The Great Depression increased social tensions in France. Days after the Stavisky riots in February 1934, and in the midst of a general strike, Boulanger resumed conducting. She made her Paris debut with the orchestra of the École normale in a programme of Mozart, Bach, and Jean Françaix. Boulanger's private classes continued; Elliott Carter recalled that students who did not dare to cross Paris through the riots showed only that they did not "take music seriously enough". By the end of the year, she was conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with a programme of Bach, Monteverdi and Schütz.