Student protests that began in and around Paris last week have since reached secondary schools across France. Talks with the education minister haven't satisfied pupils' demands to tackle teacher shortages, neglected facilities and overcrowded classrooms. As student unions call for a fresh round of protests next week, whether the movement spreads to universities could prove decisive.
"We're quite disappointed," said Marius Mesnil, co-secretary-general of the High School Student Union, after talks at the Education Ministry on Friday.
He and representatives of other student unions, parents' associations and teachers unions met Education Minister Édouard Geffray as hundreds of schools remained closed or blockaded amid protests that have become increasingly violent.
Some 170 students have been injured since the start of the movement, Geffray said on Friday evening, while more than 100 secondary schools have suffered "severe damage".
At least 65 staff members – including 40 head teachers – have also been injured. Police have arrested more than 5,000 people since protests began, most of them minors.
While Geffray said the student movement was being "held hostage" by violent instigators, the minister assured pupils he was listening to their demands. He announced a new platform to allow them to share their grievances with policy-makers, and promised to follow up on calls for absent teachers to be replaced, school buildings to be renovated and timetables reviewed.
"Dear high schoolers, I can assure you that you are being listened to, you are being heard and you are being taken seriously," Geffray said.
Mesnil acknowledged the minister had listened, but said he hadn't committed to concrete measures to ease the protests.
"We're pleased we were finally received, after protesting for 10 days and getting no response," he told RFI. "However, we received very few answers."
Student unions are urging pupils across France to turn out on Tuesday for what they have dubbed "act three" of the movement.
"The government is promising things, but we need to be sure that they're actually implemented and that they aren't just empty promises designed to silence the movement and let it run out of steam," said Mesnil. "So we’re keeping up the pressure on 6 October – everyone out on the streets."
Student solidarity
Whether the high school movement will maintain momentum depends largely on whether it finds common ground with the higher education sector, according to Stéphane Sirot, a historian specialising in strikes and trade unionism.
"Will the movement take off significantly in universities? If they come together, it would mean trade unions would inevitably have to take a stance, even offer some form of support," he told RFI.
Sirot pointed to the example of 2006, when hundreds of thousands of young people took part in protests against government proposals to make it easier to fire employees under 26 in a bid to encourage hiring.
The movement, which began in high schools before being joined by university students and trade unions, eventually forced the government to scrap the reform.
The current protests could follow a similar trajectory, Sirot suggested, "although there is one major difference: this time there is a multitude of demands, and some of them could contribute to the search for a compromise".
'We share the same demands'
While protests have taken place at some French universities, for now the movement remains strongest in high schools.
On Thursday, the biggest day of action so far, some 30 university campuses were blockaded compared to 222 secondary schools. Another 800 schools reported disruptions.
Eloïse Lefebvre Milon, one of the leaders of the Student Union which represents people in higher education, told RFI her group was calling on university students to stand with high schoolers.
"We share the same demands, namely a bigger budget for young people, because today they represent the future of the country and we cannot leave them in such a state of underfunding," she said.
"Young people at secondary school and university are the ones who will be working tomorrow, the ones who will have to tackle the climate crisis and the social crisis... We have to give them an education that is equal to these challenges."
Several university student unions, as well as France's largest federation of parents' associations for public schools and at least six trade unions in the education sector, say they will join the demonstrations on 6 October.
Mesnil said students were seeking to join forces with teachers to draw attention to chronic underfunding for public education.
"We're trying to bring about this convergence of struggles between teachers and secondary school pupils because, ultimately, we face the same issues: namely, we don't have enough resources and the government treats us with contempt... We are trying to unite our fights as much as possible to make our position even stronger."
