The struggle of high school and university students is the struggle of the entire working class (leaflet)

From Nepal to Morocco, from Madagascar to Peru, Gen Z is taking to the streets. Everywhere, a generation is worried about its future. Everywhere, the same refusal to suffer attacks in silence. Today, it is in France that the youth are rising up.

It all started on September 17th at a high school in Créteil, in the Val-de-Marne department. Within a week, the movement had spread to high schools across the country. The anger is immense: “There are 34 of us in the class, sometimes we don't even have a chair"; "Last year, a piece of the ceiling fell on us during English class. Sometimes it rains in the classrooms”. No teachers, dilapidated buildings, the constant fear of the Parcoursup (the university admissions process), and immense anxiety about the future and the precarious situation awaiting all young people after their studies: "They bring us police officers every day, but they never bring us solutions!"

Faced with anger, the baton!

To these legitimate demands, the state responds by unleashing repression. Tear gas, flash-ball rounds, rugby tackles, chokeholds, police custody… In Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, a police officer fired a grenade launcher at point-blank range into a high school student's face, breaking all his upper teeth. In Tours, a young man was seriously injured in the eye. High school students spent 24 hours in police custody, mistreated and humiliated, before being brought before a judge. On October 1st, in a single day, nearly 2,000 arrests! 65 teachers and 170 students have already been injured since the beginning of the movement. The sinister Nuñez (France’s Minister of the Interior) doesn't even try to hide it: "The proportionate use of force must never inhibit action to restore order." What a disgrace! How can we not be outraged seeing these robocops beating up 14 or 15 year olds?

To justify this appalling repression, the government seizes upon every rubbish fire, every incident, widely and complacently broadcast on television. The goal is clear: to smear the movement, terrorise young people involved in the struggle and those who might want to join the fight, frighten parents, and isolate young people from other generations.

The high school students who were beaten are the children of office workers, nurses, the unemployed, salespeople, factory workers, delivery drivers, teachers, and cashiers. In short, the children of the working class. So, faced with repression, our entire class must stand in solidarity! Not a platonic solidarity, with empty words or petitions: solidarity in the struggle! Students are leading the way: in Lyon, they joined the movement "in solidarity with the repressed high school students." At the Paul-Éluard high school in Saint-Denis, teachers formed a human chain to protect students from the police. The best way to protect high school students from the police is to strengthen the movement and expand it!

Let's not fall into the trap of pointless violence! We can understand the rage of those who are fed up with being treated with contempt. But burning garbage cans and teachers being pelted with stones don't bother the government. They suit it! They provide an excuse to strike. They frighten those who might join the movement. They make people forget our demands. The strength of a movement isn't destruction. It's numbers, unity, discussion, solidarity. It's deciding and reflecting together, in mass meetings, on the actions to take.

Youth in struggle are the working class of tomorrow!

What high school and university students are denouncing today is something the entire working class experiences: staff shortages, a daily life that deteriorates year after year, and the neglect of public services. High school students are also protesting job cuts in the national education system, and the working conditions of their teachers and teaching assistants: "We're here to support the teachers, who are underpaid, have overcrowded classrooms, and not enough staff"; "Pay those who teach us to read!"

Studying is becoming increasingly expensive. According to the FAGE student union, the average cost of tuition for the 2026 academic year is 3,240 Euros per student: a record high! The government even wanted to introduce registration fees for BTS (Advanced Vocational Training Certificate) programs and preparatory classes. Faced with public outcry, it backed down. This proves that the struggle pays. But it's just a drop in the ocean to quell the anger. Parcoursup, Mon Master (a French university application platform), and the entire education system are sorting young people to turn them into fodder for the bosses. And the result? More than one in five young working adults is unemployed. Many others are stuck in a cycle of internships, short-term contracts, temporary work, and odd-jobs. Job insecurity has become the norm.

The government claims there's no money. The 2027 budget will eliminate 1,588 teaching positions. Nothing to renovate schools after a disastrous summer. Even more selective admissions to university. This government of profiteers even wants to abolish the 1 Euro student meal program! But they find 6.4 billion Euros for the military. "We're not cutting back on youth," the Minister of Education dares to say. Yes, they are! They're cutting back on schools to pay for weapons! As a sign in Créteil proclaimed: "They give 6 billion Euros to the military, but not a cent for high schools!"

Everywhere, the same feeling of being fed up

These demands resonate with everyone. That's why the movement is so massive. On October 1st, 1,020 high schools and 30 universities were mobilised. The anger is affecting major cities: Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Rennes… But also smaller towns, like Felletin in the Creuse region or Tulle in the Corrèze region. And naturally, this anger is everywhere, in every sector. On September 29th, civil servants went on strike for higher wages: teachers, healthcare workers, tax officials, and employees of France Travail (the French employment agency). At the RATP (Paris public transport authority), an indefinite strike for wages began on September 28th. On September 15th, nearly 60% of EDF (French electricity company) employees went on strike, a record turnout. At TotalEnergies, a strike is planned for October 8th. In the national education system, calls for a strike have been issued for October 6th, alongside high school students. Everywhere, prices are rising, wages aren't keeping pace, and working conditions are deteriorating.

This discontent doesn't stop at national borders. In Spain, 14,000 Airbus workers have just completed three months of struggle for their wages, making their decisions in massive assemblies. In Belgium, on October 1st, students in the Liège region blocked their schools: "We're mainly here for our teachers, who are under attack from these measures." In Germany, on September 25th, tens of thousands of high school students went on strike in about a hundred cities against the return of mandatory military service. Everywhere, the same logic prevails: the crisis and the war are something that workers and their children must pay for!

What perspective? Lessons from the CPE

The government is counting on fear and division. How can we make it back down? Twenty years ago, another generation showed the way. "What's happening today reminds me of the high school student movement against the CPE," said a teacher in Seine-Saint-Denis. In 2006, the fight against the CPE, a contract that allowed young workers to be discarded like used Kleenex, forced the government to back down. That movement is full of lessons.

First, the young people took their struggle into their own hands. Their general assemblies were genuine forums for debate and decision-making. Voting was by show of hands. Delegates were elected, were accountable and could be replaced at any time. These assemblies were open to everyone: employees, the unemployed, retirees, parents. They didn't let the unions make decisions for them.

Then they understood that isolated, they would lose. "If we stay isolated, we'll be eaten alive," the students said. So the general assemblies sent delegations to the companies. They called for demonstrations on Saturday so that employees could attend. And employees, the unemployed, and retirees came, ever more numerous, by the millions, into the streets.

Faced with police provocations, the general assemblies refused to respond with sterile violence that would have divided the movement and stifled solidarity. The government did not back down because of a few broken windows. It backed down because the struggle was actively spreading to the entire working class, and because the debates and decisions in the general assemblies were the lifeblood of this expansion.

This is the path we must take again. In Val-d'Oise, high school students and teachers met in an assembly before demonstrating together on September 29th: "It feels good to know we can unite, and even more so when we see that some teachers are there to defend us." It's a start. We must hold general assemblies everywhere, open to everyone (high school students, university students, employees, the unemployed, retirees), where we can discuss and decide. We must reach out en masse to workers in businesses, hospitals, factories, and neighbouring high schools. We must reject the traps of violence and division. We must refuse to scatter our anger, each of us in our own corner, with ‘our own’ day of action, confined to ‘our own’ sector. One single, unifying slogan: no to precariousness and insecurity! Everywhere, in every sector! In schools as in hospitals, in offices as in factories.

After 2006, the movement against the CPE was erased from memory. This time, let's not let that happen. We must discuss, learn from the experience, and stay connected, even when the struggle ends. Because the attacks will not stop. Capitalism in crisis has nothing to offer young people but insecurity, war, and the destruction of the planet. Our only strength is our unity, across sectors, generations, and borders.

High school students, university students, employees, the unemployed, retirees:
all in the same fight!

International Communist Current, October 2, 2026