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.

Chapter 6 describes the crisis of representative politics in the mid- to late 1960s, at the national level, the level of youth organisation, and within the university. This crisis prompted a turntowards the occupation as a political tactic, the general assembly over representative organisations, and a preference for forms of direct democracy. The protest movements demanded autonomy, although they were not always clear how this would operate. However, forms of direct democracy such as the occupation had a short life-span and generated criticism for demagogy and its domination by student leaders. I argue that the protest movements found it difficult to reconcile their anti-hierarchical drive and the intense politicisation that led towards formation of a new political party.