Chapter 10 - ‘An Asylum for Delinquents’

Summary

Chapter 10 describes the development of student protest at the university of Nanterre. The chapter demonstrates how the politics of space, in particular the university residences, provided the basis of conflict between the administration and the protest movement. The university administration perceived the struggle as a problem of order, while the protest movement increasingly understood it through a language of autonomy and democracy. Police intervention was the most important mobilising factor, and Vietnam provided the theme through which the movement escalated. The chapter traces the creation of the vacuum of authority at Nanterre through a dynamic of provocation and repression, culminating in the birth of the 22 March Movement in the occupation of the administrative tower at Nanterre.