The preceding chapters have shed light on various socialising effects brought about by participation in May ‘68. Figure 10 below provides a synthesis of the diversity of responses mobilised in the months (or years) that followed the events, in the face of the twin requirements to remain faithful to past commitments whilst achieving social reintegration. Yet it is not enough to simply list these different forms of activist reconversion to construct a sociology of post-’68er political trajectories. Indeed, we have seen that the quest for political alternatives, and for ways to bring one's environment (particularly professionally) into line with one's political aspirations, are dependent on the resources an individual is able to mobilise, as well as on age, social status in ‘68 and on forms of participation. It is therefore time to connect the different results concerning biographical phases that occurred prior to, during or after the events of May-June ‘68.

To do so, this chapter proposes a synthesis of different results from the study, centred on the question of the formation of political generations. The subjective aspect of generational belonging (the generation for itself) and the question of the gender of political generations will be covered in the first section. We will then move on to constructing a limited number of collective trajectories, to account for the variations in biographical possibilities among ‘68ers. We will also ultimately invalidate the hypothesis according to which May ‘68 produced only one (or two) “generation ‘68(s),” and show that there are instead a dozen “micro-units of generation ‘68” that share a common pool of experiences (prior, during and after the events of May ‘68), which will be developed here.

Social conditions for the identification with “generation ‘68”

Up until this point we have managed to observe a certain number of effects (political, professional and personal) of the events of May-June ‘68 on the trajectories of the participants. We have also noted the persistence of distinct generational groups nearly forty years later. For Karl Mannheim, these are the results of the persistent imprints of a shared foundational event, but only become genuine “generation units” with the subjective dimension of generational consciousness (a generation for itself). It is therefore important to understand this feeling of generational belonging.