France student protests: schools, staffing and Greta Thunberg
The France student protests continued on Tuesday 13 October, with nationwide demonstrations over school staffing, buildings and study conditions, and Greta Thunberg joining pupils in Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
The demonstrations extend a movement that began last month and has spread from high schools to university students and teachers. The government has promised additional replacement teachers, but protesters say the response does not meet their demands.
What the France student protests are about
AFP reported that pupils were pressing the government over absent teachers, dilapidated buildings and overcrowded schedules. Rallies were under way in cities including Nantes and Strasbourg, alongside plans for a Paris march.
An Associated Press explainer describes grievances about insufficient staff and poor facilities, particularly in lower-income neighbourhoods. Some students also object to long school days and the university admissions system.
The movement is therefore about more than a single disrupted lesson or school. Students are challenging whether the education available to them matches the opportunities they have been promised.
Teachers join the France student protests
The France student protests have drawn in staff as well. The teachers’ union SNES-FSU called on staff to strike and demonstrate on 13 October. Its statement supports the student movement while saying that the pupils’ demands overlap with teachers’ concerns about working conditions, pay and public education.
The union is a participant in the dispute, not a neutral observer. Its criticism of the government’s response should be read as its position. Its public call nevertheless confirms that Tuesday’s mobilisation reaches beyond pupils acting alone.
What the government has promised
For the France student protests, the key official response is staffing. AFP reports that the government promised around 3,000 substitute teachers for the 114 high schools most affected by staffing problems. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Tuesday that 35 per cent had already been assigned.
Separately, Anadolu reported his statement to France Inter that around 200 establishments were closed. That is the minister’s reported count, not a measure of how many people joined demonstrations. Nor does assigning replacement teachers establish that every affected school has returned to normal.
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The question now is whether those measures answer the staffing shortages and wider complaints driving the protests.
Greta Thunberg joins pupils in Saint-Denis
In the France student protests, Thunberg joined demonstrators outside the Paul-Eluard high school. AFP quoted her saying that young people were not being included in the conversation and that their future was being taken from them.
Her appearance brings international attention to a dispute whose demands concern French education. It does not change the distinction between the students’ complaints, the government’s promises and what has actually been delivered.
Peaceful protest and allegations of violence
Across the France student protests, AFP and AP describe the majority of demonstrations as peaceful, while reporting clashes and injuries. AFP says police have opened internal investigations into allegations of brutality; it also reports injuries to school staff and a police officer involving fireworks.
Header image: Greta Thunberg speaking at a Fridays for Future rally in Berlin in July 2019. Archive photograph, not the current French demonstrations. Photo: Leonhard Lenz, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Those accounts should not be collapsed into a claim that all protesters are violent, or that every allegation has been proved. The education dispute and the conduct of policing both remain live issues as the movement continues.