Since mid-September, a movement that began in schools in the Paris region has spread across the country. A shortage of teachers, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated buildings, concerns about Parcoursup, and a sense that the public service is falling apart: the demands are extremely specific. The movement has affected hundreds of schools and led to several thousand arrests, mainly of minors. The clashes have also resulted in some extremely serious incidents, including the case of a 15-year-old boy who lost part of his hand after handling a police grenade during clashes in Lens.
This obviously does not justify setting fire to a school, assaulting a teacher, wanton destruction or physical violence against a police officer. Anger may be legitimate without the means used to express it being so. This distinction is essential. A democracy that were to start regarding all violence as acceptable on the pretext that the cause is just would simply pave the way for further violence.
But the opposite mistake would be just as dangerous: to believe that the response to a youth in turmoil consists solely of sending in more police officers.
For behind these events lies something far deeper. A section of French youth no longer seems merely discontented. They doubt the promise that was made to them.
Going to university was supposed to lead to social advancement. Working was supposed to enable a decent standard of living. Getting a degree was supposed to open doors. Following the rules was supposed to offer a sense of security. Yet many young people now look at their parents, the cost of rent, starting salaries, the difficulty of finding a place to live, the state of certain public services, the climate crisis, the debt left to future generations and the constant political spectacle, and are beginning to ask themselves: security from what? Progress towards what?
This feeling is not merely a matter of perception. The data available on French students has for several years painted a picture of genuine vulnerability. According to official figures from the National Observatory on Student Life, 36 per cent of students showed signs of psychological distress in 2023. This proportion rose to 41 per cent amongst students from working-class backgrounds, compared with 30 per cent amongst those from higher social classes. A third also reported having foregone medical treatment or check-ups for financial reasons.
We must consider what it means for a generation to enter adulthood with such psychological exhaustion. This is not necessarily a revolutionary generation. It is perhaps more worrying: it is a generation that may gradually cease to believe that the system deserves its trust.
And this is where the situation in France becomes explosive.
France has a long tradition of protest. Strikes, demonstrations, occupations, barricades and blockades are almost part of its national consciousness. May ’68 has become such an idealised image that it makes us forget that periods of social confrontation are always far less romantic when you’re living through them than when you look back at them fifty years later in black-and-white photographs.
But something seems different today. These outbursts of anger are no longer isolated incidents. They are piling up.
Purchasing power. Pensions. Hospitals. Agriculture. Schools. Housing. The environment. Insecurity. Immigration. Public debt. Distrust of the media. Distrust of elected representatives. A sense of social decline amongst the middle classes. A feeling of neglect in certain areas. Despair in some working-class neighbourhoods. Fear of the future amongst young people.
These grievances do not necessarily stem from the same French people. They may even be politically opposed. But they have one thing in common: the feeling that something is no longer working.
This is precisely what makes a society unstable. Social unrest does not necessarily occur when everyone agrees. It can occur when groups that agree on almost nothing suddenly share the conviction that the institutions are no longer responding to people’s needs.
The current youth protests must therefore be viewed as more than just a matter of maintaining public order. The government claims it wants to address the difficulties concerning, in particular, absent teachers, school organisation and the state of school buildings, whilst budgetary constraints make any large-scale response difficult. This is the crux of the French dilemma: the country demands more public services at the very moment when the state of its finances forces it to find savings.
And in this impossible situation, radicalism thrives.
When institutional politics seems incapable of producing results, the temptation arises to look elsewhere for a means of taking action. A blockade becomes more visible than a petition. An occupation more spectacular than a meeting. Confrontation produces more images than negotiation. And social media further accelerates the phenomenon: a few seconds’ footage showing a protester being struck, a police officer attacked or a building set alight can immediately become irrefutable proof – depending on which side one is on – either of an authoritarian state or of a youth that has spiralled out of control.
The reality is far less straightforward.
Yes, there are rioters, provocateurs and individuals who exploit social movements to perpetrate violence that sometimes bears little resemblance to the original demands. Arson, assaults and acts of destruction have been documented during the current protests.
And yes, the actions of the police must also be open to scrutiny when they result in serious injuries or when human rights organisations denounce a disproportionate use of force. Being a republican does not mean assuming that a uniform always means one is in the right. It means, precisely, demanding that everyone – protesters and police alike – abide by the rules.
The question of ‘legitimate violence’ is therefore probably misguided. Anger can be legitimate. Civil disobedience can sometimes have a political and historical justification. A roadblock may be open to debate. An occupation can be a means of exerting pressure. But striking an individual, setting fire to a school or deliberately endangering a life does not become morally acceptable simply because one is on the ‘right’ side of a banner.
The real issue lies elsewhere: why do some young people now feel they have to raise their voices so much to be heard?
Perhaps this is what should worry those in power the most.
For the young people taking to the streets are not merely asking for more teachers or better-maintained buildings. Behind these demands lies a much broader question directed at the adult world: what have you planned for us?
The answer cannot be purely financial. It touches on something almost intimate in the workings of a country: confidence in the future.
A society can endure considerable economic hardship when it believes that tomorrow will be better. It can endure sacrifices when it believes they are fairly shared. It can accept authority when it regards it as legitimate. It can even temporarily accept injustices when it still believes it can rectify them democratically.
But when these four convictions disappear simultaneously — belief in the future, fairness, legitimate authority and the ability of politics to bring about change — the situation becomes dangerous.
Is France on the brink of explosion? Probably not in the sense that a revolution is imminent tomorrow morning. Apocalyptic rhetoric is easy and rarely accurate.
But the country undeniably displays several symptoms of a society under extreme strain.
Young people are simply the group where these contradictions emerge with the fewest filters.
Teenagers and students have not yet learnt that great adult skill of turning anger into resignation.
They shout.
Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes some of them go far too far. Sometimes violence actually undermines the very legitimacy of what they were trying to defend.
But an intelligent society does not focus solely on the stone that is thrown.
It also seeks to understand why such a young hand felt the need to pick it up.
