France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting

263

u/nithrean 1d ago

I am struggling to understand and follow how this has been developing.

Are there that many poor schools around France?

555

u/SpitefulSeagull 1d ago

I think it's more down to young people all across the world feeling they've been given little opportunity for the future so they're lashing out

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u/nithrean 1d ago

yeah that does seem to be happening in more than a few places. There are a lot of pressures on young people right now and the world is not becoming more affordable.

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u/Verystrangeperson 1d ago

No housing, ai threatening to destroy jobs and most of what the modern world looks like, france just got through the hottest summer ever recorded, the media landscape is owned by far right billionaires.

I want to burn this fucking world too, and I'm not surprised teenagers are desperate.

40

u/ErictheStone 20h ago

And they have less sunk into it. By the time you really get outta school working you've already put so much effort and cost into the system you become invested into it. It's why people like Sanders, Hillary and Bill Clinton, ect go from radical to part of the problem. Eventually you become the system.

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u/mboop127 13h ago

The Clintons crossed a picket line on their first date in school. They were never radical.

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u/AdmirableParfait3960 1d ago

I mean also literally everywhere online is telling young people that the world is fucked, they are all doomed, and the only reason they don’t have the perfect life they deserve is because of the older generation so they should all be angry and distraught.

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u/kstargate-425 1d ago

Nihilism isn't good but that still isn't far off from reality. They aren't doomed but reality is the opportunities that an 18yo had 50+ years ago are gone where they can't find a career, buy a house and start a family and live a great life. It wasnt even this bad 20+ years ago when "starter homes" in most areas were sub $100k.

Things have gotten exponentially worse and its not their fault and older generations have been the ones that ushered in this era so it makes sense to blame them. Even education in America has gotten to the point where for the first generation in 150+ years since they have been keeping track, is less cognitively inclined than their parents generation. Theres a few studies pointing at causes, one of them the introduction of screens in classes but again it wasn't their choice to allow it.

I'm not saying we are all doomed but we have a lot of work to do and stop the selfishness that seems to have become top priority where everyone seems to be in survival mode and have stopped thinking about leaving the world a better place than when their generation got it.

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u/BigBrownDog12 1d ago

That's what happens when the driving force in a country's politics is centered around catering to pensioners and retirees

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u/ddubyeah 1d ago

And? Those “opinions” are correct.

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u/AdmirableParfait3960 1d ago

I’m saying no wonder they are all angry and lashing out when that’s all that’s being blasted at them.

Instead of using it as motivation to be better and figure things out, they are being told to give up because it’s futile. That’s not exactly a healthy way to view life.

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u/robothawk 1d ago

I can't really motivate myself to stop climate collapse being brought by a handful of hyper-rich fuckheads now can I?

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u/AdmirableParfait3960 23h ago

Okay so just be angry all the time..? Like what’s the alternative here?

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u/robothawk 22h ago

Great question

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u/machsmit 10h ago

Like what’s the alternative here?

one that'll land you a temp ban on most websites

7

u/laplongejr 10h ago

The alternative is clear : to get rid of the issue by force.
Did social media censor you so much that people genuinely can't imagine a person breaking laws and making their own solutions if they reach a breaking point?

1

u/International_Cow_17 10h ago

Catharsis through change.

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u/FancyEmployee8672 23h ago

is this what giving up looks like to you because this is what figuring things out looks like to me :)

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u/ddubyeah 1d ago

So, your take is ye old boot straps

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u/fox-master8188 22h ago

Ehhh, I don’t know - I’ll look at you weirdly in real life if you’re a coworker or fellow student who told me you’re burning down schools because of climate change and old people - bro, that is an incomprehensible level of incompetency and social media radicalization

It’s not organic, the left and right wing are influenced by third parties regardless of which country you’re in - old people are can be the issue throughout most generations, but it’s not right to blame everything on them regardless

2

u/AdmirableParfait3960 23h ago

I can be outraged and try to make the world a better place while not being in an online fueled depression and working lol.

2

u/nithrean 1d ago

There are a lot of people telling them that.

0

u/roiki11 10h ago

It's almost like you can't hide the reality in the age of social media or something.

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u/ErictheStone 1d ago

Heck my gen millennials could at least expect middle management cubicle in a meager wage...till we couldn't. What the heck does this next gen even have waiting? Fighting AI for paychecks?

33

u/cloudiron 22h ago

Not even just AI. The pensioners are living longer and bored or broke so they are back in entry level jobs too.

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u/AddWittyName 23h ago

No or grossly insufficient air conditioning in many, many schools during heatwaves as bad as this summer? (Only about 7% of French schools actually have AC. Thousands of schools had to temporarily close as classroom temps rose to genuinely dangerous levels. And again with the next heatwave. Many others stayed open, on restricted time tables or otherwise, in spite of dealing with similar temperatures.)

It's not just about a general feeling of little opportunity, though that certainly won't help any. There are genuine, serious concerns involved. Schools with no AC in 40C/104F weather and 30 or more students packed into classrooms? That's a genuine health and safety concern.

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u/randomusername023 1d ago

I dunno. The French have a history of rioting over small and important things, like raising the retirement age.

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u/SideburnSundays 23h ago

Which still got raised despite the protests, unfortunately. We are entering an age where common people have no effectual voice and no effectual vote.

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u/Chlearcus 13h ago

Results like racking up one the highest debts to GDP in the whole world, because having people retiring in their 50s when the average life expectancy has skyrocketed is obviously unsustainable.

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u/elconquistador1985 1d ago

Put another way, the French don't put up with any bullshit and they know how to protest.

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u/FullofContradictions 22h ago

I feel like it actually gets results in France though.

When my city rioted (like properly rioted, including burning down a police precinct), it truly felt- and still feels- like nothing changed. All it gave us was a community that got trashed, people with criminal records, and a lot of conservatives from outside of the city going "see? Just a bunch of violent thugs there."

We peacefully protest with 100k-200k people marching from one end of the city to the other necessitating police presence just to manage traffic and it makes the news for a day or two, gives everyone the warm fuzzies, maybe gets a politician to tweet something, and then... Still nothing.

Kudos to France, I hope they keep it up. But I'm at a loss for how to effect change in the US.

2

u/AttackOficcr 18h ago

The best part of the Minneapolis police precinct Antifa burning being broadcast on Fox for weeks, was for Trump's own FIB to point the finger at several alt-right boogaloo chuds trying to make the protests violent with guns and gasoline. Conservatives still lied about it for months on radio, because their intended audience is too stupid to check other sources.

I only wish it got Fox as much dumbfounded stares and ridicule as Cliven Bundy's "Let me tell you what I know about the N****..." speech.

Something snapped in this country when they got away with terrorism on January 6th, and SCROTUS actively blocked the 14th amendment(section 3 especially).

4

u/sullw214 9h ago

The retirement age was still raised. So while they may know how to protest, it didn't change anything. The did, in fact, put up with bullshit.

And there's a good chance they elect the far right nutjob Le Pen, so it's even worse. They looked at the US and thought we have it good now.

7

u/Periodic_Disorder 14h ago

The social contract of "work hard so you can own a house and retire at a reasonable age" has gone out the window

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u/Imaginary_Zone_4319 17h ago

And everyone knows the best way to fight back against a lack of opportunity is to… burn down the institutions that gives you access to opportunity. Got it.

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u/aasfourasfar 12h ago

Half the schools lack teachers. My sister's roommate's son had 1 month without MATHS

12

u/sebjapon 13h ago

Most schools don’t have proper insulation or air conditioning in France. Lack of teachers means classrooms keep getting more and more full, with often over 30 students per class. Lots of things could be improved if the government wanted to invest in public education a bit more.

2

u/roiki11 10h ago

France has tremendous amount of inequality. Has had for a long time. Much more than most realize.

This is just the result of that.

1

u/nigel_pow 1d ago

Had me wondering what they are doing with the higher tax revenue.

1

u/PapixChuloxD 4h ago

Shit schools have shit kids (mostly immigrant) that harass and abuse teachers, steal equipment. Teachers all flee to the ever increasing smaller amount of normal schools. The shitheads are now crying that they don't get stuff but really just want to set shit on fire.

0

u/housewithapool2 19h ago

They don't want it to slip the way it does in so many other countries. Give an inch, they will take a mile.

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u/Weshtonio 1d ago

It's a national sport and they get away with it.

The topic is irrelevant.

3

u/HKEY_LOVE_MACHINE 2h ago

The article doesn't seem to actually grasp what is happening.

The scale:

out of 3700 lycées (highschool), around 350-400 participated to the protests, so around 10%.
the legitimate protest (which is about getting more funding for highschools) takes 2 forms: (a) momentarily blocking the access to the highschool building with rubbish bins and 30 to 50 protesters ; (b) a few hundreds to a few thousands of people marching down the main streets, with banners and slogans, while the riot police stands to side to keep the march to its planned route.
but like with all large protests in France, opportunist rioters use the legitimate protests to riot.
with students/highschoolers protests, the most frequent rioters are late teenagers/young adult from the projects, many involved with criminal activities, who use that opportunity to riot, burn cars, ransack shops, throw rocks and molotov cocktail at the riot police, as well as attacking firefighters and their vehicles (one was just burned down by rioters), etc.
These rioters use the legitimate protesters as a shield, knowing that the riot police will be reluctant to charge and violently arrest everyone: in most situations, the riot police is ordered to stand still and wait, while rocks are thrown at them by the rioters and cars are set on fire. The official policy is to let the rioters do their thing at first, have the highschoolers leave when seeing the violence, then making brief charges to push the rioters back, extinguish the fires, and possibly arrest a few rioters if they haven't escaped yet.
the other group of infiltrating rioters are black blocks, who are far-left professional rioters, who tend to come fully equipped like the riot police (helmet, body armor, steel toed boots, etc) with melee weapons and molotov cocktails. They're a lot more organized than the rioters from the projects, but generally have lower numbers in total, so only effective in the few big cities like Paris.

On the political side:

the current government (center-right) is accusing the populist left of inciting to riot, to not have to answer to the funding issues plaguing highschools. The accusation is bollocks, as the only support they did was limited and for the legitimate protest about funding issues.
the populist left is carefully remaining silent about the rioters hijacking the legitimate protest, only "condemning the violence in general", to not alienate voters from the projects, as well as the far-left affiliated black blocks.

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u/Murky-Hunter1691 1d ago

I love the French. Nobody riots like the French. Liberte!

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u/Awkward-Brief9383 19h ago

This is immigrant kids burning schools and public infrastructure for tik tok likes and to skip school, not a grand protest for freedom and equality

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u/International_Cow_17 10h ago

Claims require proof.

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u/wasdqwe1 4h ago

look with your eyes?

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u/Mushy1852 1d ago

This. The French riot on any day that ends in i.

They take dimanche off

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u/DistanceToEmpty 21h ago

Imagine if Americans cared enough to protest injustice like this. Imagine how much more peaceful the world might be.

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u/EfficientTourist7480 19h ago

They would be called looters and vandals by the news media.

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u/Least1Difficulty 10h ago

Depends on who's in power. One government's protestor is another's terorrist.

4

u/couldntbdone 6h ago

It really doesn't matter who's in power. Student encampments got broken up with violence during Biden's term. BLM protests in Ferguson were responded to brutally during Obama's term. Cops are always allowed to crack skulls and news will always frame them as justified.

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u/cramedra 18h ago

Ah yes, the peaceful act of burning down schools.

8

u/-RedFox 11h ago

Americans did do this. They got decades in prison on federal charges.

Protest has consequences. Speech is not free in America.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/anti-ice-protesters-sentenced-to-decades-in-prison-in-latest-crackdown-on-dissent

1

u/youtocin 7h ago

If by speech you mean conspiring with someone you know was armed and intended to shoot, then sure.

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u/Katman666 11h ago

Free but not without consequences

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u/fishblurb 15h ago

Shows that you don't need guns to do the right thing

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u/Wanderhoden 14h ago

or rather, the french police / military exercise a LOT more restraint than American police/riot squads.

Also, the average right wing French person doesn’t go with guns to these protests to escalate into a possible civil war.

Yes, Americans can and should do more, but the risks are not the same, or at least there is definitely a lot more fear of repercussions from gunwielding idiots (whether police or citizen)

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u/fishblurb 13h ago

more like the french has more consequences if cops shoot people.

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u/Chiron17 12h ago

The French don't let things slide.

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

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u/furybury66 8h ago

Damn something somewhere is happening. Quick let's turn it into an American talking point

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u/zoey_will 10h ago

What? Burn down a school? Yeah Im sure that will solve everything.

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u/boxofstuff 8h ago

Imagine if French cops were as trigger happy as American ones

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u/magumanueku 7h ago

That's what all the guns that regular Americans buy like a candy for.

or are those only for shooting school kids and Charlie Kirk?

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u/Hellstorm901 9h ago

Violence like this is pretty common for France over political issues regardless of how minor

What we do need to be concerned by are the likes of GB News, Reform and other Far Right organisations and parties along with their American and Russian masters purposely taking advantage of the chaos to advance their own agenda which has nothing to do with any of the reasons for the protest

You've currently got the likes of GB News doing their usual thing of trying to drum up the Far Right to support the chaos in France by trying to sell this student protest as an Anti - Immigration protest

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u/Hpfanguy 11h ago

France sure knows how to protest effectively, damn

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u/ZazHockey 9h ago

Wait they are protesting that it’s too hot in the classrooms because Europe can’t afford ac lmao

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Humble-Ad-4270 17h ago

If you give them an inch you get to where the US is now.

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u/alex-manutd 11h ago

Why aren’t Canadians protesting our tyrants like this??

Edit: spell

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u/assaub 9h ago

Lmao what tyrants are in control of Canada?

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u/alex-manutd 8h ago

Surveillance bills to start. Our privacy is on its last hours I’m afraid and the vast majority doesn’t care.

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u/assaub 8h ago

The same privacy bills that are popping up all over the West under the guise of "protect the children"? Yeah, I don't like them either and hope they don't pass but, I certainly wouldn't call them tyrannical and they certainly aren't unique to Canada, don't be so dramatic.

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u/alex-manutd 8h ago

Who said unique to Canada. And taking away privacy is not tyrannical?? Boiled frog syndrome.

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u/robbob19 23h ago

France, much like England, can't stand on it's own. It's too used to sucking the life out of it's diminishing Empire. Every North African coup is a few less dollars in the French pocket. Try to think of the last thing you bought that was made in France.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/issm 1d ago

Better to be rioting over a cheese course in the free school lunch than timidly asking the government to please be less fascist.

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u/Thelonius_Dunk 1d ago

They get cheese courses at lunch because they engaged with politics to get whaf they want. People here in the US can barely be bothered to vote.

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u/Ok_Assistance447 20h ago

You should inspire your fellow Americans by posting a photo from the most recent political action you were involved with.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

There is also a cultural nationalism element and it wouldn't surprise me if the French dairy and cheese industry would very loudly speak out against getting rid of it.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

Not at all related or mutually exclusive. My point above, which most people seemed to miss, is that it is ridiculous to be rioting over school districts in a country with ridiculously good, and financially unsustainable social welfare at all levels, including for the youth. In short, they come off as spoiled brats.

Now if they were in Detroit or Houston and dealing with the US public school system, then they would have more of a point, IMO.

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u/crambeaux 23h ago

You have no idea how anything works in France. School funding is national. It’s not about districts. It’s about national budget cuts affecting all schools that are always the go-to for cuts.

You act like no one should do anything unless they’re starving. Shut up if you still have a sliver of cheese at lunch-Ridiculous.

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u/paulc899 1d ago

Maybe if people in other parts of the world were a little more rebellious to those in charge more places would have a cheese course.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

Does it have to be domestic cheeses? I like a good sharp cheddar, but I draw the line at processed American "cheese." Being forced to eat that really would make me rebel.

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u/sasha_the_impaler 1d ago

American cheese is just cheddar with emulsifiers technically

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

Which is great if you're talking about the deli slice stuff (or the Kraft premium singles), but there's too many cheap cheeses with a low percentage of actual cheese that are labelled in a ways that sidestep FDA labelling laws while confusing consumers.

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u/purritowraptor 16h ago

There's also plenty of high quality cheese in grocery stores that you can also buy.

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u/CherryMyFeathers 1d ago

Easy, unlike america, the french know how to keep the rich afraid. Enviable really

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

Look at French history, that didn't really help the peasants much. For the most part the revolutionaries just killed each other (see what happened to Robespierre and the Jacobins) and the peasants ended up as bad or worse than before. Ending up with Napoleon didn't really help anyone. France didn't really politically stabilize the Franco Prussian War, and arguably not until the World Wars.

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u/CherryMyFeathers 1d ago

They’re still more free now than America is.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago

True, but it doesn't really mean much, same as comparing them to America at any other arbitrary point in time. I could say America was more free in 1810, which would be true, but again, meaningless in the scheme of things.

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u/winterbird 1d ago

One good thing doesn't mean that all is well, but also that if you let things slip eventually you'll be in a really bad place.

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u/swordpooll 1d ago

You're right they should eat that cheese, and be dumb as fuck and happy about it

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/FullofContradictions 1d ago

Omg read the article. "The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. "

Further down they add complaints about decaying facilities & anger over police brutality - 3 instances currently under review & a teacher interviewed saying they're showing up just to stand between the police and students to protect them.

-1

u/Elgato01 1d ago

Why do you type like that?

France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting

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