The editorial by Vincent Trémolet de Villers: “High school crisis, self-destruction or recovery?”

Who imagines Jules Ferry, Joseph Pagnol or Mr. Germain (the teacher to whom we owe Albert Camus) proposing a suspension of classes “for a time of internal democracy”? This formula from the Prime Minister to try to calm things down sums up the cataclysmic situation which he inherits and which, before our eyes, is setting part of the country ablaze.

For a week, the background has been the same: burning trash cans, students and principals attacked, Islamist terrorists cheered, anti-Semitic raps proclaimed, police attacked and, in the chaos, too many kids injured. In such a climate, can we continue to calmly debate the dilapidated buildings, the absence of teachers, the “symbolic violence” of getting up early every morning, the “microaggressions” suffered by students who have a two-hour gap in their schedule? Should we cling to the branches of technical solutions, lean into idle debates so as not to...