One of the most famous slogans in France’s May 1968 student protests declared “L’imagination au pouvoir” (Power to the imagination). In a postwar context of steady growth, the ’68ers dreamed of shaping an egalitarian society, freed from the social constraints of their parents’ generation. Nearly five decades on, in a very different economic climate, the goal for most of the tens of thousands of pupils disrupting schools across the country is more modest. As one placard on display had it: “I’d like to be worrying about my maths exam, not my future”.
A huge turnout of hundreds of thousands of protesters on Tuesday – a number that included many parents and teachers – confirmed the depth of resentment at years of budget cuts leading to crumbling school buildings, overcrowded classes and chronic staff shortages. Other complaints point to a lack of resources to deal with the now frequent heatwaves that make classrooms intolerable in May and June, and the unfairness of an opaque, algorithmically driven selection process for universities.
