It deployed mass mobilization as a catalyst for social change, favouring local general assemblies as decision-making structures as opposed to referendums, considered less democratic.
The basic principles of the ASSÉ lie on the foundations of student unionism as established in Article 1 of the Charter of Grenoble in 1946.
On January 29, 2005, confronted with the refusal of then-Education Minister Pierre Reid to negotiate about financial aid reform, the ASSÉ holds a congress at Cégep de Saint-Laurent where it invites non-member associations to create the CASSÉÉ, the Coalition de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante Élargie.
The CASSÉÉ is excluded from the negotiation table by the new Education Minister Jean-Marc Fournier because of its refusal to condemn violent acts posed during the strike.
The CASSÉÉ, however, claims that it is to divide the student movement that the minister excluded it, since, shortly after the strike began, on February 16, 2005 at Montebello, students assembled by the FEUQ and the FECQ forced Château Montebello's door with a battering ram to disturb a Parti libéral du Québec caucus, leading to a Sûreté du Québec intervention.
Beginning in the summer 2011, the ASSÉ threatened the Quebec government to withart aning unlimited general strike.