Montmartre's cabarets had long been hotbeds of artistic revolt, but for the first time in the '60s mainstream French "variété" stars also began raising their voices in protest. In a hardhitting version of Les Temps difficiles, Léo Ferré railed against the interminable reign of long-serving French president Charles De Gaulle and, on his Inventaire 66, Michel Delpech ended each verse with a political slogan: "Et toujours le même président!" ("And still the same president!") Meanwhile, Ferré, Béart, Brassens and Tachan also recorded protest songs denouncing the evils of consumer society and criticising the monopoly of the ORTF (the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) and the problems of censorship.

Yet the overriding issue that came up in protest songs time and time again was a fervent anti-war cry. On Inch’Allah, Salvatore Adamo evoked the ongoing conflict in the Middle East while other singers spoke out against France's military intervention in Algeria. At a collective concert entitled Cent artistes pour le Vietnam (100 Artists for Vietnam), organised at the Palais de Chaillot, in Paris, on 28 June 1967, a host of major French music stars - including Georges Moustaki, Mouloudji, Francis Lemarque, Maurice Fanon and Barbara - took to the stage in protest against the war in Vietnam. France's acquisition of the atom bomb sparked a similar wave of protest, singers such as Claude Nougaro and Antoine making elliptical references to the bomb (on, respectively, Il y avait une ville and Juste quelques flocons qui tombent), while some of their peers were more explicit in their protests (Léo Ferré on Y’en a marre and Colette Magny on Bura Bura).

However, historian Serge Dillaz emphasizes the fact that "Apart from a few noteworthy exceptions, singers were generally content to 'purr along' in a protest that was politically orchestrated by a government convinced that it was infallible." The strongest force of opposition at the time was to be found on a social level with artists shaking up the nation's mores and voicing their sexual desire. On L’amour avec toi  Michel Polnareff openly talked about sex and, in 1967, Marie-José Casanova declared "Non, vraiment, je n’ai pas le temps/ Que vous me fassiez votre cour… / Faîtes-moi, faîtes-moi l’amour." (No, really, I don't have time for you to court me … Just make love to me instead!) In 1966, on his Elucubrations visionnaires, the French beatnik Antoine had already suggested making the contraceptive pill available over the counter in French supermarkets! Meanwhile, Joe Dassin rocked the boat on La bande à Bonnot, making a fortuitous reference to a famous French anarchist cell, Eddy Mitchell waged rock'n'roll war with his group, Les Chaussettes Noires, and ultra-cool French dandy Jacques Dutronc staged his own stylistic revolution.

Across the Atlantic, a tidal wave of new sounds such as pop, rock and folk unfurled on the U.S. music scene spearheaded by the likes of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Joan Baez. Meanwhile, in France, the traditional formats of 'chanson' were blown apart by Evariste (Connais-tu l’animal qui inventa le calcul intégral?), Colette Magny and the revolutionary duo Jacques Higelin and Brigitte Fontaine who played their first concerts at La Vieille Grille. Other French stars such as Salvador, Béart and Mouloudji began producing their own records and, in 1966, Pierre Barouh made music history, setting up France's first independent record label, Saravah.

A glorious spring had been predicted for May 68. And when revolution suddenly broke out on the streets loudspeakers were playing the soundtrack of a decade that had, up to this point, been completely innocent and non-turbulent, broadcasting songs such as Juliette Gréco's Déshabillez-moi, Françoise Hardy's Comment te dire adieu?, Georgette Plana's Riquita, jolie fleur de Java, Serge Lama's D’aventures en aventures and Julien Clerc's La Cavalerie. "On 9th May 1968, there we all were trotting off to the 'lycée' in our school ties when everything suddenly exploded," remembers Patrick Winzelle, a journalist who specialises in French chanson. The problem, it appears, was that the revolution happened so fast singers and musicians scarcely had time to react. 

Young revolutionaries on the barricades were forced to improvise, setting their slogans to well-known refrains or reviving traditional anarchist songs such as the 19th-century classic L’Internationale. "There was a sort of revolutionary romanticism in the air," remembers Serge Hureau, director of the Hall de la Chanson, "inspiring a Rimbaud-esque style of prose and art. The whole world seemed to revert to its adolescence in a collective burst of desire."  

Then, at a legendary concert at La Mutualité on 10th May, Léo Ferré provided the May 68 protestors with their own made-to-measure anthem, Les Anarchistes. As theatres and music-halls swiftly closed their doors, Jean Ferrat played a grand finale at Bobino, in Paris, donating his entire box-office takings to the strike committees. Music finally got to play a role in the revolution when Leny Escudero called upon artists such as Dominique Grange, Pia Colombo, Francesca Solleville and Anne Vanderlove to perform concerts to striking workers in factories which had been brought to a standstill. Francis Lemarque (2) recalls that "our role was to support the movement by turning up and taking part in concerts to show our solidarity with the strikers."

Meanwhile, Jacques Higelin set up his piano at La Sorbonne, the nerve centre of student revolt and the site of permanent "happenings." The most committed protest singers of the time, including Dominique Grange and Evariste, even recorded singles dubbed "45 Tours pavés" (a reference to the "pavés" or paving stones lobbed at police by protestors) which were released by the CRAC (Comité Révolutionnaire d’Action Culturelle) and made available outside the official distribution circuits in the autumn of 68. The whirlwind of revolution blowing in the air at the time encouraged others to find their vocations, most notably Renaud, the legendary French protest star who wrote his first song, Crève Salope, on the barricades when he was just sixteen (Ed.: The track has not featured on any of his albums to date).

The revolution of May 68, where teenagers openly rebelled against the staid music-hall style beloved of their parents, marked the demise of the "yéyés" and the end of conventional music star appearances on television. Music rebels such as the provocative double act made up of Jacques Higelin and Brigitte Fontaine progressively deconstructed the traditional "verse-chorus" format, inventing deranged soliloquies, flirting with pop and free jazz with the Art Ensemble of Chicago (Comme à la radio in 1970) and upsetting the nation's morals on Cet enfant que je t’avais fait. Rock, pop and folk - new sounds which were widely listened to and frequently copied but never fully integrated by French artists of the day - were picked up on by marginal groups such as Magma (formed by Christian Vander in 1969). A "hippie-écolo" movement also surfaced in France in the early seventies spearheaded by a certain Maxime Le Forestier. Meanwhile, a host of new music venues sprang up in Paris in the wake of May 68 including La Pizza du Marais, Chez Georges and La Canaille where the likes of Renaud and François Béranger continued their revolt.

With traditional values and music institutions swept away, regional music movements emerged in Corsica, Alsace, Occitanie and Brittany in the seventies, spawning new artists such as Alan Stivell, Malicorne and Dan Ar Braz. And a general desire for exoticism paved the way for the emergence of "la sono mondiale", the first example of world music 'made in France' being Pierre Akendengue's Nandipo, recorded by Pierre Barouh in 1974. Meanwhile, the fall-out from Woodstock fever in the U.S. eventually ended up crossing the Atlantic and leading to the creation of the first music festivals in France. And the proof that music had finally broken free of traditional constraints was that from now on audiences listened to it standing up!