French lessons on authoritarianism and solidarity: The lycée student blockades

For French lycée (high school) students, this week has been an important step in their education. You can study books about the role of the state and of the forces of law and order, of political deception and media bias, and of organisation and solidarity; but that is not the same as practical experience.

This week they learnt the meaning of authoritarianism, and that the official values of the French Republic — liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity) — have to be fought for again and again. They have also provided a lesson in solidarity for us all.

As in other countries that have undergone years of neoliberal austerity, French schools suffer from chronic underfunding. This affects everything from teacher shortages to building maintenance, and is especially bad in poorer areas. The students have had enough of this undermining of their futures and are on strike.

They are protesting the lack of crucial teachers and other staff, large class sizes, overloaded timetables, badly maintained buildings, and the discriminatory system for allocating university places.

Their main form of action has been blockades of their lycées, supplemented by spontaneous marches and supported by general assemblies.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government is responding to discontent the way it always does — with violent suppression. Instead of listening to the students and acting on their concerns, they have sent in the police — riot cops armed with tear gas against teenagers demanding a better education.

Protests first erupted on September 21 at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, which was short of several teachers. By the end of the week, actions had spread to around 60 lycées throughout the Île de France (the Parisien basin).