The Study of French Political Socialization: Toward the Revocation of Paradox

“Whereas in post-war Britain youth has often channelled its energies into violent self-expression, destructive or creative, in France the dominant impression left by all the varying tendencies is of a kind of docile listiessness.” A competent British commentator on French politics and society had the misfortune of appearing in print with this assertion about French youth in June of 1968—that is, at precisely the time when many members of France's younger generation were participating in that violent form of self-expression that has come to be called “the Events.”