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Smoldering Hostility. The seeds of the student revolt have long existed in France's archaic system of higher education. Overcrowded to a point that stifles learning, lamentably short of professors, and managed by a mammoth but mediocre bureaucracy that resists change. French universities annually flunk some 20% of their 550,000 students while another 50% give up and quit. Resentment against the system erupted in the rioting.
Astonishingly, no lives were lost, but before the week's carnage ended, 1,158 combatants were hurt (596 of them police) and 1,081 arrested. In support of the rioters, Communist, Socialist, Christian Socialist and teachers' labor unions ordered an illegal 24-hour general strike, a move that could leave France without railroads, buses, subways, electricity, schools and other public services.