A sculpture of a phoenix, symbol of the University of Caen, stands on its main campus. Look to the left of this and you will see the B building. This historical monument has thousands of windows spread over its 15,000 square metres. It was inaugurated in January 1968 by the French Minister of Education at the time, Alain Peyrefitte. The inauguration did not exactly go according to plan. Unhappy at not being able to meet the politician, around 1,500 students started bombarding the walls with chunks of coal. Have a closer look at the walls. They will tell you that the first signs of the French civil unrest of May 1968 started here. It might well be where the protesters' rallying cry “under the cobblestones, the beach!” came from.
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