No more precariousness at school. Priority to education": it is a peaceful human tide strong in its demands that marched in Paris in the 'third act' of the student mobilization between Place de la République and Place de la Nation, before the devastating fury of a few hundred black blocs eclipsed the legitimate protest of young people who dream of a better school.
A boy, with a bleeding head, was helped by street medics. The situation became tense towards the end of the march, when some protesters threw objects, stones and traffic cones at the police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
"It's true that everything burns, but what burns most is our heart," says Elwann, a Parisian high school student who has become a sort of spokesperson for the student mobilization. Like many comrades, the young student enrolled at the Lycée Jacques Decour, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, calls in the many interviews relaunched on the web for more staff and resources for the school, the repeal of 'Parcoursup', the reform accused of entrusting the future of young people to an algorithm, but also the renovation of school buildings considered old.
Despite being located on Avenue Trudaine, one of the most elegant avenues of the ninth arrondissement, on the slopes of Montmartre, its school is also in pitiful conditions, 'packaged' for years by a sort of maxi-fishing net to avoid collapses. "Today - reports the blond boy with the keffiyeh around his neck - especially in the suburbs, there are no longer even the means to pay for heating in the winter. And even here not all the heaters are working.
We would then have to insulate the roof so as not to suffocate the summer: I believe that these are minimum requirements to be able to study in good conditions", protests the young man who is the new champion of the protest. Even if there is no shortage of criticism, especially from the right, after the young man was seen embracing the leader of France Insoumise (LFI) and candidate for the 2027 presidential elections, Jean -Luc Mélenchon, in the square to harangue the young people and sing the Marseillaise with them. While the mayor LFI of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, was evacuated by the crowd due to a probable illness.
In the capital, the procession left shortly after 2pm from Place de la République towards Place de la Nation, under the sun of a splendid Parisian October. For the occasion, the statue of the 'Republican Marianne' was 'dressed' with a banner with the slogan 'Lycées delaissés, jeunesse sacrifiée' ('Neglected high schools, sacrificed youth'). In the square patrolled by hundreds of police vans and CRS agents in riot gear, the order of the team was to avoid clashes. Even some parents accompanied their children to the procession, with the aim of protecting them from possible violence.
"The images we have seen are a disaster for democracy. Today, I fear more that my son will be exposed to police violence than to that of a casseur,'' says Adeline, who took a day off from work to accompany her high school son to the demonstration. "Tear gas rapists, not minors", reads one of the many slogans brandished in the square. Despite the appeals for calm and the order service put in place by the CGT union, with hundreds of participants in red jackets framing the 3.3 km long procession, the hooded men still managed to go into action shouting "Tout le monde déteste la police!".
At the end of the day, along Boulevard Voltaire, the entrances to the banks were vandalized and covered in graffiti, like those of two or three boutiques. Many shopkeepers, in view of the protest, had armored their windows with large wooden panels as an anti-casseurs. A precaution that is now almost usual in Paris.
