The high school and university student movement in France: A compass for the class struggle

A wave of discontent and struggle is sweeping across the world, particularly among young people.

The young generation of workers is taking up the struggle en masse!
In Belgium, students and lecturers are demonstrating. In Germany, young people are opposing plans for conscription and are planning mass mobilisations in many cities. The same anger is being expressed on the streets of several major cities in Italy, Spain and Portugal. These movements are a continuation of a series of youth protests that have been taking place since last year in Asia (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka…), Latin America (Peru, Mexico…) and Africa (Morocco). And beyond the youth, workers are also mobilising: strikes and mass demonstrations in Colombia, a metro strike in Buenos Aires, and work stoppages in Indonesia and China against unpaid wages, factory closures and restructuring.

This profound shift in mindset had already become apparent in Britain in 2022, during the ‘Summer of Discontent’, which proclaimed ‘Enough is enough!’ (‘That’s enough!’). A whole series of massive workers’ struggles then followed, confirming the new dynamic of the class struggle: in France against pension reforms; in the US in the automotive and healthcare sectors; in Sweden and elsewhere; and most recently in Spain at Airbus. The situation in France is thus part of a broader international context. But the struggle of secondary school pupils and students in that country takes on a particular significance that is far more profound in historical terms.

The movement in France, too, had been simmering for a long time, as the situation in the education sector – as everywhere else – had deteriorated sharply. Owing to the acceleration and deepening of the economic crisis, the deterioration in working conditions and the restrictions that have accumulated over decades, a widespread frustration and a determination not to put up with it any longer has taken hold, particularly among young people who are largely in precarious circumstances and increasingly anxious about their future.

While the initial demands centred on the lack of resources and teachers, and on the opaque selection process of ‘Parcoursup’, they more fundamentally express a rejection of precariousness and war. As stated on a schoolgirl’s placard in Créteil: “They give six billion to the military, not a penny to secondary schools”. In short, from the very outset, secondary school pupils and students have voiced concerns that are ultimately those of the entire working class: the lack of resources, the deterioration of living and working conditions, the rejection of the crisis and poverty, and the rejection of war and environmental destruction. In essence, a deep-seated anxiety in the face of the capitalist system’s lack of prospects and future!

Taking the initiative and a determination to expand the struggle

In France, the secondary school students’ movement began spontaneously on 21 September at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil. Images of the blockades and barricades immediately circulated on social media, fuelling a wave of protests across the Île-de-France region and then throughout the country. Elsewhere, such as in Germany and Italy, young people chanted “we want to do as they do in France!”. At the time of the strike and demonstrations on Tuesday 29 September in the public sector, when teachers were marching in the processions, the secondary school pupils were already highly visible and very much present, and many schools were blockaded.

From the very outset, in an attempt to nip this movement of anger in the bud, the state launched an unprecedented crackdown on young people, some as young as 14 or 15, injuring and maiming them, and indiscriminately carrying out a spate of arrests, police custody and legal proceedings. But this policy of savage intimidation, aimed at creating a climate of terror to deter secondary school pupils from fighting back, has, on the contrary, sparked widespread outrage and galvanised them. Young people from the suburbs, city centres and small rural towns – all working-class children – were now fighting together. Parents and teachers also expressed their solidarity and support for the young people, equally outraged and opposed to the violence and terror meted out by the democratic state.

Above all, this brutal policy sparked support and solidarity from university students, swelling the ranks and propelling the movement into a new dimension. On 1 October, numerous universities were mobilised and open general assemblies were attempting to organise and establish a structure. As a sign of the movement’s proletarian nature, secondary school pupils and university students presented themselves as workers or future workers (many of them are, in fact, already in paid employment, doing arduous, poorly paid and precarious jobs). This was a force that brought to mind the experience of May ’68 and the more recent CPE protests of 2006; but it also offered a glimpse, albeit still somewhat vague, of a challenge to the capitalist system, with the idea that a ‘revolution is necessary’. Posters and leaflets were produced and distributed in railway stations and around workplaces, openly calling on workers to join the struggle: “we need a mass movement joined by all students and workers, because that is the only thing that can truly lead us to victory” (leaflet dated 12 October calling for a general assembly at Jussieu).

Such a level of reflection testifies to genuine political maturity – a clear step forward enabling us, through practical action, to overcome the dead ends of the corporatist and trade-unionist isolation of past decades, and the isolation of sector-by-sector and company-by-company strikes.

In order to break up the movement and attempt to stifle this reflection – while also capitalising on the school holidays – the Minister for Education, Édouard Geffray, ordered the administrative closure of schools and universities and introduced distance learning with a view to dispersing and demobilising young people. At the same time, autonomous general assemblies were obstructed by the police, depriving secondary school pupils and students of meeting spaces, forcing them to improvise outside the school grounds, often compelling them to gather in the streets or on squares (as was the case in Paris at the Panthéon or outside the gates of the Sorbonne). Arrests and tensions with the police were on the rise, though this did not discourage the participants, who were joined in even greater numbers by teachers offering their support. At the Lycée Paul Éluard in Saint-Denis, for instance, teachers formed a human chain to protect the pupils from the police. But the trade unions also took advantage of the situation to offer their own protection: this was, in reality, a way of attempting to discreetly regain control behind the scenes, while many university and secondary school students rejected any ‘co-optation’ and attempts to take control of the struggle.

The movement, which was beginning to lose momentum, was counting on 17 October to regain strength through the presence of workers. But their mass turnout failed to materialise, and the presence of the ‘yellow vests’, which carried no real weight, offered no real reinforcement, as no strikes or general assemblies were taking place in the workplaces. The planned violence of the repressive forces could then be unleashed against more vulnerable demonstrators, who were kettled and tear-gassed, fired upon with rubber bullets and dispersal grenades, and subjected to brutal treatment that stood in scandalous contrast to the police’s passivity in the face of ‘rioters’ and ‘looters’.

A despicable ploy designed to undermine the movement

Even if the government had underestimated the size of the 17 October demonstration, the fact remains that its police and CRS deliberately and conspicuously allowed rioters to infiltrate the crowd (who, it should be noted, are a small minority: 2 per cent of participants, often aided by police officers disguised as demonstrators) in order to subsequently exploit scenes of chaos aimed at discrediting the movement and intimidating the demonstrators. This deliberate act is undeniable, and the claim that the police were genuinely ‘overwhelmed’ by the looters is highly implausible (even if it is true that tensions and confrontations were intense and sustained). Moreover, that very evening, television channels were showing endless loops of footage depicting chaos, fires, the destruction of symbolic sites (such as Limoges Town Hall in flames), ransacked shops, smashed shop windows and looting… thereby saturating the airwaves without providing the slightest information about the reality of the movement itself.

The general assemblies, the 800,000 demonstrators, the young people’s decisions and their demands – none of this could be seen or heard. To the extent that even the least informed viewers, who had not taken part in the demonstration, might have thought that, on that day, only these scenes of chaos had taken place and that the school pupils and students were, if not ‘thugs’ and ‘rioters’, then simply irresponsible individuals who encouraged nothing but such violence… Indeed, this is the image of a futile and destructive movement that the foreign media were able to convey, obscuring the mass of demonstrators, their demands and any reference to the movement’s reality, which held out hope.

This campaign thus enabled the bourgeoisie and the defenders of the existing order to:
– justify the brutality of law enforcement and the terror, repression and maiming.
– impose curfews and bans on demonstrations.
– completely obscure the demands without having to respond to them.
– to deter and disillusion participants, to divide them, and to prevent the mobilisation from growing…

The risk of isolation

But such propaganda and manoeuvres on the part of the ruling class could not have been carried out so easily had the movement itself not exhibited a number of weaknesses which we must have the clarity of mind to criticise.

While there was a tendency within the general assemblies to favour reflection and the deepening of debate with a view to extending the movement to the working class, there was another tendency prioritising immediate and spectacular action, with proposals that resonated to some extent, such as that of a ‘march on Matignon’ on 13 October. Launching this sort of minority action, however, is a real trap. Such an approach merely attacks symbols in a more or less blind manner, under the illusion of bringing down the system or challenging the state, when in reality it allows the state to exploit the situation and divert the protesters’ attention away from the only force capable of making it back down: the expansion of the struggle and the mass involvement of workers! Vandalising a public building – such as a town hall, a school or a bus shelter – does nothing to force the state to back down, nor does it strengthen the movement or the protesters. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it runs counter to solidarity and to the need for collective reflection on the truly effective means of struggle: taking control of the struggle entirely autonomously, self-organisation and its expansion. These completely reckless acts aimed at vandalism, destruction and looting therefore only serve to expose and needlessly subject protesters to repression, further isolating and dividing them, while failing to strengthen their class consciousness—something that can only be achieved through debate and collective decisions in favour of broadening the struggle.

Although many students have gone to great lengths to join forces with the workers, the movement has faced major difficulties in broadening the struggle. Even though people of different generations took to the streets in solidarity, the workers were unable to mobilise on a massive scale. There was certainly a wave of sympathy from the workers, but this remained purely theoretical and did not truly translate into action in the form of a massive, united struggle, strikes or participation in the general assemblies – the only ways to further strengthen the struggle. As we have repeatedly stated in our leaflets: a movement that fails to spread will always eventually decline and die out.

From the very start of the movement, the trade unions did everything in their power to prevent this unification by announcing a mobilisation for… 5 November! The students, who weren’t taken in, responded with the quip: “5 November of which year?”. Taking advantage of the workers’ weakness to drive the point home, while taking care to delay the possibility of fighting together for as long as possible, the trade unions and the government were banking on the holidays and the movement fizzling out.

Faced with the government’s failure to respond to the aspirations of the young people fighting back, the trade unions had no choice but to up the ante in order to channel the anger and capitalise on it as best they could. Thus, the CGT, through Sophie Binet, following the failure of the 21 October meeting at Matignon, announced once again that “the inter-union coalition was calling for a general and cross-sector strike on 5 November”.

Does this mean we should turn our backs on 5 November? No! Wherever workers mobilise, the future working class would be well advised to be present and to reach out to them. But it would be illusory to expect this day to broaden the struggle. All the more so as the state is constantly seeking to undermine the movement from within, notably by encouraging the presence of far-right organisations, such as the Uni or the Cocarde étudiante, both at roadblocks and in the protest marches (e.g. Nice, Rouen, Montpellier, etc.), to intimidate and even physically confront demonstrators. Extending the struggle will therefore not be easy; it will not come about simply through a date set by the trade unions weeks in advance. It will stem from the ability of young people and workers to hold their own general assemblies, both on university campuses and in workplaces, and to open these up to one another.

What perspective?

At the time of writing, despite the police crackdown and media smear campaign, the mobilisation on 24 October proved to be massive. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets with determination and a desire to come together. In the week leading up to this day of mobilisation, general assemblies attended by several hundred people were held in universities, demonstrating that the movement’s tendency to reflect collectively on the means of struggle and how to expand it remains very much alive. Faced with the crisis of chronic overproduction and the historic collapse of the capitalist system, the choices are therefore clear: the working class must fight back! The brutal deterioration is affecting the entire working class simultaneously on an international scale, while the widespread outbreak of wars continues to grow and intensify.

The movement in France is, today, the epicentre of the struggles of the global working class. Not merely because it is a powerful source of inspiration, but in the sense that the practical lessons it provides and the level of consciousness it has attained place it at the vanguard of the struggle through its methods of action: taking control through sovereign general assemblies open to all, and the attempt to extend the movement to other workers. This represents an important step in the process of maturation and politicisation of the global working class. It is merely the beginning of an open-ended, long-term process that contains within it the seeds of the conditions for a revolutionary mass strike.

Admittedly, the movement has not yet succeeded in reaching out to workers, and this is its main limitation. But what places it at the forefront is not its immediate result. It is the fact that the need for extension has been understood, debated and voted on in open assemblies, and that concrete attempts have been made to reach out to workers. School pupils and students are paving the way for future struggles that will be broader, more numerous and more widespread, leading to the realisation that the working class continues to constitute a social force, in the process of reclaiming its class identity. Even if the road ahead will still be very long and difficult, such progress shows that the class struggle is still very much on the agenda. This tremendous movement is only the beginning. It provides a valuable key, paving the way for the future. In this respect, it merely raises a global issue, one that cannot be resolved in France alone, but only by the entire international working class.

WH, 24 October 2026