France temporarily bans the use of grenades: the keys to the student revolt

BarcelonaFrance has been experiencing historic student protests for three weeks. Students are blocking educational centers, clashing with the police, and thus paving the way for other sectors of the population who, stifled by the cost of living and unhappy with the budget prepared by Sébastien Lecornu's executive, are pointing towards broader mobilizations throughout the French state during October.

This Tuesday saw the most significant day of mobilizations since the start of the current protests. Between 266,000 people—according to the Interior Ministry—and 450,000—according to the organizers—gathered in various cities in France. Yesterday's mobilizations, which have been causing a new clash between Macronism and the left in the institutional sphere for days, ended in riots, particularly serious in Paris, where the police tried to disperse demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons.

From this Wednesday until Monday, the government has suspended classes across the country and has temporarily banned the police from using grenades after one of these devices mutilated a young person's forearm. The executive speaks of "unprecedented" violence and human rights organizations denounce a disproportionate use of force by the police, while throughout the French state the number of detainees has already risen above 6,500 and there are more than 1,800 people prosecuted, most of them minors. The executive does not specify for which crimes they are being investigated, and although high school blockades have decreased this Wednesday, the revolt seems far from over.

The fuse of the protests

The mobilizations start on September 17 at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, in the banlieues south of Paris. Several students join the teachers of the center, who had started a strike to denounce the lack of staff at the high school. They achieve some of their demands and the case begins to be replicated rapidly in other centers in the country. In a few days the blockades begin, reaching 1,800 high schools without activity yesterday.

The protesters' demands

Students complain about the deterioration of the educational system and speak of "financial disinvestment". There is a shortage of teachers, class ratios in some centers exceed thirty students, there is a scarcity of materials—especially computer equipment—and facilities are often in precarious conditions, they claim. Most of the problems are aggravated in poorer neighborhoods and cities. For this reason, inequality between centers is another weakness of the system pointed out by adolescents.

Although it is the students, often minors, who have led the protests over these three weeks, teachers and educational staff have also joined some demonstrations. They demand better salaries and to be paid on time, and they also denounce the difficult conditions in which they have to do their work in some centers.

Global unrest

The indignation of high school students has also brought to light the unrest among university students. The government has proposed canceling the rent subsidies it grants to some students to cope with the cost of housing they must pay when they move to another city to attend university. This is one of several cuts in public spending planned by the government of Sébastien Lecornu. Another reason for indignation among university students is the increase in tuition fees for non-compulsory studies for students from outside Europe and the reduction of social aid for foreign students, measures that unions consider racist.

In a context of rising cost of living in the country, the reduction of public spending angers and infuriates part of the population. While the executive plans to increase the education budget by 1.2 billion euros, it is preparing significant cuts in pensions and healthcare. Now, student protests could pave the way for broader demonstrations, and various unions and organizations beyond the education sector are already considering mobilizations this October.

The executive, at a crossroads

The French government finds itself caught in a dilemma. While it discursively promises more resources to the population, in practice it is working on an austerity budget that aims to bring the fiscal deficit closer to the 3% limit demanded by the European Union. France has a debt equivalent to 117% of its GDP, and financial markets have been demanding cuts for some time.

During the mobilizations, some young people reproach the executive for investing money in military spending while cutting it in essential public sectors, and the issue of debt also appears among those gathered: "The public debt that we have accumulated is being loaded onto the backs of the young," declared Céline, a university professor, to the Efe agency from Paris yesterday.

The clash between the left and Macronism

In this sense, the mobilizations represent an amendment to the plans of Macronism, and the political clash has also moved to institutional politics. The left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) supports the protesters, to the point that Bally Bagayoko, mayor of Saint-Denis, member of the party and the first Black person to hold this office in a French city, has stood before the police on several occasions to try to protect the protesters.

At a national level, Lecornu reproaches Jean-Luc Mélenchon for supporting the mobilizations. The French president has accused the LFI leader of "stoking violence" and trying to capitalize on the mobilizations a few months before the presidential elections. Mélenchon, meanwhile, asks the protesters for "prudence" but stresses that they are "completely right" with their demands.