A student shouts slogans during a protest in Lille, northern France on Tuesday. French Students have blockaded dozens of universities across France in protests against a labor law that would make it easier to fire first-time workers./AP French Labor Pains Serve as a Warning to Korea

Universities around the country have been closed for over three weeks and police have formed thick cordons around them. Workers, university students and high school students in the tens of thousands are taking to the streets. France's left-leaning daily newspaper Libération has called it the "the Sorbonne spring."

From the outside, spring 1968 and spring 2006 may look much the same. But even old '68ers say this is not a resurrection of the old spirit. Why? In '68, the youth of France united in protest at deteriorating facilities in the nation's universities, authoritarian professors and an oppressive society. Shouting slogans like “ban banning,” they challenged the establishment. The history of resistance in the French Revolution and the '68 uprising put France at the forefront of progressive thought. They tore down the walls of authority and challenged taboos.

The spring of '06, too, sees the streets full of youthful protestors. But they are demanding the withdrawal of the First Employment Contract Law, which would make it easier for companies to dismiss new workers under 26 during a two-year trial period. In a culture of lifelong employment, young people without experience and unskilled workers without academic backgrounds are becoming more and more alienated from the labor market, as an unemployment rate near 10 percent and youth unemployment near 23 percent attest.

French students demonstrate against a contested labor law that would make it easier to fire first-time workers in Paris on Tuesday./Reuters

The government’s belated attempt to revive the labor market is bringing students out into the streets, demanding guarantees of their rights. “Why are you trying to take away the stability that our parent's generation has enjoyed?” they complain.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit was at the frontlines of the ‘68 protests. The '68 revolution was fought in pursuit of the future, but now demonstrators are afraid of the future and change, he says, articulating the essential difference between the two movements.

Students peer through a banner as they demonstrate in Paris and Tuesday. French student groups bolstered by a trade unions led a protest march Tuesday against a contested labor law that would make it easier to fire first-time workers./AP

The way the world sees French youth has also changed. In 1968, they ignited young people’s desire for resistance and freedom around the world and gave birth to Deconstruction and Post-structuralism. It is a very different story today. Internet messages from around the globe show how.

“You don’t know how much the world has changed? How can you ask for the same opportunities and stable employment?” (Portugal)

“Open your eyes to the 21st century. The good times of colonial rule, when you could live off of unearned income, are gone. Jacques Chirac realized how miserable the outcome would be if France’s dreamlike labor culture continues.” (India)

“You feel anxious about job security? Doesn’t it mean greater instability if one out of four young people are unemployed?” (U.S.)

“Turn your eyes to outskirts of Paris. Scores of second-generation immigrants are without jobs. Don’t you think you're a little selfish for demonstrating for lifelong employment?” (U.K.)

“Instead of setting up barricades to guarantee employment while we enjoy a 35-hour work-week, we’d better foster our competitiveness so as not to miss the trends of the 21st century.” (Paris)

At the time of May ‘68, the French had enjoyed 30 years of “post-war glory” amid a fast-growing economy. Throughout the protests, angry young people and workers demanded their share of the fruits of growth. As a result, they enjoyed lives of abundance and freedom, and gradually turned into the privileged class themselves. Today’s France suffers from fatigue, anxiety and inefficiency accumulated over another 30 years of low growth and mass unemployment. In the crowds of youth who take to the streets, French society finds a mirror image of itself, of a backward-looking society afraid of change and reform.

The sequel to the revolution is a very different thing: The passion for revolution has gone, leaving behind just the noise of protestors’ chants. It is not a passionate and vibrant movement but a spectacle of sorrow and exhaustion.

The article was contributed by Kang Kyung-hee, the Chosun Ilbo's correspondent in Paris.