French Students Continue Walkout after Impasse
Report and photos by Phil Pasquini
Paris: “Bienvenue En France Mon Cul” (Welcome to France my ass) was one of the signs prominently displayed on a street blockade in front of the Universite de Paris Faculte de Medecine in the tony Saint Germin des Prés neighborhood where students from the university have joined the walkout which was started by high school students. As they have across the country for the past three weeks, students are demanding additional funding in the government’s 2027 budget for education to alleviate overcrowded classes (average class sizes of around 35 students), dilapidated physical school facilities, too few faculty, long school days, and a decline in the level of teaching that threatens high school students’ ability to pass the baccalauréat (the bac) exams for those seeking higher education.
Of additional concern is the inequality of education at schools located in lower social economical areas and rural schools in terms of resources and quality along with adequate funding, leaving some students unprepared to achieve their higher education goals after graduation.
Many of their teachers have joined with the students in calling for these reforms along with additional staffing and resources including an increase in their wages on par with that of other EU educators.
Coinciding with a nationwide public sector employees strike that began in Paris over the pending 2027 budget, the strikes are in opposition to the recommended $61.3 billion in funding cuts by the government to rein in the country’s growing budget deficit. Impacted most by the proposed cuts besides education are those of health care workers, transport workers and firefighters.
Student protesters at the Universite de Paris Faculte de Medecine have barricaded and occupied the street, blockaded the building’s entrances and refused to return to class in solidarity with their colleagues nationwide that has seen over 1,200 schools closed.
As police stood by, students chanted and cheered in calling for reforms, while many students held signs calling for resistance to fascism, critiques of the media, slogans denouncing and demanding that Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally leave the country, for solidarity with high school students and Palestinians. One sign ominously denoting that “We are the living rage of a dying planet” while another announced that “We are 1968” in reference to the student riots that had a major impact on French society.
Presently the student strike has resulted in a standoff between students represented by their union and the government. After a meeting with Education Minister Édouard Geffray on Friday, lycée and student organizations said they had received “no concrete guarantees” and called for another major nationwide mobilization on Tuesday, October 6.
In support of the students, education unions have called for solidarity and to strike along with them for a just resolution to their grievances.
Because of violence at some school protests there have been 3,000 arrests and hundreds of injuries to police officers, school employees and students as police have cracked down fearing that the demonstrations will be hijacked by extremists while France Unbowed, a far-left party, has been blamed by the government for fomenting the protests for political gain.
(Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Countercurrents, LAProgressive and Nuze.ink. He is the author of Domes, Arches and Minarets: A History of Islamic-Inspired Buildings in America.)
