France: what do the school protests tell us?

US President Donald Trump has claimed the school protests in France are the result of "out of control mass migration" and Islamism. Aftonbladet disagrees:

“This is, of course, nonsense. The best thing those in power can do now is to listen. The demonstrations stem from frustration with an unfair and ailing school system. ... We need more teachers and smaller class sizes. Better support for children and young people with special educational needs. Investment in disadvantaged areas. A grading system that supports pupils rather than marginalising them. ... The young people in France are right – a school system that lets its pupils down is certainly cause for anger.”

Michaela Wiegel, Paris correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comments:

“Teacher shortages and overlong holidays are two of the weaknesses of the school system. The problems are even more pronounced in socially deprived areas, because under the centralised system for the allocation of teaching posts these schools are the last to be considered. However, to conclude, as President Donald Trump has done, that the protests are the result of uncontrolled mass migration is misleading. These young people are demanding that the government fulfil the promise of equality. Therefore it is a drama resulting from successful integration that pupils from migrant backgrounds are also demanding better conditions at schools rather than retreating into parallel societies.”

The school protests are evidence of France’s wider problems, according to a commentary by Trouw columnist Ronit van Tijn Palache:

“The current protests are essentially a symptom of a much deeper-rooted problem in French society, where discontent, mistrust of institutions and bleak prospects for the future prevail. For young people in particular, the outlook on the labour market is far from rosy. ... The country likes to showcase its grandeur, its culture and its universal values, but behind this façade it is becoming increasingly clear just how difficult it is to put these values into practice for its own population.”

This could be just the beginning, France correspondent Paul Ackermann speculates in Le Temps:

“From unhygienic toilets to absent teachers, pupils are experiencing the decline of France's public finances on a daily basis. And in the face of a highly tense, indeed intractable, budgetary debate, Emmanuel Macron and Sébastien Lecornu's government have little to offer them. Not even a proper resignation, because next spring's elections will reshuffle the deck anyway. The next government will therefore inherit the time bomb that is France's public sector. ... The growing awareness of this generation of French teenagers and young adults could also be a foretaste of a reaction in many European countries in the face of the continent's decline and the threats it faces.”

The wave of youth protests will spread to other countries, writes Gazeta Wyborcza:

“They are taking to the streets because they live in a country where pensioners enjoy a higher standard of living than they do. Those entering the job market now can only dream of the levels of material security that has been taken for granted in the past decades. ... The protests have already spread to Belgium. ... It's only a matter of time before mass demonstrations break out in other European countries too. And these will continue until governments start remembering that democracy is, by definition, a future-oriented system. It cannot lose sight of the future of its own societies.”

NRC also says it's high time the government started taking the concerns and hardships of the pupils seriously:

“Deescalation is essential. It must begin by acknowledging the concerns of the pupils who started the protests and engaging in dialogue with them. With the current geopolitical turmoil, a climate disaster that everyone is feeling the effects of and the potentially existential dangers of AI, these are not easy times to grow up in. All that the French youth are demanding is a perspective for the future – which is the same reason that recently prompted their Spanish peers to take to the streets and demand better housing conditions. Unlike most politicians they are thinking long term. This could be a lesson worth learning.”

The turmoil in France is an expression of a centrifugal force in politics, observes Corriere della Sera:

“The political parties with the most traction right now – the far right Marine Le Pen and the far left Jean-Luc Mélenchon – have a heightened interest in adding fuel to the fire, whether the goal is to bolster demands for security and order, rights and social justice or tighten the screws on the current government and President Emmanuel Macron, whose popularity is at an all-time low. France reflects a political trend that is increasingly taking hold in European societies: the declining relevance of the traditional parties in favour of the political fringes.”

Mélenchon's party is taking advantage of the student protest to rally support in the run-up to the presidential election, warns The Daily Telegraph:

“In seven months' time, the French will choose their next president, and Mélenchon is doing two things. First, he has already begun campaigning, galvanised by early polls showing that he could make it through to the second round to face the far-Right's Marine Le Pen. Secondly, Mélenchon is preparing the insurrection he hopes will follow if Le Pen is elected. He knows the country is fragile and will use every lever at his disposal to fracture it further and sow chaos. Politically, he doesn't mind appearing violent – quite the opposite.”

Although Mélenchon and La France Insoumise appear to be benefiting from the protests in the short term they should not count their chickens before they hatch, Welt's Paris correspondent Martina Meister advises:

“The presidential election in France is due to take place in six and a half months' time. By then, even the left-wing populist Mélenchon is likely to realise that his strategy isn't working. When street battles rage, when parents have to live in fear that their children will come home injured, it only serves to amplify the call for law and order. ... The right-wing populist Marine Le Pen is likely to benefit most from this.”

The form the protest has taken is distracting from the real problem, argues Népszava:

“When a school entrance is ablaze, a headteacher is attacked, or furniture, buses or public buildings are set on fire, one can hardly claim that such acts serve to improve the education system. ... Violence serves to divert attention from the crux of the matter, and this works in the government's favour. ... After all, it's much easier to talk about arrests and troublemakers than about the fact that even though France is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe it is unable to provide its pupils with equitable and acceptable conditions.”

In Belgium too, school pupils are protesting for better education. The young find themselves in the midst of a massive crisis, Le Soir explains:

“'Nobody is trying to listen to us,' they continue to protest these days, from Liège to Paris. So they're raising their voices to make themselves heard. And now their protest has spread from schools to universities. ... How can one not feel angry in the face of these dark clouds looming over the horizon of a youth already marked by Covid? This generation has marched for the climate, to no avail. It has marched for peace, which now seems like a utopia. It has grown up with technology that is now associated with dystopia. These are all legitimate fears, some of which are drowned out by the clamour of anger, but which must be heard and taken seriously.”

Today's French youth is by no means out of touch with reality, writes Jean-Emmanuel Ducoin, editor-in-chief of L'Humanité:

“The very pupils we thought were quiet and apathetic are now making their voices heard. They are coming together and demonstrating. ... We now realise that their deafening silence may not have been what we thought it was. Young people may fall silent in front of their screens, but they speak out when it comes to their schools, their living conditions and their future. So here's a question: do we still know how to listen? And how should we let them have their say? These pupils whom we took for 'silent' are asserting themselves as engaged citizens. ... They speak out loud and clear when an emergency arises.”

Commenting on the protests in Contrepoints, political scientist Nicolas Lecaussin criticises Bally Bagayoko, mayor of Saint-Denis from the radical left-wing La France Insoumise party, for echoing the pupils' criticism:

“When he condones attacks on police officers and teachers in his town and describes those who have allegedly 'failed to uphold the republican promise' as the real culprits, he is not engaging in politics, he is conveying the message to young people in his town that the law is negotiable, depending on the merits of the cause. This is the definition of what the rule of law is not. ... So on Monday, teenagers learned from their mayor – an elected representative of the people – that arson, vandalism and confrontations with the police can be justified if they serve a good cause.”

Macron has allowed the political fringes to gain strength, Le Figaro criticises:

“Seven months before the presidential election, the firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is pulling out all the stops. True to his 'cuckoo strategy', he intends to exploit every expression of anger to stir up and channel conflict. Not only is he using school pupils as electoral cannon fodder, on Tuesday he also appeared alongside striking civil servants, while his supporters joined the Parisian firefighters' march. ... Emmanuel Macron was elected twice on the promise of being a bulwark against the Rassemblement National. We see now how that has turned out. Moreover, never before has the far left been so strong in France's major cities.”