One thing must be borne in mind: the movement did not originate in the offices of LFI. The first protests emerged in mid-September, centred on very specific grievances: overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers, dilapidated premises, staff shortages, concerns about Parcoursup and a more general sense that some young people were being let down. Accounts gathered from various schools show teenagers capable of explaining their own reasons for taking action and who specifically reject the idea that they are being manipulated by a political party.
The movement has since grown considerably. On Tuesday 6 October, more than 250,000 people — including secondary school pupils, university students, teachers and parents — demonstrated across the country, according to figures reported by Reuters and the Associated Press. Several marches were marred by clashes, vandalism and numerous arrests. Police officers were injured, but several teenagers also sustained extremely serious injuries, and investigations into the actions of the police are now underway.
LFI, on the other hand, has very clearly chosen to stand alongside the movement. Members of the ‘Insoumis’ parliamentary group visited blockaded secondary schools, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon has issued repeated statements of support. On 30 September, he notably called on his supporters to ‘stand in the way of police brutality’. The following day, in the face of violence and criticism, he explicitly called for non-violence and greater discipline during the protests. This series of statements partly explains why his opponents accuse him of making remarks likely to further inflame an already explosive situation.
On Monday 5 October, speaking to students at HEC, Mélenchon once again reaffirmed his support for the protests whilst rejecting accusations of manipulation. In his view, no one would be capable of artificially creating a movement on such a scale. He acknowledged that some young people might get up to ‘nonsense’ and stated that he did not like ‘chaos’, whilst strongly criticising the police response.
This is precisely where the grey area lies. To claim that LFI has no influence would be hardly credible: when a major opposition party, its MPs and its main leader so openly support a protest movement, they inevitably give it a political and media platform. The choice of words matters too. In a climate where secondary schools have been vandalised or set on fire and where both police officers and protesters have been injured, speaking of ‘police brutality’ clearly does not have the same effect as simply supporting the students’ demands.
But to take it a step further and claim that LFI is behind the uprising or organising the violence requires much more solid evidence. To date, the publicly available information does not allow us to establish that the party is leading the blockades, orchestrating the clashes or controlling the thousands of young people taking part. The protests have their own dynamics, are widely shared on social media and bring together secondary school pupils with a wide range of motivations. Several sources also describe the presence of rioters or outside groups in certain clashes.
The accusation against LFI has also become a weapon in the political confrontation. It is in the government’s interest to denounce those it considers to be encouraging escalation; conversely, it is in LFI’s interest to appear as the voice of a youth that feels it is no longer being heard. Each side is thus vying to interpret the movement, with the risk that the issue that sparked it will be overshadowed by the battle between Mélenchon and his opponents: why do so many young people today consider their schools and their futures to be in such a state of disrepair that they feel compelled to take to the streets?
The government also seems to recognise that there is an underlying problem, as it has announced several initiatives concerning cancelled lessons, the condition of school premises, the organisation of the school day and the transparency of the Parcoursup university admissions system. From 7 October, a half-day of dialogue is also to be organised in secondary schools, and a national consultation with pupils is open until 23 October.
So, is LFI adding fuel to the fire? The facts suggest that Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement is heavily politicising the protests, maintaining a particularly strong presence amongst the demonstrators and sometimes using highly offensive language likely to exacerbate political confrontation. However, they do not provide sufficient evidence to claim that LFI instigated the secondary school revolt or organised the violence associated with it.
And to reduce this movement to mere manipulation by LFI would probably be to miss the point entirely. A political party may attempt to capitalise on anger, amplify it or provide it with a political outlet. But that alone is not enough to explain why hundreds of thousands of young people, teachers and parents are now taking to the streets. Perhaps the real question is not so much who is fanning the flames, but rather why there were so many embers to begin with.
