{"id":2176824,"date":"2026-10-02T12:43:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T09:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2176824"},"modified":"2026-10-02T12:43:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T09:43:02","slug":"french-school-protests-send-shivers-down-the-governments-spine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2176824","title":{"rendered":"French school protests send shivers down the government’s spine"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/5401\/live\/a6cf60b0-be6c-11f1-a64c-550be9e3c66b.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Watch: Why are students staging protests at schools in France?<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It is a piece of wisdom that all French leaders take care to heed: young people on the street equals trouble.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Since the student protests of May 1968 \u2013 memorably described by President De Gaulle as chienlit <\/i>(bed defecation, in other words chaos) \u2013 every government has run scared of angry French youth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Why? Because youth movements are unpredictable and shapeless, often with no clear structure to negotiate with. Because when they protest, other groups join in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Also: because as they’re young, the public tends to sympathise. And because if the police mess up and cause injury or worse, then the consequences are incalculable. And presidential elections are only months away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For all these reasons, when la jeunesse en col\u00e8re <\/i>(angry youth) is at the barricades governments tread very carefully indeed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Right now, French teenagers are at the barricades and if they are not visibly angry (the mood is more excitement), they certainly have the government of President Emmanuel Macron in what Le Monde<\/i> called on Friday “the cold sweats”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A movement that started nearly two weeks ago in the low-income Seine-Saint-Denis area of northern Paris has in the last few days spread across the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Thursday \u2013 the high point so far \u2013 hundreds of lyc\u00e9es (where 15-18 year-olds finish their schooling) were being blockaded. On Friday, the situation had improved but around 400 lyc\u00e9es were closed in order to protect staff and students. Universities are beginning to join in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Violence has erupted. On Thursday the main hall of a lyc\u00e9e in Nantes was destroyed by fire. Smaller fires too numerable to mention were lit at school entrance gates around the country. The cost of the damage is millions of euros.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to Education Minister \u00c9douard Geffray, 65 teaching staff including 40 school heads have been injured. “Most of the staff who were hurt said that the people they were facing\u2026 were not their own pupils,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AFPAFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Since the infamous protests of 1968, French governments have known the power of young people taking to the streets<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In addition, the government says that around 300 police and firefighters have been treated for injuries, and some 2,000 people \u2013 mainly minors \u2013 taken into custody. For their part, student groups say they have a long list of people injured by police. Two teenagers have serious eye injuries and one has lost many of his teeth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The problem would be hard enough if it was just a question of meeting the protesters’ demands. But there is another dimension \u2013 a political and social one \u2013 which makes this student crisis far more dangerous than in the past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The demands do exist, even if they remain vague. They are about money \u2013 the lack of it \u2013 and the need for more teachers, smaller classes and better buildings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On such matters, many in France would agree with the teenagers. Certainly using protest to demand money from government is such a national habit that even governments agree it’s legitimate. And of course, things are indeed getting worse in the education system \u2013 because money is so tight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AFPAFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The protests have spread across France, and some university students are now joining in<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This week Prime Minister S\u00e9bastien Lecornu published his draft for next year’s budget. The motif is “More cuts \u2013 and this time we’re serious!”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whether or not he manages to remove \u20ac54bn (\u00a346bn) from state spending, as he promises, remains open to question.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But it is surely obvious that the era of public largesse to defuse social unrest in France is now in its twilight. Students demanding an extra school nurse or insulation in the dining-block are likely to be disappointed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But that is the lesser of the worries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The far greater fear is that these student protests are being manipulated by the hard left \u2013 and that the violence of recent days is a foretaste of what awaits a dangerously polarised society in the year of elections that is coming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For the right and centre, there is no doubt that behind the student trouble lies the cunning hand of the France Unbowed party (LFI) and its popular presidential candidate, Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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LFI leaders have regularly appeared next to the students \u2013 notably in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis whose mayor Bally Bagayoko was criticised for saying that “violence can sometimes be legitimate.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Bally Bagayoko (left) and presidential candidate Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon (right) have supported the right of the students to protest<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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An internal report prepared for the Paris police department which was leaked to the media analysed the opening of the movement in Seine-Saint-Denis. It concluded that students were being “egged on by far-left elements from students unions\u2026 and political groups such as\u2026 LFI.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It said the tensions “could be part of a flame-kindling strategy\u2026 aimed at imposing their ideas ahead of the national elections”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In support of its conclusion, the report’s writers cited the presence of protesters who are not themselves lyc\u00e9ens<\/i>, the vagueness of the demands, the flying of Palestinian and Algerian flags, and the use of tactics \u2013 like calling for supplementary protests at police-stations – that come from the radical-left playbook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The LFI strongly denies doing anything more than lending its natural support to a movement it regards as legitimate. On Thursday M\u00e9lenchon called on students to avoid violence “which only serves our enemies’ interests”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But his opponents believe that the 75-year-old veteran \u2013 who stands a good chance of making it to the second round of the presidential elections in May, probably against the hard-right’s Marine Le Pen \u2013 knows exactly what he is doing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Polls show he has massive support \u2013 some 40% — among 18-24 year-olds in France, and that this is concentrated in the populous, high-immigration city suburbs where his talk of a “new France” and “creolisation”, to reflect France’s changing language and population, are highly appreciated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But young people are also the biggest abstainers in French elections, so the strategy \u2013 as the elections approach \u2013 will be to give constant reminders to this part of the population that the LFI is at their side, and that their vote can count.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whether this will be enough to ensure victory for M\u00e9lenchon is another matter. He must surely take seriously the polls which all show him losing massively in a run-off against Le Pen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If that happens, France will be in very unstable territory – for which the young people’s protests of recent days will indeed have been a harbinger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c69wzjjxex8po”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/5401\/live\/a6cf60b0-be6c-11f1-a64c-550be9e3c66b.jpg”] Watch: Why are students staging protests at schools in France? It is a piece of wisdom that all French leaders take care to heed: young people on the street equals trouble. Since the student protests of May 1968 \u2013 memorably described by President De Gaulle as chienlit (bed defecation, in other words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2176824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2176824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2176824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2176824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2176824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}