What do tear gas, stun grenades and batons all have in common? The answer: they have all been used against students in France, following protests in response to underfunding and overcrowding in schools.
The police’s response has been so brutal that the Mayor of Saint Denis was tear gassed after trying to separate students from the Gendarmerie. With the violence escalating and one 15 year old losing his hand to a police stun grenade, this begs the question: what are the students angry about, what are their demands and how have politicians reacted?
The protests began in a lowkey suburb of Paris in late September, as students joined their teachers to voice their anger at understaffing and a lack of resources at the Saint-Exupery High School.
However, after their demands were met and more teachers were employed, the fervor to see reform in all schools spread like wildfire. It started with students in Paris blockading entrances to their schools and then students in Lille and Marseille followed suit.
One particular area of grievance for the protesters is the French online platform that decides higher education places. With 80% of students passing their baccalauréat (which entitles them to a university place), the system has created intense competition and anxiety around students getting their preferred courses and universities.
The students also take issue with class sizes and lack of teachers. Many complain of classes as big as 35 pupils, while their teachers go missing “for several weeks without being replaced”.
One student told Channel 4 how they were “desperate” and that the current situation in schools is “catastrophic”.
Despite France spending more per student aged 15-18 than the EU average for upper-secondary schools, it is clear Prime Minister Lecornu’s austerity approach (in response to high borrowing costs in France) is leaving young people and educators anxious about their futures.
With more than 6,000 arrests and 100 injured (including police officers), what remedy are the students actually asking for and is it so extreme that the French Government can’t deliver? Well, the National Union of Students in France released a list of 10 ‘emergency measures’ which they demand should be “implemented immediately”.
The first demand made by the Union was a call for a major renovation scheme for schools and universities. This includes fitting air conditioning into all schools “to cope with heat waves” and ensuring that all establishments have “clean and functional sanitary facilities”.
Students also call for a major recruitment drive to ensure there is 1 nurse, psychologist and guidance counsellor per 500 students and an end to the online higher education platform, to free up “250,000 additional places in higher education”.
In reaction to these demands, the Government and Prime Minister Lecornu have already begun making promises, in the hopes of ending violence and disorder. As a start, the Education Minister announced that 3,000 substitute teachers would be deployed to 100 schools which have been identified as having a serious staff shortage problem.
The Minister has also promised to authorise the recruitment of “several hundred” teachers while working alongside the Prime Minister to amend the 2027 budget to redirect more funds toward teacher recruitment.
Additionally, the Government has also committed to making the higher education application platform more transparent, so students are clear on how applicants are ranked, why they may be rejected or accepted and how their grades are weighted.
However, with regard to school maintenance, leadership has pointed to regional governments as the ones responsible for this infrastructure. With two thirds of the country’s schools being built before 1970, however, there are real questions over at what point the government should step in to provide financial assistance for these renovations.
As the disorder continues into the weekend, with 55% of French citizens saying they want the protests to stop, it remains to be seen which side of the argument will compromise first.
Will the students have their demands answered or will the Government’s ‘belt tightening’ approach stall negotiations? Only time will tell.