Fatoumata Sylla Wague, a 17-year-old in her final year at the Lycée Paul Éluard in Seine-Saint-Denis, said she would rather have been in class than out braving the riot police during the Paris riots. Pupils at her school were among the first to set up blockades outside their campus as French high-school students protested conditions they said made learning harder, not easier.
The protests have now left a 16-year-old without the use of an eye, a 15-year-old without a hand and a 14-year-old with a broken jaw after police munitions struck minors during the unrest. Hundreds more people were injured in some way, and 4,400 people were arrested in a little over a week, with the vast majority of those detained minors.
France schools and staff shortages
The protests grew out of a wider complaint about France’s education system. The most recent OECD education rankings placed France 27th, while average class size increased from 27 students in 2010 to over 30 today. At the start of the school year, half of primary and high schools were missing teachers, and schools in Bagnolet were described as having collapsing ceilings, rats in classrooms and no drinkable water.
Julie, a teacher who commuted for an hour and 45 minutes each way between Paris and the school on the city’s outskirts where she accepted a post last year, said staff shortages came from “low salaries and poor treatment.” She earned €2100 a month, plus some overtime pay, while teachers in France were paid only 56% of what they were in Germany.
Lycée Paul Éluard blockades
Fatoumata said the anger among students was not only about disorder on the street. “Sure some people were burning trash cans,” she said. “But trash cans can’t feel anything.” She also said, “If I’m fighting for our rights today, it’s because I really want to teach, but in good conditions.”
That mix of protest and disruption defined the week: students denounced poor school facilities while some protesters were also burning trash cans and shooting fireworks at high school buildings. Fatoumata said the moment felt comparable to May 1968, placing the current unrest in the same frame as a rare mass student challenge to the state.
Paris and the gilets jaunes
The arrest count is close to half as many as during the months of gilets jaunes chaos, giving the state response a scale rarely seen in student unrest. For families, teachers and pupils in Paris and other cities, the immediate issue is not a speech or a slogan but whether schools can stay open, safe and staffed enough for classes to continue normally.
How long the student protests will continue and whether the French government will change policy remains unanswered in the streets outside the schools.
