“He has an impressive ability to network”: who is Ryad Rani, the president of the High School Union, close to La France Insoumise?

For almost two weeks, a young man with a beard and black hair has been attending press conferences and TV shows. Ryad Rani, whose real name is Ryad Rani Schroeyers, does not yet have the confidence of seasoned trade unionists. Unlike some of his predecessors, like Manès Nadel or LFI deputy Louis Boyard, the new face of the high school blockades has difficulty interrupting the speech of his interlocutors. But the president of the High School Union (USL) does not give up. Interview after interview, the 19-year-old tries to give coherence to a movement marked by the violence of its excesses and the illegibility of its demands.

When asked to summarize them, the activist launches into a long list. Lack of teachers, “dilapidated” high schools, “social and racist sorting” organized on Parcoursup, timetables that are too dense, classes that are too large… so many evils that justify the “anger of youth” and the appeals…