ABSTRACT
In May 1968 France experienced a totally unexpected social upheaval. Students rioted, factories were occupied, workers went on general strike. De Gaulle’s regime seemed on the point of collapse. Yet within a month it was all over. The Gaullists were confirmed in power with a huge parliamentary majority, and the economy soon recovered. In Italy events went very differently. There, too, workers joined a huge protest movement of strikes and occupations, culminating in the ‘Hot Autumn’ of 1969. But the struggle continued for years. Student riots became an everyday occurrence scarcely noticed by the media. Industrial militancy also became routine. The economy staggered from recession to stagflation. Protest spread to the schools, to the welfare services, to the police and army, to all the political parties, to the Church, even to the family. Most startling of all was the outbreak of urban terrorism in 1969. Italy had been fairly free of political violence for two decades, except in Sicily and the South Tyrol; but in the next few years she reverted to her earlier traditions. Bombings and assassinations became a normal part of the Italian drama. The crisis obviously had deep social and cultural causes, absent elsewhere – the legacy of rapid industrial growth, of migration into the cities, of inadequate schools and public services, of ‘secularization’ and of excessive expectations. These issues could not easily be tackled by the existing political system, constructed as it was for weak government and constant compromises.
