessment" replace the "examination guillotine ". There were no police inside the building. The dean said that 84 to 90 per cent. of the students sat for the examinations. At the faculties of law and economics, examinations took place peacefully following negotiations between teachers and examinees. Outside the hall, members of the "Panthron-Assas-Nanterre" movement distributed leaflets demanding open meetings of examiners. If the demands were not granted, they argued that the students were to insist on using "' cours polycopids", lecture notes, etc., in the examination halls. (On 14 September, the dean of the faculty of law said that students could use books of statutes, decrees, etc., but no textbooks or "cours polycopi3s ".) In the provinces, examinations took place in a calm atmosphere and the proportions of registered students taking them were very large. The Syndicat autonorne de la lacultd des lettres of Nanterre said that it would be a "violation of professional secrets and of all academic regulations " if the teachers' discussions of assessments of examinations were made public. On 17 September, 20 students reoccupied the t c o l e des beaux arts which had been closed since police expelled occupying students in June. At the end of an hour police arrived and sealed them off so that they received no food from their sympathisers. They refused the request of an official of the Ministry of Culture to leave and insisted on the immediate reopening of the school. Early in the evening the police "invited" them to leave which they did after minor seutfles. There were no arrests or injuries. On the afternoon of 17 September, after the examinations of the faculty of medicine had been going on peacefully for a day and a half, members of the action committee got into the examination halls and began to agitate against the examinations. Then some outsiders, apparently from the s des beaux arts, penetrated into the building ard were expelled by custodial personnel. Finally, at 5.45 p.m., after nearly two hours of disorder, the examination in histology was called off. On 17 September, the Conseil sup3rieur de r3ducation nationale approved the loi d'orientation on higher education. Early in the morning of 18 September, members of the action committee harangued examinees in front of the buildings of the faculty of medicine. On 18 September, fights between members of the right-wing group Occident and students who wished to obstruct the examinations in the medical faculty ended in police intervention. The examinations were not however disrupted. M. Bernard Herszberg, secretary-general of the Syndicat national de l'enseignem e n t sup3rieur (SNES), who is a maitre de confdrences in the faculty of medicine in Paris, went to the medical faculty building on the morning of 18 September on SNES business to see the conditions under which the examinations were taking place. When he entered the building he was, aecording to his

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account, refused freedom of movement and was forcibly detained by the custodial force for three hours. According to the dean, Professor Brouet, M. Herszberg had no business in the building; he left, said the dean, only after he had been told several times to do so. On 18 September, M. Pierre Grappin, dean of the faculty of letters at Nanterre and an active member of the resistance during the period of German occupation, announced his resignation from the deanship. He said that the situation in the university seemed to him "intolerable for the same reasons which led me in the past to resist nazism ". On 19 September, the Council of Ministers approved the loi d'orientation. As approved, it provided for the formation of councils consisting of professors, students and representatives of local and regional bodies. There would be regional councils as well as councils for the constituent units of the universities, which would be responsible for teaching and research in particular fields, corresponding sometimes with the former faculties, sometimes with sections of faculties and sometimes with institutes. Each unit would be responsible for its own programme of teaching and research, its methods of instruction, examination, etc. Each would be administered by an elected body with a chairman elected by the administrative body. The diplomas and degrees would have "national validity"; this provision would leave much power in the hands of the minister. The electorate would be formed into separate "colleges of electors ", voting would be universal, proportional and secret, and there would be a quorum of at least 60 per cent. for the student electorate. Only students who had successfully completed a year of university would be entitled to vote. The president of the university, a professor, would be elected for a twoyear term and eligible for one reelection. The regional councils would be composed of elected representatives of universities, of public non-university educational institutions and of local and regional organisafions; these elections would be indirect. The regional councils would be expected to coordinate activities and programmes, to render opinions on them and on budgetary proposals and to maintain links with regional institutions. The regional councils would be represented in the Conseil national de l'enseignement sup~rieur et de la recherche. Councils would have only consultative functions. Each teaching and research unit would have its own budget and would be financially autonomous. In addition to a grant from the ministry fixed in consultation with the Conseil national, each unit would be allowed to obtain endowments, donations, grants from foundations, payments for services and grants from public bodies. In addition to staff appointed on the public payroll, it would be possible to employ staff on a contractual basis. The maintenance of order in higher educational institutions would be the responsibility of the elected president and not, as at present, of the state. Professors would have a monopoly of the power to assess the accomplishments of students. Councils would be empowered to give their opinions about the mode of examining the students' knowledge but the professors would construct the examinations. The appointment to examining bodies, the awards of degrees and diplomas, the appointment of teachers and their assignment would be in the hands of the professors. The headship over a field of study previously attached automatically to the professorship would be abolished and professors would be under obligation to reside in the city where their university was located. Students would have the right of participation in all bodies and at all levels: financial, pedagogical, administrative and in general academic policy. They would participate in disciplinary matters affecting students. They would also have the complete right of discussion in political, economic and social matters as long as this did not interfere with teaching and research and was not monopolistically exercised; students would

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not be permitted to infringe on public order. (No political discussions in hospitals would be permitted.) President de Gauile intervened on behalf of M. Edgar Faure and indicated his support for the two main principles of the new law: " a u t o n o m y " and "participation". The new arrangement was to come into operation o n 15 February, 1969. On 19 September, the action committee of medical students of Paris met in the courtyard of the Sorbonne after having been prevented from meeting at their originally scheduled place. M. Herszberg said that "the time has come to mobilise all students and teachers to liberate the faculty of medicine of Paris and to drive out the vermin; it is intolerable that fascist students and gangsters (barbouzes) should act as custodians of the faculty under the protection of Dean Brouet, the Hindenburg of the system ". The medical examinations continued peacefully; 97 per cent. of registered fifth-year students took them. In Toulouse, of 602 first-year medical students, 31 were missing from the examinations--in the second year, 17 out of 390. In Strasbourg too, examinations took place peacefully, only 20 out of 700 registered candidates being absent. On 23 September, at 3 a.m., the police evicted 40 young persons from a Nanterre hall of residence. Most of them were young workmen, apprentices and unemployed, their female companions and several students. They had occupied the building on 12 September to protest against the closure of the halls of residence by the university authorities, and had renamed it " T h e Red Base ". (On 21 September, students had evicted the occupiers who returned with weapons such as clubs and bicycle chains and resumed the occupation.) The police arrested 32; the rest fled. Examinations in the faculty of letters at Nanterre began later in the day and proceeded peacefully. On 23 September, students of the first stage in psychology began to sit for examinations in which they themselves chose the subjects and in which about three fifths were examined by examination committees (jurys) consisting of a professor and an advanced student. The mark was decided by the professor although the student examiner could give his opinion about the mark to be given. The others took the traditional type of examination. The SNES announced on 25 September that, despite certain desirable features such as the suppression of the combination of professorship with the headship of a field study, the extension of the power of councils, etc., the loi d'orientation had many defects. Its ambiguity regarding the units which were to enjoy autonomy ran the risk of multiplying the units of teaching and research to such an extent that the unity of the entire university system would be destroyed; it fixed the representation of students and of categories of teachers in an authoritarian way which constituted a regression from the point reached in the bodies created during May and June. The SNES also criticised the refusal of voting rights to first-year students. For these and other reasons, students, teachers and research workers pursuing the paths laid out in May would break the framework of the law. They would continue to press for the development of the powers of paritary committees through discussions among students, teachers, research workers and other university personnel, even if these contravened the law. On 25 September, about 1,000 students attended a meeting at the Sorbonne organised by the action committees. They demanded collective examinations and the presence of student observers on examination juries. They protested against the refusal of the dean, M. Las Vergnas, at a meeting earlier in the day, to accede to any of their demands except that bearing on the exclusion of all police from university premises. After the meeting, they held a procession in

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which they shouted "Solidarity with the Mexican students" and " D o w n with police repression ". They dispersed peacefully when they encountered a large contingent of police. On 27 September, at 6 p.m., a meeting of 3,500 students was held in the Sorbonne under the auspices of the action committees. They discussed the examinations which were to begin on 2 October. A debate occurred as to whether a delegation should be sent to M. Las Vergnas to obtain a response to their demands, which included the postponement of examinations until 16 October and the establishment of picket lines to make sure that they were not held sooner; the alternative was to occupy the administration buildings of the Sorbonne. While the debate was going on, a representative of the dean appeared with a statement from the dean, which had been released earlier in the day and which said that " t h e general assemblies and paritary committees in almost all disciplines agreed on the form of the examinations in May, June and July and confirmed them in September . . . . The forms and dates of the examinations had therefore been agreed." Subsequently, a delegation was sent to M. Las Vergnas and the action committees announced that they had '~ been assured that the examinations would be postponed until 23 October ". The Syndicat autonome des iacultds des lettres expressed its indignation on 30 September that the "organisation of e x a m i n a t i o n s . . , has been turned over to general assemblies . . . the members of which are neither responsible nor representative "; it cited " t h e insistence of most of the directors of the Sorbonne institutes that there be written examinations ". On the same day, the Ministry of National Education declared that students could not participate in examination juries. Examinations which disregarded this could not count for university or national degrees or diplomas. On 30 September, a conservative group of the Fdddration nationale des dtudiants de France (FNEF), having g i v e n an advance warning two days previously, seized the organisation's headquarters, " d e p o s e d " the national bureau and constituted itself as a "provisional executive committee ". It charged the F N E F with having forgotten its mandate " t o struggle against Marxist control of the university ". The Ministry of National Education released a statement concerning the new experimental university centre of Vincennes. It would have the status of a faculty; it was to be multi-disciplinary, concentrating on the understanding of the contemporary world, based on the study of the humanities and the social sciences. Disciplinary boundaries would be opened and teaching and research would be brought together. Classics would be excluded while all students would have to master one modern language. The working units would consist of 15 to 30 students and seminars would be common. Periodic examinations would be replaced by continuous assessment; persons already engaged in the professions would be permitted to attend even without the necessary academic requirements and solely on the basis of their tested abilities. There would be an institute of urban studies as well as training in the arts. On 30 September, a meeting of the moderate Mouvement universitaire pour la rdforrne (MUR) in the Sorbonne was invaded by extremist left-wing students. Violence broke out when the invaders rushed to the platform and seized the microphone. The invaders expelled the rightful occupants of the hall and used it to hold a meeting of sympathy with the Mexican students. On 1 October, the action committee of the Institut d'dtudes poIitiques held a meeting attended by 400 students; attendance in accordance with the new regulation was restricted to students of the institute. The meeting was at first disrupted by right-wing and Gaullist hecklers who later left the hall. The Association des rdsidents de la cit~ universitaire d'Antony decided on

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1 October to continue to obstruct the construction of the university centre of A n t o n y until they were given full power over everything affecting the social and cultural arrangements of the new university city. They demanded a fourth creche and a family planning centre. Building construction on the site came to a halt. On 2 October, the Ministry of National Education announced that the experimental university centre of Antony would provide an interdisciplinary education based on the human sciences and mathematics. It would train research workers in psychology, sociology, urban studies, administration, etc. A t Besangon, where examinations had been proceeding peacefully since 23 September, 40 members of the action committee interfered with 0ral examinations in philosophy and psychology on 2 October. They were protesting against the delay in the posting of results in an examination in which one of the examiners had given the same marks to all candidates. The dean then decided to postpone all examinations in these subjects for a week and the examination in logic was invalidated. On 3 October, the National Assembly began to discuss the loi d'orientation. M. Alain Peyrefitte, former Minister of National Education, said that he unreservedly accepted cogestion and even the parity of professors and students but that the draft bill went beyond this because in the new councils professors and maitres de conferences would have only a quarter of the seats. There was a real danger of domination by a student minority. M. Peyrefitte also urged that provision be made for private universities. M. Capelle, former rector of the University of Bordeaux and recently rapporteur of the parliamentary committee which reviewed the bill, supported it. H e stressed the need and the practicability of obligatory voting in student elections. H e also stressed the need for comparability of standards among the different autonomous universities but emphasised that this did not entail uniformity. The role of the government should be the protection of comparability of courses of study, not the prescription of their contents. If orientation rather than selection was needed in order to keep the universities from being flooded and from producing failures, much better information about occupational opportunities and prospects was necessary, as was a better way to get this information to students at the moment when they had to decide whether to go to university or to follow another educational path. M. Robert Poujade, the secretary-general of the U D R , the Gaullist party, warned against the politicisation of the university. Several speakers called attention to the ambiguity of the definition of the autonomy which would be enjoyed by the universities, given the financial power which would still reside with the government. M. Edgar F a u r e said: " I f a university grants a ' n o n - n a t i o n a l ' diploma in a specialised field, that will be quite all right. But if it is a matter of a degree which is to entitle the bearer to enter on a public appointment or career, like a degree in medicine or law, some national supervision and control will be necessary to avoid arbitrariness. Nonetheless I want there to be a certain measure of freedom under the surveillance of the minister and the Conseit national d'enseignement supdrieur. It is inconceivable that a holder of a degree in law should not have studied civil or criminal law but why shouldn't he also be allowed in a certain faculty to study some special subject like air law as an optional. It is at the third level (cycle) that I would like to see the universities specialising and competing with each other . . . . Higher education is expensive b e c a m e it requires libraries, laboratories and brains. W h y should professors teach the same advanced subjects to very small numbers of students in every French university? A certain measure of division of labour is certainly desirable . . . . "

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On 4 October, a spokesman of the Union gdndrale des ingdnieurs et cadres declared that the trade unions of technicians should be represented in the national and regional councils of higher education. About 10 members of Occident attacked the headquarters of the SNES; they destroyed calculators, typewriters and telephones. About 1,200 persons attended a meeting for solidarity with students all over the world; it had been called by the UNEF. Originally scheduled for the faculty of law but prohibited there by the dean, it was held at the Mutualit6. M. Jacques Sauvageot denounced M. Bourguiba as " a darling of international capitalism ". A representative of the German SDS announced plans to occupy the University of Frankfurt. In the night of 5 October, the offices of the Association gdn~rale des dtudiams de Dijon (affiliated to the U N E F ) were bombed and severely damaged. In Marseilles, about 250 students attended a meeting called by the extreme leftist Comit~ d'action du 11 mai to express solidarity with the Mexican students. After the meeting, about 200 students carrying a red flag, singing the Internationale and chanting slogans about the Mexican students formed a procession which dispersed peacefully when they met up with police cars. The Association d'dtudes pour l'expansion de la recherche scientifique, which organised the colloquia at Amiens and Caen, expressed its appreciation of the loi d'orientation but also its apprehension lest the powers accorded to the ministry in defining the courses of study leading to nationally valid degrees, certificates and diplomas prevent a gennine autonomy of the universities in teaching and research. It recommended that article 15 of the bill be amended as follows: " T h e general norms which are to govern those courses of study which lead to degrees, certificates and diplomas deriving from the authority of the Ministry of National Education as well as the forms of their authorisation (modaIitds de leur sanction) should be referred to the ministry by those universities concerned with comparability (homologation) after consultation with the Conseil national de l'enseignement supdr&ur et de Ia recherche. This comparability (homologation) should be reexamined and revised periodically." At Grenoble, on 7 October, 200 students participated in a meeting at the faculty of Mexican studies where they drew up a request to the mayor of Grenoble and certain associates to call off their planned trip to Mexico to be taken in connection with the Olympic Games, since it would be interpreted as support for the government of President Diaz Ordaz " w h o is covered with the blood of Mexican students ". (On 9 October, the mayor and his party departed for Mexico.) On 8 October, in the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, M. Couve de Murville, took exception to the clause stipulating obligatory voting for student representatives. He said the aim was to elicit participation, not to impose it. Certain emendations in the text of the bill were introduced: professors and maitres de confdrences were to constitute 60 per cent. of the teaching membership of mixed committees, councils, etc. 1 Another emendation declared that the determination of research programmes and the allocation of funds for research should be wholly a matter for the scientific councils consisting entirely of teachers--professors or maitres de confdrences, research workers at a corresponding level and persons chosen in view of their scientific accomplishments. Students at the third stage (cycle) already engaged in research, teachers and research workers with scientific publications to their credit should be the only t At present, there are about 25,000 university teachers in France: 3,000 professors, 3,000 maitres de confdrences, 6,000 senior assistants and 13,000 assistants, according to a statement by M. Edgar Faure in the National Assembly on 4 October (Le Monde, 6-7 October, 1968).

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electors eligible to be associated with the administration of research centres and laboratories. The requirement of obligatory voting, proposed by the commission of the National Assembly, was dropped and the original proposal was adopted. There would have to be a minimum participation in the elections of 60 per cent. of all registered students and if the minimum were not available a new election would be held. If in the second election the minimum were not available, the students would be allotted a quota of representatives proportional to the percentage of registered students voting. M. Edgar Faure in his concluding remarks said that an obligatory vote would have appeared discriminatory against the students while a quorum vote would not give such an impression. H e also urged the protagonists of the professors not to demand an excessive preponderance; they constituted only one fourth of the regular teaching staff but were already guaranteed 50 per cent. of the seats on the councils. H e also opposed selection which provided no alternative paths of higher education. It would be a breach of faith on the part of the state which had encouraged the demographic renaissance of France after the war. In Paris, Dean Brouet of the faculty of medicine announced that after a careful study and computer analysis of the examination for the certificat preparatoire des dtudes medicales (CPEM) in histology and embryology, cheating had been discovered. The examination was therefore invalidated and would be held again on 24 October. On 8 October, in Bordeaux, where examinations had been proceeding smoothly, disturbances broke out. A philosophy examination was boycotted following a vote of the Association gdndrale des ~tudiants (affiliated to the U N E F ) . Another examination was boycotted because only one question was asked instead of two as had been envisaged in June by a student assembly. The professors said the June assembly had not been qualified for such a decision which fell within the jurisdiction of the paritary committee. The first-year sociology examination was postponed. On 9 October, the Communist Party weekly newspaper France nouvelle announced that M. Bernard Herszberg, the secretary-general of the SNES, had been expelled from the party on 23 September for attacking it in public, publicly abusing his membership in the party for his own political ends, antiparty activities and cooperation with an anti-party groupuscule. H e had been a member since 1951. On 10 October, about 100 students of the Institut d'~tudes du ddveloppement ~conomique et social (II~DES) z gathered outside the institute in order to hold a meeting there. Since the strike committee had not obtained permission to use the building, they adjourned to the Sorbonne after having been roughly handled by the police. A few were arrested but were released after representations to the Ministry of National Education~ The meeting marked a renewal of the conflict with Professor Frangois Perrou_x, who had announced the time and form of examinations without having consulted the paritary committee created in June. The Association des ~tudiants de I'I~DES also demanded the immediate reopening of the buildings which had been closed since 7 July, the immediate resignation of Professor Perroux, the transfer of responsibility for examinations to the paritary committee and the guarantee of freedom of political propaganda and agitation. The authorities of the institute said that it would be reopened as soon as the examinations were over. 2 C]. "The Morning After: Evaporation of Enthusiasm and the Beginning of Reform ", Minerva, VII, 1-2 (Autumn-Winter, 1968-69), pp. 122-123.

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On 10-11 October, it was announced that most of the arrangements for examinations in classical and modern literature in the Sorbonne had been settled between the dean of the faculty, the professors and the student action committees. There had been disagreements about whether examinations should be written or oral; it was settled by the dean who gave students a choice. Eleven professors of French literature and language objected, saying that although they would accept the dean's decision, they could not accept the responsibility of sitting on examination committees conducting only oral examinations which gave no evidence of the students' ability to reason and compose. On 11 October, the National Assembly voted for the loi d'orientation by 441 to zero with 39 abstentions. (The abstentions included the 33 communist deputies.) In an article entitled " Q u a n d la rentr6e? " (Le Monde, 12 October, 1968), Professor Maurice Duverger said that the French universities were torn in conflict between the need to introduce reforms and the need to open the new session. The reforms would require time to implement, but if they were not introduced when the session opened, students would be disillusioned. Yet if the reopening were postponed, the students would become restive. Furthermore, the new types of teaching which the reform would introduce and which the students desired were much more difficult and would require time to prepare. Thus far the date of reopening had not been fixed for any faculty in Paris and the situation was the same in a number of faculties in the provinces. Professors did not know what they would be expected to teach or how they would be expected to teach it. " T h e greatest danger facing the university today is not the wild men or the reactionaries or the extremist groupuscules or the orthodox and rigid Gaullists; it is the calendar." On 12 October in Marseilles, between 200 and 300 students and lycde pupils attended a meeting called by the action committee to protest against " p o l i c e suppression" on the previous evening. Speakers denounced the loi d'orientation asserting that " n o t h i n g can be gained except through struggle ". The U N E F national office on the same day issued a statement to the effect that the " p a r t i c i p a t i o n " provided by the loi d'orientation was only a trap. It pointed to the prohibition of a meeting at the faculty of medicine in Paris and the actions of the police at the II~DES and in Marseilles as evidence of the real policy of the government. On 16 October, about 1,000 students met in the new faculty of medicine with the approval of Dean Brouet. The meeting was called by the Paris medical students' action committee, which lost control when the meeting broke into a tumult. When a tear gas bomb was thrown into the midst of the meeting shortly after it began, the hall had to be evacuated for 15 minutes; when it resumed, the meeting continued to be a chaotic confrontation of various political points of view and the originally intended subject of examinations and the reorganisation of medical studies was abandoned. The U N E F held a meeting at the faculty of law in Paris which was attended by more than 1,000 students. M. Sauvageot and 10 other speakers denounced the loi d'orientation which was designated as a "so-called university reform "; it was said that M. Edgar F a u r e never intended to change the policy of his predecessors. " I t is not our aim to improve the university," said M. Sauvageot, " w e wish to make the students politically conscious." Towards the end of the evening a score of students forced their way into the faculty building, exploded four tear gas bombs and broke several windows. The U N E F security force expelled them after a scuffle. A t Dijon, members of the Association gdndrale des dtudiants di]onnais (affiliated to the U N E F ) occupied the university refectories to protest against

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the unwillingness of the regional bureau of university services to allow members of the restaurant staff to sit in the administrative council in accordance with a decision taken by the association in May. The decision had never been confirmed by the dean. A t a press conference in Paris on 17 October, M. Sauvageot said that he totally rejected the loi d'orientation. H e said that the policy defined at Caen and now embodied in the new law had always been repugnant to the U N E F . The acceptance of "participation " by students was an attempt to isolate them from the workers. The councils and committees would only be tripartite and not paritary and the quorum of 60 per cent. would permit those to speak who had nothing to say. The political liberties of students would be hamstrung. M. F a u r e was in league with the Minister of the Interior. F o r these reasons, U N E F would not present lists of candidates for the various councils and it would try to persuade students to abstain from voting. Nonetheless, M. Sauvageot would not go so far as to call for a boycott of elections. He reminded his audience of the aims of the U N E F : student control, confrontation with the university, links with the working class, support of foreign student movements and the "struggle against imperialism ". The U N E F would concern itself with challenging the appointment of teachers and with examinations and would continue to resist the monopoly of teachers in these two matters. The provisional central committee of the faculty of sciences of Paris announced on 18 October that the academic session could not reopen until the Ministry of National Education had given firm assurances that adequate resources would be provided. The faculty was originally planned for 20,000 students but had an enrolment of 31,000 in the previous session and expected 40,000 in 1968-69. The dean of the faculty had written to the minister on 5 February, 4 March, 1 April, 18 June, 12 July, 18 July, 9 and 29 August. On 31 July, the committee wrote to the minister and again on 12 August calling his attention to the needs of the faculty. A t Toulouse, severe conflicts took place within the provisional paritary assembly of the faculty of sciences. Professor Beetschen, chairman of the assembly, resigned, the dean having ceased to regard the assembly as legitimate. The assistants were totally opposed to the dean while the professors were divided, most of them having separated themselves from the assembly. Professor Beetschen said he had tried to persuade the dean to associate student representatives and those of the non-teaching staff with the discussions o f university problems until the general elections arranged for November; his efforts had however failed. On 19 October, a meeting of professors and mattres de confdrences in the St. Charles faculty of sciences of the University of Marseilles was invaded by about 60 extreme leftists singing the Internationale. The meeting, which was discussing proposals concerning the organisation of provisional committees in various specialisations, was adjourned. On 23 October, the first series of examinations began at the Sorbonne in letters and human sciences, after having been postponed from earlier in the month. Each student was free to decide whether he would be examined orally or in writing or orally and in writing. Students did not sit on the examination juries. On 25 October, the Senate approved the loi d'orientation d'enseignement supdrieur by a vote of 260 to none, 18 communists abstaining. On 25 October, members of Occident attacked the editorial offices of the left-wing student paper Action and did great damage. In the evening of the same day, left-wing students attacked a caf6 frequented by members of

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Occident. On 26 October, left-wing students held a meeting in the courtyard of the Sorbonne and tried to launch a demonstration which was dispersed by the police without violence. On 28 October, Realit~s published the results of a poll among students (conducted from 12 to 23 September). Students were asked to classify themselves into any one of the three following groups: (1) those who wish not only to change the university but to transform society fundamentally-12 per cent.; (2) those who seek actively to reform the university, its programmes of study and its methods of teaching--54 per cent.; (3) those who wish above all to pass their examinations--31 per cent. They were also asked to rank three explanations of the disturbances of May and June: (1) anxiety about the possibilities of finding employment for which their studies qualify them--first, 56 per cent., second, 33 per cent., third, 8 per cent.; (2) rejection of the consumers' society--first, 7 per cent., second, 10 per cent., third, 80 per cent.; (3) the poor adaptation of the university (programmes, methods of teaching and material provision) to present-day needs--first, 35 per cent., second, 54 per cent., third, 8 per cent. The Ministry of the Interior announced that it was taking action against the activist members of Occident. On 28 October, the national secretariat of Occident denied any responsibility for the attack on the offices of Action. On 31 October, Occident was ordered dissolved by a cabinet decree. On 6 November, a general assembly of about 160 students of the faculty of sciences at Grenoble decided to occupy the faculty building. The occupation was intended to protest against the functioning of the paritary committee of the faculty, which it claimed was powerless. In response to the occupation, the dean locked the building; he also shut off the water, electricity and telephone of the physics building which had been seized by the occupiers. The Association gdndrale des dtudiants d e Grenoble (affiliated to the U N E F ) expressed its disapproval of the occupation and of the dean's response and demanded the reopening of classes. The dean denounced the occupation as the work of a minority and the Association corporative des dtudiants en sciences did the same. At a press conference of the SNES in Marseilles, M. Herszberg said that his organisation " w o u l d not treat the government's policy contemptuously. If we boycott all the structures which are offered to us, we will give a very good argument to Edgar Faure who is trying to separate the revolutionary minority from the reformists. It is in the concrete functioning of the new system that we will show that participation is only a trap which serves to protect bourgeois legality." At Grenoble on 7 November, the student members of the paritary committee convoked a meeting at which they decided on the indefinite continuation of the occupation of the building while avoiding the disruption of administration and teaching in the faculty. On 7 November, after an announcement that two professors of economics were taking up posts in Paris, 600 students of the faculty of law and economics of Nantes, in response to an appeal of the SNES and the U N E F , occupied the faculty in protest against the departure of the two professors. The leaders of the SNES and the U N E F said the strike was intended to criticise the "government's policy o f concentrating university activities and prestigious teaching bodies in Paris to the disadvantage of the provinces ". They also said that it was " a mode of selection based on wealth since only the richest students could take advantage of these prestigious institutions ". Shortly after midnight, 30 plain clothes police intervened and expelled the

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occupiers. The MUR and the Association gdndrale des dtudiants de Nantes dissociated themselves from the strike which, they claimed, was an effort by a minority to "exploit the legitimate discontent of the students for revolutionary purposes ". M. Pilisi, one of the two economics teachers who had accepted appointments in Paris, said that he had tried for several years to estabfish the teaching of economics on a respectable level under extremely difficult conditions; he did not wish to continue. He also said that although he had participated in the discussions in May and June, "fraternisation had its limits despite the efforts of some students ". On 8 November, the dean of the faculty of sciences of the University of Grenoble resigned after having been defeated at the meeting of the paritary committee on the previous day. He had presented a motion that the committee disavow those students who had contravened a previous majority decision and had organised the occupation of the physics building. He had also demanded the immediate withdrawal of the occupiers. The dean's resolution obtained only 21 votes; two members abstained and one voted against him. (The membership of the committee is 46.) At Grenoble, the rector refused to accept the resignation of the dean of the faculty of sciences. Meanwhile the occupation continued. On 8 November, nearly 500 students meeting in a general assembly decided by 326 votes to 70 with 80 abstentions to continue the strike while avoiding interference with teaching. The professors and magtres de confdrences in physics issued a statement in support of the dean and criticising "the entirely negative attitude of the student representatives ". Communist teachers and students of the faculty of sciences declared their opposition to agitation which put forward no significant demands and which disrupted teaching. The faculty of letters also was disturbed by agitation conducted to determine " t h e real powers of the paritary body, the provisional executive committee ". The dean, M. Veyret, said that it was difficult to perform his duties since the government had neither restored the old system nor legalised the committees formed in May. The faculties were to be dissolved by the application of the loi d'orientation but meanwhile they existed and had to be provided for in the 1969 budget. The paritary bodies of the faculty demanded full participation in the administration of the university. On 12 November, the antechamber and an administrative office of the faculty of letters of the Sorbonne were occupied for four hours by about 40 students, who sought clarification of a regulation concerning the equivalence of certificates and diplomas of the older system prevailing prior to the Fouchet reforms and that which followed them. The administrative offices of the Sorbonne had not been occupied during the May-June events. It was announced on 13 November by the prefect of Paris and the prefect of police that compensation t.o residents of the Latin Quarter for damage done during the demonstrations of May and June came thus far to more than four million francs. On 13 November, the students who had been occupying the physics building at the University of Grenoble discontinued their week-long occupation, following assurances by the rector that they could use university rooms at hours when no classes were being held in them, that half a day each week in each teaching unit would be devoted to discussions of problems in that unit and that they would be given the use of a mimeographing machine. The agitation continued in the faculty of letters. The general assembly of students of the Institut d'dtudes politiques of the same university passed a resolution by a vote of 197 to 130 to demand the appointment of new

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professors and the extension by three weeks of the registration period. They also demanded the suspension for a fortnight of lectures on methodology in the first and second stages. The Amicale des dtudiants en sciences politiques (affiliated to the U N E F ) attacked the resolution, charging that it did not represent the viewpoint of the 1,000 students o f the institute. The faculty of sciences at the University o f Lille announced the establishment of a two-year course to train personnel for higher posts in enterprises manufacturing scientific equipment. It would be open to candidates who held a university diploma in scientific subjects. The first year would be devoted to scientific studies, the second to metrology; the latter would include the carrying out of a major practical project. They would also be expected to study relevant aspects of the law and modern languages. Successful candidates would receive a diploma in technical-commercial engineering. A t Aix-en-Provence, on the initiative of the SNES and U N E F sections of the faculty of letters, assistants who had not passed the agrdgation went on strike on 14 November to protest against the delay in the improvement of their status. The strike was supported by teachers associated with the SNES. The "non-aggregated " assistants, who are mainly in the human sciences for which there is no agrdgation, are treated as temporary employees and receive 1,400 francs monthly. They sought a rise in their status to the level of that of assistants in the faculty of sciences, who are treated as regular staff members and receive 2,500 francs monthly. The Ministry of National Education had previously announced its intention of improving their salary but refused to treat them as regular staff members. (There are 270 " n o n - a g g r e g a t e d " assistants in the faculty of letters.)s A t Montpellier, on 15 November, a disturbance occurred in the faculty of letters when between 40 and 200 students connected with the action committee caused a disturbance while professors of the French department were holding a meeting to inform students about the programme of the first stage of their course. Some of the disturbers seized the microphone and shouted that the meeting was sabotaging the accomplishments of May. They then left the meeting place singing the Internationale and proceeded to the administrative building where, after roughing up a porter, they forced their way into the dean's office and demanded that he guarantee " p o l i t i c a l freedom and the fight to use university buildings ". A t Nanterre, the acting dean of the faculty of letters, M. Jean Beaujeu, in a statement addressed to students, condemned the recent actions of the action committee of the sociology students. H e said that on 8 November they had invaded a room usually used by extreme leftist groups in order to set up an office of information for new students. Ola 12 November, they tried to force the locked door of the room which was being used at the time; on 14 November they invaded an amphitheatre and defaced the walls and screen as well as setting fire to the door. Although they had been assigned another room, they insisted on occupying the amphitheatre, claiming that the d o o r of the assigned room was not open. The U N E F and the Union des grandes dcoles announced that they would not participate in the work of the national committee on student life under the chairmanship of M. Mallet, rector of the University of Amiens. The U N E F called on "residents, associations and administrators o f regional centres for university services not to authorise by their presence efforts to z A similar action had been undertaken by the assistants in psychology at Toulouse when the 1968-69 session opened.

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help the university services make a profit, impose an ideological conditioning through life in university cities, which aims to integrate the students into the logic of the capitalist system " On 16-17 November, the administrative committee of the UNEF met in Paris to discuss its policy vis-d-vis the loi d'orientation. It was unable to arrive at an agreed statement. One group, a minority consisting of adherents of the Communist Party, favoured participation; another group consisting of the UNEF leadership rejected participation but could not recommend a boycott and a third, predominating in the secretariat, attached to the now dissolved Fdddration des dtudiants rdvolutionnaires, opposed participation and favoured a boycott. In Paris, on 18 November, the Acad~rnie des sciences released a resolution which it had passed on 23 October regretting the campaign of denigration directed against teachers at all levels. It also deplored the tendency to hold professors and scholars responsible for the retrograde condition of the French universities. "Although the Academy supports certain reforms in the structure and administration of the universities, it does not approve of certain measures which subordinate the teachers and which express an unjustified distrust which is incompatible with the dignity of the profession." The resolution referred to the bitterness and discouragement of the academic profession. At Nantes, on 18 November, six professors and the dean of the faculty of letters, M. Paul Bois, resigned from the faculty council. The dean said that "the student members, elected under the auspices of the strike commit,tee, had too often delayed and even blocked useful decisions." The break came when the student members of the council resisted the implementation of a plan for reorganising the first year of the first stage which had already been approved by the students of the faculty. On 19 November, the new executive committee of the Fdddration des rdsidences universitaires, dominated by activists of the Alliance des jeunes pour le socialisme (deriving from the prohibited Fdddration des dtudiants rdvolutionnaires) announced a campaign to mobilise students against the new regulations governing university cities--which provide among other things freedom of visiting and committees of residents. The executive declared itself "against the new loi d'orientation, against the new regulations about internal arrangements in the residences, against participation in any committees responsible for applying the new regulations, against making the university services pay for themselves, against the conditions of admission and readmission." At Dijon, the new session reopened peacefully; housing questions engaged the students. Three hundred students at a meeting decided that students who had not been able to find rooms should install themselves in the lobbies of the various halls of residence; 50 of them slept there in sleeping bags. They demanded a ceiling on rents for furnished rooms and a supplementary payment by the regional centre for university services to make up the difference between the charges for lodgings and the rental charged for rooms in the university city. The Mouvement universitaire pour la rdforme announced that it would call a strike of unlimited duration if the faculty system were abolished. On 19 November, 500 students of university institutes of technology and students in technician training courses protested that their studies and examinations were subordinated to the needs of employers. They .said that M. Faure's reforms were only a "ra,tionalisation of the university" intended

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to adapt their education to the needs of employers and to assure the progress of capitalism. On 24 November, M. Antoine Gusel, an assistant in the faculty of law in Paris, and M. Marc Kravetz, a research assistant at the University of Paris at Nanterre, were arrested and charged with using force against a policeman. M. Gusel had been apprehended earlier in the day while putting up posters; while he was being led to the police car, M. Kravetz became embroiled in an altercation with the police. On the afternoon of ,the next day, two senior officials--one from the ministerial committee on armament and the other from the aircraft i n d u s t r y - went to Nanterre to serve as members of an examination committee on a mdmoire de rnattrise dealing with the geographical location of the aircraft industry in the Paris region. They were seized by a group of about 50 students who forced their way into the examination room. They knocked the candidate about and forced the examiners to leave the room; when the acting dean, M. Beaujeu, came on the scene they jostled him too and tried to drag him off to an amphitheatre so that " h e could explain himself to a general assembly ". When the dean broke away from them and went to inform the rector, the students took the two visitors to another room where they held them by force for two hours. A t 6.30 p.m. the students informed the dean that they would keep their "' p r i s o n e r s " until MM. Kravetz and Gusel were released. The students left the room where the hostages were being held as police approached the building. The Syndicat autonome du personnel enseignant des facuIt~s de lettres, meeting in Paris in the last week of November, announced that it would try faithfully to carry out the loi d'orientation. It expressed the hope that the government would try to avoid demagogy and manipulation for ulterior purposes in its implementation of the law. The syndieat claimed that it was hypocritical to refuse to institute a system of selection without at the same time instituting a national policy of vocational guidance, training and placement. On 25 November, it was announced by the faculty of letters and human sciences at Rennes that the opening of the 1968-69 session for first-year students would have to be postponed because of insufficient accommodation and other preparations. The dean said that '~ it is not a question of refusing to do our duty but of a gesture which is called for so that it can be understood that we have needs which must be met if we are to do our job ". In Paris, it was announced that the reopening for the new academic year in the faculty of law and economics was postponed from 2 December to 9 December. The faculty of letters and human sciences would also be late; the other disciplines would begin their sessions at different dates; it was hoped that all would begin before Christmas. The medical faculty was delayed in reopening by the " s e c t o r i s a t i o n " of the faculty into "university-hospital sectors ". (According to the loi d'orientation, the ministry was to establish after consultation a provisional list of the n e w " u n i t s for teaching and r e s e a r c h " by 31 December, 1968, following which there would be elections to representative bodies which would then develop the statutes ,governing the units and desig-nate delegates to the provisional constitutional assembly of the university.) On 29 November, the Journal O]ficieI announced the creation of 10 faculties of medicine in Paris. Each faculty wouM have 1,200 students in the first stage. The 10 individual faculties would follow a programme coordinated by the rector and the representatives of each faculty.

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A t the Sorbonne, 20 extremist students disrupted the hearing of the thesis of Professor Gilbert Gadoffre o~a " P a u l Claudel et 1'univers chinois " They also assailed Professor t~tiemble. They sang the Internationale and shouted: " I n 1971, the workers will be in power and the bourgeoisie will be in forced labour camps." The noise they caused prevented the candidate and the examiners from hearing each other and the examination was cut short. A t Nanterre, the Syndicat autonome du personnel enseignant des facultds des lettres (Nanterre section) demanded that the dean suspend all lectures, seminars and practical classes until minimum conditio~as of security of persons and buildings were assured. On a wireless programme, M. Edgar Faure failed to persuade M. Herszberg of the SNES to condemn the recent acts of violence of the students of Nanterre. M. Herszberg said: " I n certain circumstances, it is necessary to use violence to bring about a revolution." M. Faure said that if there was evidence that any teacher had been in any way responsible for the acts of violence, he would be suspended at once and disciplinary proceedings would be instituted against him. At Lyons, the paritary assembly of the department of economics o f the faculty of law informed the dean that there were not enough teachers of their subject. In 1967-68, there had been nine teachers for 800 students; in the present session there were only four for 1,500 students. In the Institut d'dtudes politiques at Lyons, there was no full professor permanently attached to the institute, although there were 800 students. On 2 December, the U N E F national executive announced that beginning on 9 December it would conduct a campaign to explain " t h e role of the university in the development of c a p i t a l i s m " and to " o p p o s e the control over training and research exercised by employers ". It would seek to reopen fundamental discussions on the role of the university by meetings, demonstrations and strikes. M. Sauvageot said that the economic difficulties of France would enable the student movement " t o break out of the isolation with which it is threatened ". M. G t r a r d Antoine, rector of the University of Orleans-Tours, and special consultant on higher education to the Ministry of National Education, addressed a letter to M. Georges Lapassade, senior assistant in sociology at the faculty of letters of Tours, ordering him to attend to his duties at Tours and t o be less assiduous in his attention to affairs at the faculty of letters and human sciences at Nanterre. M. Lapassade had been continuously active in student agitation and the " l e f t w a r d t u r n " of the U N E F in 1963 was attributed to his influence. H e formerly taught in the faculty of letters in Tunis but was expelled from Tunisia because of his role in student agitation. The provisional paritary assembly of the faculty of law and economics of the University of Paris took place on 2 December; 74 out of 113 professors attended and 15 absented themselves because they thought the assembly was illegal, too political o r unrepresentative. The student spokesman .of the organisation which succeeded the strike committee and which held 55 per cent. of the student seats in the assembly walked out, after denouncing the assembly as nothing more than an effort to make the students support the lot d'orientation without giving them the political and administrative powers they had sought to acquire by the actions of May and June. A t Perpignan on 2 December, about 200 students invaded a meeting called by the rector of Montpeilier and attended by t h e deans of the faculties of letters and sciences of that university to discuss the future development of the universities. The invasion took place after the rector agreed to allow three

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students to attend the meeting; this was thought insufficient by the demonstrators, who had gathered outside the meeting room. As a result of the intrusion, the meeting was adjourned. Seventy members of the Nanterre section of the SNES discussed on 3 December the attitude to be taken towards the recent acts of violence in the course of which M. Beaujeu was assaulted. A b o u t half of those present refused to censure the students or to approve of the sanctions which had been announced by public authorities. " T h e secretariat has decided to reject the introduction of moral considerations in dealing with the incidents at Nanterre. Even if in our eyes the method is not a good one, we refuse to condemn those who acted because they felt themselves in an atmosphere of violence. Violence comes not only from those who throw tomatoes but from the administration which invites it." The moderate tendency proposed: " V i o l e n c e against those persons who do not themselves fulfil physically violent repressive functions is a political error; it is contrary to revolutionary violence, since it is in all points identical in form with repressive violence." The latter declaration received 25 votes while 26 were cast for the more radical motion. M. Lapassade, who is not a member of the Nanterre staff, voted; after some commotion his vote was annulled. At Grenoble and in Clermont-Ferrand, students went on strike and otherwise protested against the late payment of bursaries; the lateness was in part a result of the disorganisation attendant on the disorders of M a y and June, the postponement of the final date of application and the lateness of examination results. On 4 December, the U N E F leadership met with the leaders of the Confdddration gdndrale du travail (CGT); on 5 December they met with the leaders of the Con[dddration franfaise d~mocratique du travail (CFDT) to discuss possibilities of collaboration. In the elections for student representatives o n the provisional central paritary committee of the faculty of sciences in Paris on 5 December, only 10 per cent. of the efigible students voted. The elections were intended to replace the non-communist extreme left-wing students who had resigned from the committee on 7 November. Six members of the administrative committee of the SNES dissociated themselves from the statement of M. Herszberg in the wireless programme in which he had refused to condemn the violence of the Nanterre students. A t Lille on 6 December, about 500 students were arrested and detained overnight when they attempted to hold their traditional St. Nicholas procession. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of the students and he is traditionally honoured by an Indian-file procession through the centre of the town. Because of apprehension of Violence the procession was forbidden by the prefect and a guard of 900 gendarmes, 800 officers of the CRS and 300 police agents took up positions in the centre of Lille. When, despite this, the students assembled, the police intervened and removed about 500. (On 9 December, the authorities were severely and unanimously censured for this action by the Conseil gdn~ral du nord which included Gaullists, independents, socialists and communists.) On 7 December, about 600 students of the University of Grenoble who were going to hold a demonstration went instead in small groups to distribute tracts at the gates of factories. The tracts, which were issued in the name of the U N E F and the Association gdn~rale des dtudiants de Grenoble, declared that students striking against the reduction o f their bursaries were in solidarity with the workers who were threatened by the government's austerity policy. A delegation of F N E F leaders--national and from G r e n o b l e - - w e r e received

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at the Ministry of National Education on 8 December when they demanded an increase in the size of bursaries, and the maintenance of the previous proportion o f recipients of bursaries despite the increased enrolment. They were given no assurances. A t Nantes, on 7 December, the first-year students of the faculty of letters went on strike to protest against the insufficient number of hours of teaching they were being offered, in consequence of the shortage of teachers. A t Lyons, the paritary executive committee and paritary committee on reorganisafion met with the deans of the faculties of sciences and letters to discuss the shortage of teaching staff. F r o m 1958 to 1968, students increased from 2,538 to 9,200, while the numbers o f teachers and administrators remained the same and the buildings had become inadequate. Unless appropriations were made to overcome these shortages o f staff and space, the committees thought it would be extremely difficult to carry on with the new academic session. On 9 December, 200 students invaded the offices of the rector o f the University of Grenoble to demand a 14 per cent. increase in the amount of their bursafies, 1,000 additional bursaries, the provision o f bursaries for students in law and in paramedical subjects, etc. The rector was willing to discuss their demands with the invaders in an amphitheatre or with their leaders in his office. They refused and insisted that he telephone the Ministry of National Education in their presence. H e was unwilling to do this and ordered them to leave his offices. When they disregarded his order, he called the police, who arrested 124 students and then released them early the next morning. A t Nantes, the general assembly of the students of the faculty of letters voted for a strike and the occupation of the building. Of 1,000 students present, 602 voted for and 82 against. The shortage of teaching personnel was the issue. The occupation was suspended at night and renewed in the morning. A t Grenoble, on 11 December, a majority of the students in the general assembly of the faculty of letters voted to call off their week-long strike because "ill-supported from the beginning, it has become isolated through the decision of the students in the faculty of sciences to call off their strike ". A t Montpellier, about 150 students demonstrated, distributed leaflets and then occupied a committee room of the rector's offices on 11 December to protest against " t h e inadequacy of the scale of student bursaries ". They then departed after leaving with the rector a declaration demanding that the Ministry of National Education release the funds needed to raise the bursaries. (The Ministry of National Education had budgeted a supplementary sum of 40 million francs to increase bursaries by 171 francs annually beginning 1 October, 1968, in order to meet the increase in charges and the cost of meals in university cities and to provide for the increased numbers of students.) On 12 December, Professor Andr6 Rondeau, geographer in the faculty of letters at Nanterre and secretary of the local branch of the Syndicat autonome du personnel enseignant des Jacultds des lettres declared: " I n fact the situation [in Nanterre] has become what it was before the more serious events of M a y : demonstrations, posters, grafitti and disorders o f all kinds . . . make life difficult and often unbearable. It requires great self-restraint to work under such circumstances and to believe that the loi d'orientation can be implemented with persons who have announced that they will resist it and who at present carry on their revolutionary tactics with impunity." On 12 December, about 2,500 students and teachers at Nanterre went on strike to demand the release of Mlle. R6gine Marfinez, a Nanterre student who had been arrested in connection with plastic bomb attacks on a bank in

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the Rue de Rome in Paris on 9 December. (At the same time, the police had arrested Mlle. A n d r t e Destouet, a student of the University of Toulouse.) The strikers also demanded the withdrawal from court of the charges which the rector had lodged against eight students who were involved in an earlier violent action. The eight students had refused to answer a summons to appear in court. Commandos rushed from class to class trying to break them up, abusing teachers who tried to go on teaching. A t a meeting on 13 December, the paritary committee on courses of study of the Sorbonne (commission d'~tudes) recommended that the system of " s t u d y u n i t s " (three hours weekly), work in each of which was to be evaluated by continuous assessment, should replace the present system of terminal examinations; each student would choose 10 study units from a larger list. In his first year, four of the 10 units would be in a special subject, the other six being in other disciplines. In the second year, the student would specialise further or would shift to another subject. The committee also recommended that the faculty of letters, which at present comprises 40,000 students, should be split into several multi-disciplinary universities each of which would provide teaching at all three stages (cycles). A t Nantes, the strike and occupation in the faculty of letters continued for the fifth day. Teachers also went on strike for 24 hours " t o obtain the means necessary to do their jobs in a normal and effective way ". They demanded the provision of enough senior assistants to offer 70 more hours of teaching. On 13 December, the police intervened in the faculty of law where a meeting of sympathy w i t h the striking students of the faculty of letters had been held in the morning; the U N E F , which had called the meeting, would not give up the amphitheatre, in which a class was to be held in the afternoon. After some discussion with the dean, the students left and violence was avoided. In Clermont-Ferrand, students of the t2cole nationale des imptts went on strike on 13 December in support of demands for increased payments to students, greater autonomy for the school and the removal of regulations governing its hall o f residence. Pickets established by the strikers were dispersed by the police and then re-formed; in their second intervention, the police used tear gas bombs to clear the approach and lobby of the school. In the evening, a meeting was held in the faculty of letters, 1,200 persons attending. The Association g~n~rale des dtudiants clermontois (affiliated to the U N E F ) decided to call a three-day strike, beginning on 14 December. On 14 December, the strike in the faculty of letters was complete; it was less effective in the faculty of sciences. In other faculties it was completely ineffective and it was likewise a failure in the l~coIe nationale des imp~ts where the agitation began. A t Nanterre, despite the strike call, classes were held more or less without interference on 14 December. The eight students summoned by the police received a second summons. Many students expressed hostility to the strike and the revolutionary agitators felt themselves hard pressed in the faculties of history and languages to explain their " p o l i t i c a l strike ". On 14 December, the Journal Officiel announced that rectors would be within their powers if they exercised sanctions on " students who were guilty of actions or provocations infringing on freedom or public order within the university precinct ". These powers were granted provisionally until the councils provided by the loi d'orientation were established. The decree permitted appeals from the rector's decision to the Conseil supdrieur de rdducation nationale, which would have to render its decision within four

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months. The rector was granted the power to forbid registration and presentation for examinations for two years in a particular faculty or institute, in the university o r anywhere in France, o r expulsion for five years. Guards were posted at the Sorbonne following the disruption .on 14 December of a dissertation hearing. Questions by Professors R a y m o n d A r o n and Jean Stoetzel were particularly interfered with. A b o u t 100 students were involved in the disruption which caused the examination to be adjourned; when the examiners left the room, the disrupting students also left but returned when the examination began and forced the dean, M. Las Vergnas, to postpone it to a later date. A t Nanterre on 16 December the acting dean, M. Beaujeu, in accordance with M. Faure's instructions that outsiders should not be permitted to cause agitation in the universities, empowered porters at the entrance to the faculty to check the credentials of those seeking to enter. Police were posted nearby. Inside the faculty of letters, extremist students went from amphitheatre to amphitheatre to call out students to protest against " p o l i c e repression ". They were generally unsuccessful. On 16 December, M. Faure issued a statement which said that although in general the 1968-69 session had reopened peacefully there had been a number of disruptions which " c o u l d not be tolerated ". " T h e university authorities will take the necessary measures to deal with abnormal situations where such arise. They will do so with absolute respect for academic freedom and will scrupulously protect all legitimate interests." One of the measures to be taken would see to it that no outsiders participate in these disturbances; it might therefore be necessary to restrict entry to university buildings to properly registered students. It might also be necessary to call on the help of public authority to protect and guarantee access to university buildings to persons having legitimate business there. Other measures would be taken if necessary. In Strasbourg, 200 students of the faculty of letters went on a strike of unlimited duration on 16 December in order to obtain the release of three students arrested on 14 December. The next day, the strike, having been in-observed, was called off and replaced by a programme of discussion on university problems. A t Toulouse, police intervened to expel 200 students who had occupied the rectorial building in protest against the dismissal of a member of the cleaning staff. On 17 December, police entered the building of the law faculty; 400 students had gathered there for a film on the May-June events which had been prohibited by the dean. On 17 December, the strike continued in the faculty of letters. Following a disturbance in the faculty of letters, police took into custody about 60 students. The F N E F section in Toulouse " d e n o u n c e d the political agitation of extreme leftist groups who were trying to evoke the solidarity of all the students against police repression ". It called on students to maintain order themselves. In the faculty o.f sciences, the strike called by the teachers' unions brought forth little response. Following unsuccessful negotiations between the dean and a provisional tripartite general assembly, it was decided by the latter to occupy the administrative building ,of the faculty. The occupiers withdrew when the police arrived, but they began the occupation again shortly thereafter. The number of occupiers increased from 150 to 700. A meeting called at the Sorbonne to protest against " p o l i c e repression " against Sorbonne and Nanterre students was prevented by the refusal of the police to allow access to the faculty of letters. A b o u t 300 to 400 students assembled on the Boulevard St. Michel and shouted slogans denouncing the

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police. After about 20 minutes, the police dispersed them. The SNES declared that the use of the police in Nanterre, at the Sorbonne and in the provinces was " a n attempt by the authorities to conceal the failure of the effort to apply the loi d'orientation ". On the afternoon of 17 December, no classes were held in the faculty of letters at Nanterre; " c o m m a n d o s " raided classes and broke them up and in some cases teachers said they would not teach "under police surveillance ". (Police continued to examine students' credentials before allowing them to enter the faculty.) An attempt on the part of students of the faculty of letters to bring out on strike the students of the faculty of law, where classes were going on as usual, was frustrated by the hostility of about 200 of the latter, who massed in front of their building. All student organisations, moderate as weU as extremist, condemned the presence of the police and demanded their withdrawal. The administrative staff did likewise. In Nantes on 17 December, the strike in the faculty of letters continued, likewise in Toulouse where the strike which began in the faculty of sciences spread to the faculties of letters and law. In Toulouse, police entered the faculties of letters and law to remove occupying students. The deans of the two faculties protested that they had not requested the police intervention. In Lyons, the dean closed the faculty of medicine for one evening because of conflicts between two groups of students about the use of an office; in the faculty of letters, an examination of a thesis on a factory in the region was prevented from proceeding when students protested against the presence of a businessman in the examiners' jury. In Strasbourg, the strike in the faculty o.f letters came to an end. The strike continued at Nanterre, " c o m m a n d o s " and extremists preventing classes from proceeding in the faculty of letters. On 18 December, M. Faure announced that, in accordance with the request of the Nanterre teachers and students who wanted to get on with their work, he was ordering the withdrawal of the police who had been stationed around the faculty of letters and human sciences. If disturbances persisted and the required seven months of teaching could not be provided, the academic session in those faculties which failed to offer the required minimum of teaching was to be cancelled and could not be credited towards diplomas or degrees. He also announced that the grants and deferments of military service of striking students would be suspended as from 23 December. Mlle. Martinez was discharged by the investigating magistrate after being held in custody for nine days. Mlle. Destouet was remanded for trial and her friend, Ells Georgev, a student, was taken into custody for his connection with the bombing incident. The teachers' strike called by the SINES in the Nanterre faculty of letters was suspended. Fourteen young persons were found guilty of the bombing of police stations in Bordeaux in June and July 1968; two of them were students. At Nantes on 18 December, the general assembly of students in the faculty of letters decided to call off the strike which had been going on since 9 December. In the faculty of sciences, the UNEF-affiliated association of science students was forbidden by the dean to hold a meeting of its general assembly in the amphitheatre of the faculty, because the students had not applied for the use of the amphitheatre in the proper way and because the proposed electoral procedure which would be used for elections of a new executive committee for the association was illegal, according to university statutes. Police in plain clothes barred entry to the amphitheatre. In Toulouse, members of the tripartite provisional assembly reoccupied the administration building but departed when the security police arrived later in the evening.

FRANCE--EXAMINATIONS, REFORMS AND IRRECONCILABLES

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The effort by the U N E F to hold a " d a y of a c t i o n " on 18 December failed. M. Sauvageot was very unsympathetically received at a meeting of 200 students in the lnstitut d'~tudes politiques in Paris; he left to the accompaniment of shouts of " S a u v a g e o t to Peking ". A t a meeting in the faculty of sciences in Paris of about 500 students, teachers and research workers, no agreement was reached on action to be taken. The chairman of the executive committee of the lnstitut d'angIais o f the Sorbonne said that the personnel and resources of the institute could supply only 1,400 of the 1,900 hours of teaching required for students in their first two years. The 20 teachers in the institute had four rooms between them; the 120 assistants and senior assistants had only one common work room. If their demand for more adequate provision were not heeded by 10 January, 1969, the executive committee would resign. On 19 December, at Nanterre, only one carful of policemen remained at the entrance to the campus. Classes took place normally and the SNES section announced that in consequence of the removal of the police and the freeing of Mile Martinez they would take up their duties once more. Nonetheless, slogans denouncing the cancellation o f the deferments of military service were inscribed on the walls; they included: " F o r every cancelled deferment, a faculty occupied and a minister bombed." A t Nantes, in the faculty of sciences, 300 students attended a meeting to protest against the refusal of the dean to permit a meeting of the Association corporative on the grounds that only those possessing membership in the U N E F were allowed to vote. I n the faculty of sciences, the strike ended and classes were resumed. In Poitiers the plenary assembly of the faculty of letters could not meet because of violence by extremist students at the entrance to the amphitheatre. In Toulouse, extremist teachers and students again occupied the administration building for an hour; they decided on a hunger strike until 21 December. The hunger strike was intended to support demands for new teaching appointments, especially in mathematics, and for the immediate organisation of elections to a new provisional assembly on the platform of the first provisional tripartite assembly; the strikers protested against the entry of police into the faculty and demanded the resignation of the dean and his assessors. Violence occurred in the faculty of law where a lecture was disrupted; some students threw the spokesman of the action committee, who had interrupted the lecture, out of the lecture hall. Three students were injured in the fighting; many students decided that they would use force if necessary to prevent the disruption of the faculty by the action committee. It was announced on 19 December that the French government had refused to permit Daniel Cohn-Bendit to enter France during the Christmas holidays.

G E R M A N F E D E R A L REPUBLIC HALTING MOVEMENTS TOWARDS UNIVERSITY REFORM On 17 September, H e r r SchiJtte, Minister of Culture of the state of Hesse, presented two draft proposals for the new higher educational laws. They were designed t o bring all universities and professional, technical and art colleges in the state into a single system. The draft for the new university law to be put before the state parliament in October provided for the following: (1) a university president, to be appointed by the state government in agreement with the council of the university, for a term of eight years with a possibility of reappointment. The president, who would not have to be a professor, would have considerable executive powers in budgetary