As usual, the rest of the story is left out. On May 31, 1968 there were huge counter demonstrations in Paris by pro-Gaullists, and on June 30 after the second round of voting for Parliament, the pro-Gaullist, pro law and order coalition controlled 73% of the seats in the legislature. The communists and socialists were the big losers. De Gaulle eventually got the heave-ho, only to be replaced by other ambitious men.

At the same time as this, the Prague Spring was going on in Czechoslovakia to return basic rights to its citizens, but the USSR simply crushed it with thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Pact troops. The Politboro of the Soviet Union used to stand on top of Lenin's tomb to watch those tanks and the troops march by every May Day.