Call for papers

1968: social movements challenging European integration

Conference – 30th November 2018 – Maison de la Recherche (Paris)

“Our isolated countries were henceforth vulnerable to the streams of violence that were sweeping the world and none could protect itself all alone.” In his Memories published in 1976 Jean Monnet stressed the necessity for the European countries to face together the challenge of the protest wave of the 1960s. The student and worker movements, as well as the politicization wave among young people, most affected the countries of the European Community on three main epicentres – the German Federal Republic, France and Italy – and at the same moment Belgium, slightly earlier the Netherlands and later Luxemburg. The Community of the Six at the commencement of its building was one of the hearts of this transnational protest movement.
The coincidence of May 68 and of the completion of the Common European Market on the 1st July 1968 has been very seldom acknowledged by scholars. Most of the interpretations of the events emphasize the political and social frameworks on national level to the detriment of the economic context on European level. However economic policy and European choices did not remain without consequences on the political and social claims of the 1960s. Similarly, after the events, the projects of relaunching the European integration in 1969-1973 were partly based on the necessity to build a Europe of solidarity. The idea of a social Europe developed in the 1970s as a response to the movements of 1968. Finally, in the long-term, some pro-European political movements (the Greens) were created by former activists of the student revolts.

This conference aims to analyse the links between the social protest of the 1960s and the European Integration project. This relation will be tackled through the European causes and consequences of the movements for the EEC. Thus, the conference will seek to contextualize the event. Beyond the reference to the Trente Glorieuses it will stress the main evolutions of European politics in the 1960s-1970s and the economic and social mutations inferred. From the perspective of the European integration history, it will try to determine how a global event affects a transnational construction process.
The levels of study can be national, transnational or European to tackle the different kinds of actors. The chronology will be set deliberately broad on the framework of the long Sixties and can also include the evolutions of the European political cultures in the following decades. If the actors of the protest (students, workers) will be of course taken into account, the national and European decision-makers will be of particular interest as well as the other social actors (trade-unions, employers-unions) and all the direct and indirect influences on the evolution of the European project.

The three following dimensions could serve as a starting point to structure the discussions but are only non-exhaustive suggestions.

1) A first dimension could focus on the critic of the European choice or of the European politics by the protest movements. The growing concurrence between the European economies in the framework of the Common Market and its consequences on wages and employment will be considered with a particular attention. Social movements of the early 1960s – in the Netherlands, Italy and France – set light upon the worker’s claims in the face of the European imperatives. The critic of the European integration during the events and immediately after, especially with an anti-capitalist orientation, will be of course an essential aspect of this focus. The emergence of political streams critical to the European project will be highlighted.

2) A second dimension could focus on the different European perspectives on the events. Many European leaders saw in fact a certain coherence within the patchwork of the protest. Some of them even perceived a challenge or a danger to the future of European integration. Beyond the idea of an organized Marxist subversion, the extent of the movements led to multiple interpretations. The diversity of the approaches and disagreements on the diagnosis and remedies to the 68’ crises created difficulties for the continuation of the European project in the 1970s. This aspect will focus on the point of view of national and European decision-makers and on their will to respond to the protest by relaunching und reforming the EEC. Debates between political actors and within transnational organizations or European political cultures (socialism, social-democracy, Christian-democracy, communism, conservatism, ecology…) may also be of particular interest.

3) A third dimension could focus on the political responses of the European community (EEC) to the protest. European projects were created after 1968 to find solutions to the diversity of the social, economic, political or environmental claims of the movements. A special consideration will be given to the European relaunch of 1969 in economic and monetary matters and to the projects of a social Europe designed in the 1970s. The questions of a transnational European solidarity and of improving quality of live with environmental politics can also be considered as answers to the claims of the 1960s. This politics were often suggested before 1968. They found in the events a favourable but not lasting background. This will set light upon the “social momentum” for the European Community that ends in the second half of the 1970s.

Proposals of all humanities and social sciences will be submitted in French or in English (400 words) with a CV to the following address:
mathieu.dubois@uco.fr
The submission deadline is set on the 1st September 2018.

The conference will take place on the 30 November 2018 at the Maison de la Recherche in Paris. Hotel and economy travelling class expenses will be reimbursed. The papers could be published in 2019 depending on the proposals received.