Why have France’s school protests become a wider political crisis?
By Caolán Magee
Protests are sweeping France as anger over conditions in schools meets frustration with high living costs and a government accused of doing little to address problems facing people.
About 550,000 people demonstrated nationwide on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. Most marched peacefully, while a small minority attacked buildings, looted shops and clashed with police, who fired tear gas and charged protesters.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police officers were injured. Behind the confrontations lies a political crisis, fuelled by anger at deteriorating services and overstretched household budgets, and compounded by a sense that France’s political institutions offer little hope of change.
Here is how school blockades became a nationwide movement – and what that means for President Emmanuel Macron.
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Fires and clashes rock France amid massive nationwide protests
Police and protesters clashed violently in Paris and other French cities Saturday on the sidelines of nationwide marches against soaring inflation, with one demonstrator’s hand blown off, multiple blazes set and looters breaking into dozens of stores to strip them bare.
The widespread unrest follows weeks of student protests and deepens political uncertainty in France as it readies for elections in six months’ time to replace President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron and his government were criticised by many of the demonstrators, who numbered 500,000 across the country, according to the CGT union. Authorities did not immediately give their estimate of numbers.
Continue reading at www.france24.com
Student Demonstrations Across France face Police Violence
Toulouse, France, Oct. 17, 2026] Hundreds of thousands of students marched in cities throughout France today demanding improvements in the school system. I am in Toulouse, the capital of France’s southern Occitanie region, a city of 515,000 in a metropolitan area of 1,100,000. The march had not yet started when I arrived. Toulouse has about 18,000 public high school students, and it looks like a majority of them have showed up today.
Police used tear gas and water cannon against masked protesters in Paris and other cities who were throwing projectiles and aiming fireworks. Several parked cars were torched in the capital, and more than 130 arrests made.
So have hundreds of France’s notoriously violent national riot police, the Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité or CRS. They wear helmets, body armor, carry shields and have their clubs ready to teach the students a lesson. For weeks police have been using their billy clubs and tear gas against the students of Toulouse and other cities. Students has responded with stones and little fires in the street, though occasionally a fire gets out of hand.
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Une «nuit des barricades» nationale : le mouvement ouvrier doit entrer dans la bataille comme en 1968 !
En mobilisant travailleurs et gilets jaunes ce samedi, la révolte des lycées a été l’étincelle d’un mouvement social plus large. La détermination qui s’exprime ce samedi malgré la répression des dernières semaines ouvre de nouvelles perspectives. Pour les concrétiser, il faut préparer l’entrée en lutte du mouvement ouvrier par la grève, l’auto-organisation et les rencontres interprofessionnelles. Réflexions à chaud.
Bien que la journée ne soit pas encore terminée et qu’il reste à établir avec précision son ampleur, les mobilisations de ce 17 octobre marquent déjà un succès politique. La révolte lycéenne a réussi à confluer avec d’autres secteurs populaires et à donner une expression commune à des revendications qui, jusqu’à présent, semblaient séparées. De Paris à Toulouse, de Marseille à Rennes et Besançon, les manifestations ont été le théâtre d’une convergence des colères, où les jeunes qui se battent pour leurs conditions d’études ont marché aux côtés de salariés asphyxiés par la hausse des prix, de parents inquiets pour leurs enfants ou des gilets jaunes qui se remobilisent.
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Ten years of the France Insoumise: A Marxist view
Next February, the France Insoumise,1 “France in Revolt”, largest organization of the radical left in France, will be ten years old, but in-depth Marxist writings on its nature and prospects, particularly those published in English, have been very few.2 This article aims to show what is specific about it, and give a view on how revolutionaries should engage with the movement. There are two other reasons that this article might be timely. Firstly, in the UK, the new radical left party around Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn has opened up questions about what sort of principled alliances are healthy and useful. Secondly, for the first time, one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s major books was published in English last year3 and so the France Insoumise project is being discussed more frequently among anglophone activists.
I will first look at the influence and activity of the France Insoumise in 2025, and its usefulness to the working class, before retracing the history of its ideas and organization. Then I will look at immediate and medium-term weaknesses of FI ideas and strategies. I will consider that it goes without saying that revolutionary Marxists must maintain their own analyses, voices, organizations and initiatives, and not dissolve all their activity into any such movement. Finally, I will look at how the revolutionary left in France has interacted with the infinitely more influential France Insoumise, and serious mistakes I believe are being made.
Continue reading at www.defenddemocracy.press
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