France: Workers mobilise to support inspiring school student revolt

There were vibrant mass demonstrations in dozens of French towns, on October 6, as five of the nation's six main trade union confederations mobilised in support of the escalating school student movement.

Entering its third week, the historic uprising against years of cuts in school budgets continues to gain momentum in the face of brutal police violence and state panic.

The movement has involved far more high schools than the last comparable movement eight years back. More than 1000 high schools (for 15 to 18-year-olds) and more than 100 middle schools (for 11 to 15-year-olds) have been blockaded.

Thirty universities have joined the movement in the past few days.

Daily student mass meetings in every establishment decide on the day’s actions. On the demonstrations you can see thousands of home-made placards with imaginative slogans. They range from quoting the 1793 Declaration of the Rights of Man (on the duty of insurrection) to quoting popular rap artists; from “Generation X, Generation Z, one struggle!” to “The 6-7 generation is aiming at 68” (referring to the uprising of May-June 1968).

Desperate to extinguish the flames of revolt, authorities resorted to mass lockouts, preemptively closing hundreds of schools and several university campuses this week.

Macron’s minority government, eager to pass its austerity budget before the end of the year, has reacted in three ways:

First, with violence and intimidation. In the hope of scaring away as many young protesters as possible, they ensured that the police repression was extreme. A couple of hundred teenagers have been injured by cops, and some of the examples are heartbreaking.

In the Paris region, an officer fired a tear gas canister point-blank into the face of a 14-year-old boy, shattering his jaw in two places and knocking out all his teeth; his family is now suing for attempted murder. In Tours, a 16-year-old lost an eye to a rubber bullet fired directly at him — on video, police can be heard boasting about blinding protesters.

Elsewhere, multiple students suffered severe eye injuries. A viral video captured an officer pinning a young girl in a violent chokehold, while in Lens, a bystander schoolchild lost a hand to an exploding crowd-dispersal grenade (he did not “pick it up” as the media have claimed).

In a further attempt to intimidate, more than 5000 young people have been arrested — only 1800 were subsequently charged with an offence. Even now, the government refuses to rein in the police thugs. Interior minister Laurent Nuñez spoke on October 6 of “supposed excesses” in police action, while former minister Bruno Retailleau demanded loudly that the age of criminal responsibility be lowered.

Secondly, the government has offered tiny concessions, which are only cosmetic. Proposals to hike some higher education tuition fees were abruptly shelved, and school student union leaders have been invited to talks with the education minister. The regime has also launched a token online portal for grievances and they have scheduled managed "consultation sessions" in all schools for the end of the week.

Finally, a propaganda offensive is trying to paint the young people as manipulated by the radical left organisation la France Insoumise (France in Revolt, FI). The old lie of “outside agitators” is being mobilised, because the FI is playing an excellent role in the movement.

Even previously sceptical far-left commentators have written that the young protestors consider the FI to be their party. Its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon insisted that FI Members of Parliament and local elected councillors position themselves between the police and students to help protect them. All of them were present and vocal in denouncing police violence.

In parliament, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said one could not speak of “police violence” and complained that the FI “were implying that the police forces of the Republic … were racist”!

School student leaders are not fooled by the cosmetic concessions, and are showing their confidence by announcing a new day of action, only two days after the previous one. Trade union leaders could learn from the youngsters, but are dragging their feet, suggesting a strike in November.

The establishment media are working hard at slandering the movement and twisting the truth.

Media watchdog, Acrimed, measured the time spent discussing the events on the prime-time national public news channel, France 2, this week. It found that 75% of the time was spent speaking about the alleged damage caused by the protesters, 8% spent on the movement’s demands and 12% on government accusations of FI manipulation.

This uprising is taking place against a backdrop of severe political polarisation, ahead of next May’s presidential election. Polls show the fascist candidate, Marine Le Pen leading the field, with FI candidate Mélenchon running second.

The prominence of antifascist placards and banners across student marches reflects the fact that young people recognise that their struggle against austerity and police violence is directly linked to the broader fight against the far right.

The most recent opinion polls show that 62% of the population support the school students’ movement. The next week will show whether much-needed escalation will come.

[John Mullen is a Marxist activist living in the Paris area and a supporter of the France Insoumise. Visit his website at randombolshevik.org.]