“We must continue to press, until we win our case”: awaiting responses from the government, young people ready to continue the mobilizations

The day of Saturday November 7 brought together 146,000 people throughout France, including 46,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The unions counted 250,000 demonstrators, including 75,000 in the capital. A mobilization down compared to last Thursday.

In the Parisian procession, which took place peacefully, young people were present in large numbers. Like Raphaël, an art college student, who has demonstrated every Saturday since October 17. He took to the streets because the high cost of living is his daily life. "I live in fairly sordid precariousness. I live in Paris in accommodation with more than dubious conditions, at an exorbitant price and the prices of food have reached obscene levels. I happen to be overdrawn very regularly, and this is where we meet the demands on prices, the cost of living. That is to say that as a student, we are the first affected by these things", he explains.

Like the workers' unions, it is demanding an increase in the minimum wage and all salaries. A demand which will be at the heart of the meeting planned for Monday November 9 between the Prime Minister and the trade union and employer organizations.

For Pierre, another student, it's time to keep the pressure on. "We see very clearly that we have a balance of power that is being created, he believes. The government is afraid. The repression is becoming harsher and harsher. And so that's why, at this moment, we must not give up. We really have to press on further, until we win our case."

Students and high school students will also be received by Sébastien Lecornu on Monday, November 9. And their list of demands is long. Elias, in his final year in Val-d'Oise, explains: "First, the repeal of Parcoursup. More teachers, more budget, quite simply, in National Education. We want the ten billion. It's not just a desire that we high school students have to skip classes."

“They gave us bread crumbs. We want the whole bread, we want the baguette!”

But Camille, a master of public administration and future civil servant, finds that the meetings organized by the government have a bitter taste. She has a feeling of déjà vu. "Mr. Lecornu has already summoned certain unions, even influencers. And we see that in fact, most of the time, it has been meager, at least in terms of the measures that have been taken. So, we don't know. It's true that the movement is starting to gain a lot of momentum and is starting to last. So we say perhaps that there will be more important measures that will be put in place," she concludes.