Say what you will about France’s high schools, they still produce world-class slogan writers.
asserted
they → say → writers
Here’s a brief selection spotted during three weeks of blockades and marches over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling buildings:
“Pas d’avenir, pas de calme” (No future, no calm).
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selection → ’ → shortages
“Vous détruisez notre futur, on bloque votre présent” (You destroy our future, we block your present).
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we → destroy → present
A couple more: “Nos lycées tombent en ruines, comme nos espoirs” (Our schools, like our hopes, are falling into ruin”).
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schools → fall → ruin
“On n’est pas mal éduqués, on n’est pas écoutés” (We’re not badly brought up, we’re just not being listened to).
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we → n’est → ?
The protests, which continued this week with more than 160,000 on the streets on Tuesday, might be over very material problems – but beneath them there clearly lies an altogether more existential worry.
uncertain
worry → continue → them
This generation fears its future will be one of diminishing prospects, poorly paid, unstable jobs, unaffordable living costs and steadily decaying public infrastructure – the end, in short, of the basic socioeconomic security their parents, mostly, enjoyed.
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parents → fear → security
That was the central theme of a 30-second Instagram post I recorded last week with the Guardian’s social media team and that, at time of writing, had been watched almost 540,000 times – with young people in France the largest single group of viewers.
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people → record → viewers
The same core concerns underlie youth protests elsewhere – notably, ongoing mass housing demonstrations in Spain, where the twentysomethings of Madrid and Barcelona are in revolt at the monthly rental on a one-bed flat costing an entire monthly median salary.
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twentysomethings → underlie → salary
In France, teenagers in Seine-Saint-Denis, a low-income area in the north of Paris, show reporters pictures of broken chairs and desks, holes in walls, leaking ceilings, mould, shattered toilets and defective audiovisual equipment.
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teenagers → show → walls
Some have gone months without key teachers.
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Some → go → teachers
As Kitty Sayers, who went to school in France, explained, France’s republic “was born of insurrection and has never forgotten it …
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republic → go → it
The language of rights, citizenship and collective power is woven into French education.”
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language → weave → education
This means that in French schools protest is “taught as a legally framed, fundamental right and a civic responsibility”.
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protest → mean → right
More than 250 pupils have been injured, along with about 100 school staff and 750 police.
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pupils → injure → staff
One teen has lost a hand from a stun grenade, another the sight in one eye, a third his teeth.
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third → lose → eye
More than 6,000 people – almost all minors – have been detained.
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people → detain → ?
After a public outcry, the interior minister last week suspended the use of stun grenades.
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minister → suspend → grenades
But as Alexander Hurst observed, when pupils complain about the state of their schools “and the response is riot police, the government has lost the plot”.
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government → observe → plot
If the government hoped public opinion would be on its side, it miscalculated.
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it → hop → side
Teachers’ and other unions, parents and university students have marched with the pupils, and a poll this week showed 57% of the public approved of the protests, with 33% opposed.
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% → march → protests
They come at a particularly delicate time for France’s political establishment.
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They → come → establishment
Presidential elections to replace Emmanuel Macron are due next spring, and without a parliamentary majority his government is caught in legislative deadlock.
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government → replace → deadlock
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and the radical-left La France Insoumise of Jean-Luc Mélenchon are weaponising the protests, the former castigating an out-of-control youth, the latter an out-of-control police, and both blaming centrist incompetence.
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both → weaponise → incompetence
As Philip Inman pointed out, with a debt-to-GDP ratio and a budget deficit both among the highest in the EU, France has no cash to spare – and the markets are watching.
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markets → point → cash
So while cost-cutting will only provoke more unrest, the absence of it could trigger a boycott of French bonds, or even a default and bailout (although as the economist Paul Krugman says, France “may have crossed from too big to fail to too big to save”).
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France → provoke → big
Ultimately, there seems little doubt France will have to make some of the same painful adjustments to bring its debt back under control that Italy, Spain and Greece made a decade or more ago – and to which French public reaction could be dramatic.
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reaction → seem → which
We began with slogans; let’s end with some.
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’s → begin → some
The best-known French youth protest – a revolution, more or less – was, of course, May 1968.
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protest → know → course
Comparing its iconic posters with those of today’s demonstrating school pupils is instructive.
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Comparing → compare → pupils
In 1968, there was “Sous les pavés, la plage” (Beneath the cobblestones, the beach); “L’imagination au pouvoir” (Put imagination in charge); “L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire” (Boredom is counter-revolutionary).
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Boredom → be → charge
Those, you can see, were slogans born out of infinite possibility: a generation that, in overthrowing the old social hierarchies, never doubted its material survival.
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that → see → survival
May 68 was about blowing open the doors of a rigid, outmoded society to grasp a bright future.
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May → blow → future
Today’s students are fighting to stop the doors slamming shut on them altogether.
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doors → fight → them
Guardian live-streamed event – Hacking Tech
Big tech and AI pose immense challenges for our societies and democracies.
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tech → stream → societies
The Guardian is partnering with French news investigative outlet Mediapart, on a live event called Hacking Tech in Paris at 1pm CEST on Saturday 17 October.
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Guardian → partner → Saturday
Speakers include Naomi Klein, Emily M Bender, Paris Marx, Sönke Iwersen and the Guardian’s UK technology editor, Rob Booth.
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Speakers → include → Klein
The event is free and open to the public but don’t worry if you can’t be there: the debates will be live-streamed without a paywall on Mediapart’s YouTube channel.
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debates → worry → channel
The Aporia
