From 1936 to today: social gains, tragedies and recent laws

In spring 1936 a wave of strikes and occupations accompanies the Popular Front victory. The Matignon agreements (7 June) and several laws of June 1936 result: staff delegates, two weeks of paid leave, the forty-hour week. It is one of the clearest examples of a collective mobilisation leading to rights.

On 17 October 1961 a demonstration of Algerians in Paris, organised against a discriminatory curfew, is harshly repressed; its human toll was long concealed and is still the subject of historians’ work.

On 8 February 1962 a demonstration against the OAS and the Algerian war, banned by the Paris police prefect, is dispersed with violence: nine people die, eight of them at the Charonne metro station. Their funeral draws an immense crowd. The event remains a reference in the memory of public order policing.

In May 1968, student demonstrations trigger a massive social movement and a general strike. The Grenelle agreements (late May) provide for a sharp rise in the minimum wage and in wages, and widen union rights within companies.

The law of 8 June 1970, known as the “anti-rioters” law, creates criminal liability for participants in demonstrations where violence occurs; it is repealed in 1981.

In 1983 the March for Equality and Against Racism leaves Marseille on 15 October and reaches Paris on 3 December before a crowd of several tens of thousands. It contributes to the creation, in 1984, of the ten-year residence permit.

In its decision of 18 January 1995, the Constitutional Council mentions the “right to the collective expression of ideas and opinions”. The freedom to demonstrate is no longer a mere administrative tolerance: it finds a constitutional anchor.

The law of 10 April 2019 creates the offence of concealing one’s face at a demonstration and strengthens checks. The Constitutional Council, however, strikes down the individual administrative ban on demonstrating. A decree of the same year makes taking part in a banned demonstration a petty offence.

These texts show that the debate is still alive: where to draw the line between public order and freedom? It is a question each generation reformulates.