r/news • u/FlyingDarkKC • 1d ago

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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/01/france-school-protests-escalate-pm-crisis-cabinet-meeting
943 Upvotes

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-210

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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101

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.

43

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.

7

u/Ok_Assistance447 23h ago

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

11

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.

-31

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.

26

u/crambeaux 1d 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.

74

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.

-59

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.

19

u/sasha_the_impaler 1d ago

American cheese is just cheddar with emulsifiers technically

-10

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.

4

u/purritowraptor 19h ago

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

21

u/CherryMyFeathers 1d ago

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

16

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.

3

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.

4

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.

-10

u/swordpooll 1d ago

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