“We hear a lot of demands but no concrete answers”: in Paris, the mobilization continues despite government announcements

Near the Place de la Nation in Paris, a lot of tear gas was used on Saturday November 7. Quite a few firings of grenades can be heard, police officers charge the demonstrators. Some trash cans are also burning in the streets, even if overall the procession took place peacefully. Under musical background, the demonstrators sing and dance. New demonstrations took place for the fourth consecutive Saturday of mobilization "against the high cost of living and for youth", bringing together 46,000 people in the capital according to the Paris police headquarters and 75,000 according to the organizers.

Despite declining mobilization, young people, present in mass, went there to reiterate their demands since the movement was initially launched by them. Mobilized since the beginning of the movement, two students from a public high school in the sixth arrondissement of Paris explain that they have "tried to block [their] high school as much as possible since almost the beginning. For the mobilizations, [they are] there almost every time. Before the holidays, [they managed] to make the high school commonplace."

“We’re trying to show that something is happening.”

However, the measures announced by the government are not enough to calm their anger. Like the loan granted to the regions to renovate high schools or the gradual replacement of Parcoursup, which give the impression to these two high school students of taking them "a bit for idiots", explains one of them. "In fact, that's not enough. Because Parcoursup, [the government] said [that it was removing it] in 2028 but in 2028, they will no longer be there. So of course, I'm happy, it's the first time that we managed to make Macron bend, but it's wind," he continues.

The latter promise that they will continue to mobilize for as long as it takes, like this 60-year-old civil servant in the procession who does not understand the government's deafness: "Nothing is happening. It's quite curious, we hear a lot of demands, particularly from students, but on the other hand, we don't hear concrete answers, says the retiree. We can see clearly that we are in a kind of blockage, we are waiting. I think that the authorities are waiting for things to calm down, for is choking little by little, but we came, we are here, we are trying to show that there is something happening.” The next expected step? Tuesday, with a new mobilization announced by unions, high school students, students and teachers.