Last Wednesday, September 10th, all eyes in Europe were on France. After the excitement generated by the announcement of mobilizations under the slogan "Let's Block Everything," what is the assessment? In short, we could say that the movement was not as successful as those who called for it had hoped, as it failed to bring the country to a standstill: there were delays in public transportation, but the massive and forceful police intervention prevented major thoroughfares from being blocked, as the protesters had intended.
One of the unknowns was who would participate, as it was not known for sure where the call had come from. According to the media, most of these participants were young people of diverse political affiliations and social and cultural backgrounds; the common thread was their age, between 20 and 25. In this, the movement could connect with protests in countries as different from France as those currently taking place in Nepal, or with the Arab Springs of a decade and a half ago. Going further, it could even be related to May 1968, when university students took part. Almost sixty years later, the French youth demonstrating are not only made up of students, who theoretically belong to a privileged segment of the population, but also by young people from the other social extreme, who have grown up in the suburb, on the outskirts of large cities, in families of foreign origin, and who often—boys more than girls—are victims of academic failure and lack of job opportunities. This is yet another example of the dire consequences of the colonial model.
But we must also highlight the growing precariousness of university students. Despite free higher education, life in cities, especially in Paris, where most universities are located, is very expensive. Cuts in scholarships mean that many of these students cannot even afford to eat properly. Obviously, this doesn't affect them alone: 30% of the French population says they cannot afford to buy enough food to eat three proper meals a day. A recent survey indicates that half of young people are dissatisfied with their financial situation and that two-thirds of their parents think their children will live in worse conditions than their own.
This very French pessimism—but one that confirms worrying facts such as the degradation of public services, the decline in the country's economic indicators, the instability of the government, and the disconnection of the political class from the citizens—is combined with the culture of civic protest, much more deeply rooted in France than in our country. It is said that the sparks that ignited the "Let's block everything" protest were the proposal by the recently resigned Prime Minister, François Bayrou, to eliminate two annual public holidays and his refusal to implement a tax on large fortunes. These are measures, of a contrary nature, that have a primarily symbolic scope, since, as I recalled, Josep Ramoneda A few days ago, the major underlying problem is the growing inequality at all levels between a privileged elite and the rest of the citizenry.
The discontent of youth is reflected, on the one hand, in a disaffection with institutional politics, even with regard to left-wing parties—fractured, moreover, by the response to Israel's war on Palestine, which has oscillated between self-righteous prudence, for fear of fueling anti-Semitism, and more outright denunciation; and, on the other, in the warm welcome that representatives of the far right receive among young people. The deterioration of public education—widely prevalent in France—and the anti-intellectualism gaining ground in the country of the "cultural exception" are leading to an ideological battle between those who aspire to maintain or acquire privileges and those who believe in social justice. The problem is that these two attitudes no longer identify with the traditional right and left, or even with the far right, which successfully peddles a hypocritical egalitarian discourse swallowed by large doses of populism.
In short, France is struggling to accept that it is no longer a world power, not even culturally, and that it is becoming irrelevant on the global map. The problem is that this diagnosis can be applied, to varying degrees, to each European country and the European Union as a whole. To paraphrase Salvador Espriu's famous poem, we can no longer reflect our north, where people are no longer "clean and noble, cultured, rich, free, sleepless, and happy," but "poor, dirty, sad, and unhappy," as in countries a little further south. Therefore, it is not that France is no longer an example that other countries like ours can reflect on, but perhaps it is precisely a reflection of what is happening throughout Europe.
