Quand Mai 68 changea la France

"Quand Mai 68 changea la France" has been shared to the blog from the French reading practice section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills.


French listening and
reading practice: C1*

May 1968 was a turning point in French history. On this 50th anniversary, learn how students and workers revolutionalized France. After watching the video, scroll down for the transcript in our bilingual reader, where you can click any French phrase for the English translation and related grammar lessons.

Click any word in the text to see its translation and related grammar lessons.

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Author info

Aurélie Drouard

Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since.  She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!

Laura K Lawless

Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.

Comments: 2

Merci! C'est la première fois que je vois l'utilisation du passé simple dans on oeuvre autre qu'une conte de fée! Je pensais que le passé simple, c'était pour écrire la fiction!

Bonjour Annette !

Indeed, Le Passé Simple is used in "written" French as a more elegant alternative to Le Passé Composé, and also for any form of story telling, whether fiction or non-fiction, to give it a literary dimension :)

Bonne journée !