The student movement that began in mid-September in France to demand more resources for education is entering its third week of protests and has already become the largest mobilization of students in the country in decades. This Monday, despite the Government deciding to close hundreds of institutes to avoid new episodes of violence, more than half a thousand centers were blocked in numerous cities, on the eve of a large demonstration in which several unions and left-wing parties have joined.
The Minister of Higher Education, Philippe Baptiste, feared this Monday a “national escalation”, which in reality has already occurred, while criticism intensifies over the methods of police repression, denounced by left-wing parties such as Jean-Luc Melenchon's France Insoumise, the environmentalists and socialists.
Since the protests began, there are 190 students who have been injured, according to data from the Ministry of Education. This Monday a young man lost a hand when a containment grenade exploded in a confrontation with agents at an institute in Lens, in Pas-de-Calais, in the north of the country. The circumstances are not clear, but the General Inspection of the National Police (IGPN) has opened an investigation to clarify this incident and five others that occurred these days.
At a vocational training center south of Paris, a hundred students had to be confined indoors early in the morning after rioters broke the glass in a door and started a fire outside. Finally, they were able to be evacuated. In addition, another young man was arrested, accused of having seriously injured a woman, who lost her eye after being hit by a stone he had thrown.
The Human Rights League (LDH) regretted “the failure to comply with the legal framework during the interventions of the law enforcement agencies.” The magistrates' union criticized in a statement on Friday the police response that is taking place during the mobilizations, with "the use of tear gas and the circumstances of some of the arrests, taking into account that they are minors."
The protests have left more than 5,000 detained in one week and are already one of the largest of Emmanuel Macron's second term. We must go back to the urban riots of the summer of 2023, after the death of a 17-year-old boy shot by a police officer in the Paris suburbs, to find a large-scale protest movement, but with very different demands. It lasted a week and there were just over 3,600 detainees. Since he was elected president in 2017, there has not been a student mobilization of such magnitude in the country. The last massive mobilization was between October and November 1990, also against the lack of teachers and the shortage of resources. It started in the peripheral neighborhoods of Paris and also spread throughout France. Since then, there have been other mobilizations, such as in 2005, but against the Government's education laws and not to denounce the lack of resources and investments.
In this case, the movement broke out on September 17 in an institute in Créteil, on the outskirts of Paris. The students blocked the center to denounce the lack of resources and teachers and the unsanitary conditions in the centers in the most remote areas, theirs among them. In a few days, and without the Government seeing it coming, the movement has spread throughout the country, including several universities. What was expected in the country was above all a revolt to protest energy prices or the cost of living, but not a student rebellion to demand more teachers, desks and classrooms without leaks.
The Government tries to quell the movement, although the attempts have been in vain. After the meeting last Friday with the student unions and parent associations, the students decided to continue with the protests. The Prime Minister, Sebastien Lecornu, has commissioned the ministers involved with a roadmap to address the students' demands, although the measures have not been specified.
Tuesday will be key, with demonstrations throughout the country that will be joined by several unions, such as the CGT, and left-wing political parties. “It is a democratic act, a freedom that is respected and protected,” admitted the Minister of Education, Edouard Geffray. The Government itself admits that the students' demands are legitimate, but there are fears that the movement will grow but also lose its essence. The protests so far have left more than twenty centers burned or with significant damage and the cost is estimated at tens of millions of euros.
