France is witnessing student protests, as high school students, whose movement began in the suburbs of Paris, denounce the poor condition of buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and the lack of substitutes for absent teachers, especially in popular neighborhoods.
Students closed the entrances to hundreds of secondary schools across the country for more than a week, amid the deployment of riot control teams, which sometimes led to the outbreak of violent confrontations. The scope of the protests has expanded over the past few days to extend to streets and squares.
For its part, the United Nations, through the spokeswoman for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Shabia Manto, expressed its concern about the violence witnessed by the demonstrations that began late last month.
"We call on everyone to ensure that (the movements) remain peaceful, and that there is no disproportionate use of force by regime enforcement forces," Manto said. She stressed the necessity of "respecting the right to peaceful assembly."
Why did the students rise up?
The movement witnessed sporadic acts of violence, which included burning buildings and waste containers and vandalizing equipment in public places, while the police’s handling of the protests was subjected to sharp criticism.
Slogans against police violence have now occupied almost as much space in demonstrations as demands related to the lack of resources.
High school student associations called for mobilization as the scope of the protests expanded and university student unions joined them, while professors’ unions called for a general strike.
Agence France-Presse quoted Assan Seck, the father of a 15-year-old student in a suburb of Paris, as saying that his son’s school is witnessing the absence of “a teacher in one subject or another” on an almost daily basis.
He said, "There are real and fundamental problems that deserve attention, and the government must look into them and listen to these students and what they have to say."
Anger reaches Belgium
It seems that the echo of the student protests went beyond France and extended to other European countries, where tens of thousands demonstrated in Brussels. The police estimated their number at 30,000 in protest against austerity, amid tight security measures and amidst movements of high school students.
In this context, Le Monde newspaper said that in Belgium, the multiple crises facing France formed a mirror of the local reality.
She added that since the beginning of this month, Belgian high school students have been organizing protests against reforms and budget cuts approved in the middle of the year.
Regarding Germany, the newspaper said that the largest economy in the European Union remained cautious. In this regard, she cited what was issued by German Economy Minister Katharina Reiche, who said that France “made major reform efforts under difficult political circumstances” to reset its public finances.
The minister said that Berlin does not seek to criticize Paris.
The newspaper noted that the fate of the two European partners is closely linked, as Germany owns about 7% of French debt, and realizes that it is the implicit guarantor of the stability of the euro.
The newspaper quoted Ludovic Soubran, chief economist at Allianz, as saying, “In Berlin they realize the price of attacking Paris; targeting France means weakening an alliance whose backbone is the Franco-German axis.”
Accounts of the Early Presidency
The protests also gained a political dimension, just over six months before the presidential elections, as the government accused the radical leftist France Intrepid Party, whose leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is running for president, of being behind the movement.
The New York Times quoted Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, as saying that Mélenchon appears to be “trying to occupy two positions at the same time: on the one hand, he is the political amplifier of the protests, and on the other hand, he is the politically uninvolved defender of a movement that is supposed to have arisen spontaneously.”
The newspaper added that although Mélenchon benefited from voters' thirst for radical change, his party faces severe criticism because its economic policies lack credibility.
