As American high schoolers experience their teenage years taking advanced classes, boosting their extracurriculars, and preparing for college applications, students the same age across France worry if their schools will even survive the coming years. Overcrowded classrooms, understaffed schools, and rodent infestations destroy the high school experience for countless Parisians. From rural, secluded regions of the country to the nation’s capital city, young adults flood the streets advocating for the quality of their basic education.
Similar to student-organized protests in America against the actions of ICE, French students posted videos on social media staging protests to bring awareness to the deterioration of their schools. In mid-September, students in Créteil, a southeastern suburb in Paris, planned a demonstration bringing awareness to the crumbling infrastructure and flaws in their experience at school. As a result, countless other students at schools throughout Paris established similar protests that dominoed into a nationwide rebellion toward the end of September.
While the purpose of these revolts is meant to bring awareness to issues within the French educational system, French education minister Édouard Geffray states that some students target their teachers and school administrators physically. The protests began as peaceful acts of defiance; however, there have been numerous reports of injuries between protesters and police officers, as well as the detainment of about 7,000 people, many of whom are minors. In the BBC’s interview with 15-year-old student Kaspar, there are strangers violently disrupting protests. “These people are coming just to shoot fireworks at police officers and they run. This is not the message we want to send to the world,” he says when addressing the root of his unease when facing fully armed police officers.
The movement peaked on social media when a photo of St.-Denis Pierrefitte-sur-Seine mayor Bally Bagayoko stepped between protesters and officers, forcefully pushing their shield against them, which went viral. This is especially significant because, following Bagayoko’s election in March of this year, he was heavily and indirectly criticized in the media because of his race. Many far-right news outlets manufactured their coverage of him into a smear campaign. Bagayoko has notably addressed racism in France in rallies, an effort not commonly seen in French politics, according to French journalist Rokhaya Diallo. In spite of these factors, his contributions to the student protests display a courageous leader advocating for the livelihood of citizens across the country—a trait rarely shown in politicians across the globe.
Additionally, these protests are sparking a broader movement within France, with citizens of all ages using the media to bring awareness to other systemic issues in the country. France is now being hit with movements of people searching for an answer to economic and immigration problems as well. Many citizens have grown frustrated due to rising living costs and fuel prices, targeting the nation’s government as a whole, rather than just the education system. But the widening of the demonstrations has brought negative media coverage from foreign countries such as the United States and Russia, two countries run by significantly conservative leaders.
During President Donald Trump’s campaigns leading up to the midterm elections in the U.S., he compared the political unrest in France to the agenda of the democratic party. In his rally in Kansas, he claims that the ongoing foreign crisis was created by a group of migrants who are against Christianity and Western civilization as a whole. He continues to report on the French exigency as a direct result of immigration, stating it in interviews and posting as such on his public social media accounts. His claims are not met with evidence to support them.
Furthermore, many European media outlets manipulated the French protests to benefit their right-wing intentions. “A separate internal assessment—compiled by France’s foreign ministry and also seen by Reuters—found that social media accounts linked to Israel and to the US MAGA movement also pushed ‘hostile narratives’ around the riots, linking them to radical Islamism and migration,” says France 24, an international news station based in Paris. Moreover, countries that control the media entering and exiting the region, such as Russia and China, can use the uprisings to ingrain negative outlooks on the French citizens and create general fear of rebellion through deception.
Despite the wide variety of effects that these protests have caused, the actions of these young adults and children have spread an extremely significant message: this generation is ready for change, and they are willing to fight for it. In a time where it is incredibly simple to take advantage of power—especially in a government position—it is important that individuals are willing to fight for what’s right. The domino effect that has occurred in France has now brought awareness to a multitude of societal issues, domestically and internationally. So instead of only focusing on the internal causes and effects of the uprising, the subtle manipulation by governments and media outlets of information from the event should be highlighted as well.