“If this is your response to the mobilization, it will last a long time,” the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, sent a warning to the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, this Sunday on France 2. While the high school protest has continued for several weeks, the trade unionist called on the government to review its budget copy, otherwise the movement would take hold over the long term.
“High school mobilization confronts you with your responsibilities. Young people are the most precious thing we have,” she said, recalling that a new call to action was planned for Tuesday October 13. “Don’t think about getting out of this mobilization through cosmetic measures,” she warned, denouncing overcrowded classes, non-guaranteed lesson times and difficulties in accessing higher education. She particularly pointed the finger at Parcoursup, mentioning “100,000 young people without answers”.
THE THREAT OF SOPHIE BINET
So replacement teachers would be paid to do nothing? This is what a large part of public opinion retained from the intervention of the Minister of Education, Thursday evening, at the end of the fourth day of high school protests. By announcing to the 8 p.m. news on TF1 that he was going to assign “several thousand” replacement teachers “in the coming hours” to the establishments most in difficulty, Édouard Geffray surprised parents and the educational community.
If he has finally provided a concrete and immediate response to one of the demands of the high school student movement which has been agitating France for two weeks, his solution ultimately questions the sudden ability to find teachers where, all year round, we are looking for them. At the start of the school year in September, at least one teacher was missing in 65% of middle and high schools, according to the principals' union SNPDEN-Unsa.
By recognizing that "3,000" teachers specifically dedicated to replacement (the "TZR" in the jargon, for "teachers in the replacement zone") were, to date, not "in front of the students", the minister exposed the flaws in the National Education machine. Édouard Geffray did not pull this breeding ground out of a hat, he simply allocated it to the needs of the crisis.
“The urgency is massification,” assures the UNEF of Nanterre in a video published on social networks. “We need to be as many of us as possible to join the fight alongside the high school students.” These students claim to have “obtained” from the university presidency “the reopening of the university tomorrow as well as the trivialization of absences all week”. “This means that all students who wish can mobilize without any form of sanction.”
Alas, they ask again to “mobilize” this Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. in front of the Nanterre faculty.
The Defender of Rights (DDD), an independent administrative authority responsible in particular for ensuring compliance with ethics by law enforcement, announced on Sunday that it had received 28 individual referrals since the start of the high school movement. “Given the numerous incidents” during the mobilization of high school students, the DDD estimated in a press release “that it is imperative to reconcile security with the protection of the rights and freedoms of people, particularly when it comes to minors”.
The administrative authority, embodied since July by former minister François-Noël Buffet, has “received 28 individual referrals since the start of the mobilizations”, referrals which are still being “examined”, underlined the DDD. “Given the seriousness of the first incident brought to its attention,” the DDD also indicated to Le Figaro that it had decided, on October 1, to take responsibility for the events that occurred in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (Val-d’Oise), where a 14-year-old boy was seriously injured in the face by a tear gas grenade.
“The first steps necessary to examine the file are currently underway,” he stressed. The Defender of Rights, who has no power of constraint, “will be particularly vigilant about respect and proper application of the rules of ethics” by the police, he added.
The continuation of the blockades in any case worries the more than 10,000 medical students who begin on Monday the tests of the very arduous internship competition, determining for the choice of their specialty. As the competition is national, any disruption in just one of the examination centers spread across the national territory may result in its cancellation in all centers.
A blocking of these exams “would only have an impact on students” and would cause “great distress”, warned Friday on France Info Thibault Patey, president of the ANEMF (National Association of Medical Students), who also “supports” the “claims of student mobilizations”.
Sunday evening, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu made public a count of contributions to the consultation platform launched by the government for high school students. “More than 76,500 high school students have already participated in the national consultation launched on Agora.”
He indicated that the government would table amendments to the draft budget for 2027 which will take up “certain proposals made” on the platform. These contributions will also be “analyzed academy by academy, then establishment by establishment”, to provide “adapted responses”, he promised.
The high school students begin on Monday a new week of their mobilization that began in mid-September with the culmination of an “act V” of the demonstrations on Tuesday, which will be decisive for a movement that the government hopes is in decline.
The executive is all the more hoping for a decline in high school and student mobilization as a day of action launched on social networks, particularly for purchasing power, is to be held on Saturday October 17, reviving the memory of the Yellow Vests.
On Friday, the government announced a “clear deceleration” in blockades and high school gatherings. According to the Ministry of Education, “more than 96% of high schools” were open Friday morning (141 establishments closed out of 700), compared to 157 the day before.
