LFI politician on France's protest: “Bravo, Gen Z!”

taz: Ms. Guetté, you were involved in the school blockades in France from the beginning. What impression do you have of it?

Clémence Guetté: I am immensely proud. In Créteil I saw parents and school staff joined by the students. They have taken their fate into their own hands. They demanded the minimum to learn with dignity: teachers, a nurse, management staff. I was impressed by her political maturity, her creativity, her humor. This generation has experienced the lockdown, the social selection of Parcoursup [online system for applying to universities, ed. Red.], the precarity, the fear of climate catastrophe. Now she has stood up and gathered the whole country, now the whole world, behind her. Bravo, Gen Z!

taz: Your party, the radical left-wing France Insoumise (LFI), is accused of exploiting the student protests for its own benefit. However, the investigative magazine Médiapart found that there was even an order from above in the security service to blame LFI for the riots.

35, is a deputy for the La France Insoumise party in the Val-de-Marne constituency, where the student protests began at the end of September 2026. She is also co-president of the party-affiliated think tank Institut de la Boetie alongside Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Guetté: These revelations are of immeasurable gravity. In a functioning democracy, something like this would be a national scandal. The government is in dire straits and unable to respond to the youth. So she's looking for someone to blame. There must be consequences for those responsible for these machinations. Whatever contempt there is in believing that students need someone to understand that a school class without teachers cannot be the norm. This movement belongs to them and we are proud to accompany them. Our role is to listen to them, protect them and make their demands heard.

taz: Nevertheless: Jean-Luc Mélenchon and mayor Bally Bagayoko made statements that could be understood as relativizing violence.

Guetté: It's ridiculous: LFI is being asked to condemn acts of violence that it did not commit. However, it is much less common for the government to be asked to take responsibility for its policy of violence and for the young people mutilated by the police. Already on October 17, Mélenchon warned that those who share our concerns have nothing to do with looting. Bally Bagayoko’s statements…

... that violence can be legitimate, but it is better to prevent it...

Guetté: ... were massively distorted. He explained why young people confronted with violence react this way. He didn't call for violence. LFI stands for a revolution at the ballot box. Instead of the escalation that the government has decided on, we want a political answer.

taz: There were shattered hands, eyes shot out, and seriously injured students. How would LFI reform the police?

Guetté: I would like to take this opportunity to remember the victims. These students' lives have been destroyed because they demonstrated for their rights. We will redesign the police from top to bottom: end the brutal doctrine of maintaining order and return to de-escalation. We will ban flashballs, tear gas grenades and lethal immobilization techniques, increase police training to 2 years and introduce a truly independent oversight body. And finally, we will establish neighborhood policing. Holding the monopoly on violence comes with a special responsibility. With the current level of brutality and impunity, the legitimacy of the monopoly on violence is in question.

taz: The protest in France is now no longer just a student movement. A general strike was called for November 5th. What's happening there?

Guetté: The anger has the same origins: almost ten years of Macronist policies have destroyed public utilities and made the country poor. The students demand teachers. Your parents want to be able to fill their fridge and gas tank. Employees demand to be able to live with dignity from their work. That's why the fights come together. Instead of responding to these demands, the government responds with repression, contempt and austerity. But despite all attempts to stifle the protests, the French continue to take to the streets in their hundreds of thousands. We propose a political way out: increasing salaries, capping prices for essential products, massive investments in youth, schools and universities, and the reconstruction of public institutions. Macronie, on the other hand, prefers to cling desperately to a system where a minority enriches itself at the expense of the majority.

taz: How do you want to finance this program?

Guetté: The catastrophic situation in public finances is the result of Macron's policies, who are nevertheless always quick to give lessons in good management. More than 1,000 billion euros of additional debt, the foregoing of tens of billions in income as tax gifts for the richest, and a million more people below the poverty line: that is the balance. Our budget, on the other hand, is clearly quantified: 106 billion euros in new income and 82 billion in new expenditure, i.e. almost 25 billion euros to compensate for the deficit.

taz: Where will the additional income come from?

Guetté: By reintroducing the wealth tax, taxing the super-rich and the super-profitable, and by abolishing unjustified tax privileges. Investing in schools, public institutions and production also means creating added value, as well as jobs and thus additional income. Our goal is to stimulate the economy in order to sustainably improve public finances. Austerity, on the other hand, stifles growth and worsens the problem it purports to solve.

taz: In the end, won't the right-wing extremist party RN still benefit from this movement?

Guetté: RN does not support the demands of students or workers. It just calls for more repression. The extreme right is profiting from the chaos caused by Macron, adding fuel to the fire with racism and dividing the country. Politicians who take up racist delusions and the media who trivialize and spread them help. Throughout the week following October 17, media outlets blamed the children for immigration. To the point that in Trappes a right-wing extremist terrorist was fueled by this endless loop and went out “to kill blacks and Arabs,” in his words. The investigators found “Mein Kampf” at his home. 26-year-old Pengo Bossio Wangi was murdered. My thoughts are with his family, but also with Ahmed and 12-year-old Ramatou, who was hit by 12 bullets. Racism kills.

taz: Should LFI make it to the runoff in the presidential elections in 2027: How does your party want to beat RN?

Guetté: Firstly, by giving hope again. We will change lives: increase salaries, reintroduce pensions at 60, rebuild utilities, initiate the ecological transition, move to the sixth republic. We want to mobilize millions of people who no longer vote. Lula just showed in Brazil that this is possible. Second, by remembering what the RN is. Behind the social veneer lies a policy that favors the powerful, like Macron. In addition, there is uninhibited racism at RN. On October 29th, the RN MPs prevented our proposal to increase the minimum wage to 1,700 euros per month from coming to a vote.

In the runoff election one must be clear: it will be a choice between RN and the only party that is able to make a social, democratic and ecological break. We will be the choice of progress and preservation of the Republic. We have good reasons for hope: packed meetings all over France, thousands of new colleagues and a constant increase in surveys, even though they structurally underestimate us. We will win.