The Defeat of Thought. Alain Finkielkraut and the student protests

Is the protest organised by sixth-form students driven by legitimate demands, or does it instead represent the defeat of critical thinking? “The sixth-form students taking part in the strikes are protesting against a lack of resources, the failure to replace teachers and the deterioration of their schools. They are demanding a round figure of 10 billion to bring the movement to an end. Meanwhile, the most determined among them are looting or setting fire to secondary schools and attacking teachers. How, under these circumstances, can one blame those who have only just obtained their teaching qualifications and are, in ever-greater numbers, quickly throwing in the towel or even choosing a different path from the outset? The contrast between the substance of the secondary school pupils’ demands and the means chosen to assert them is staggering,” says the philosopher and member of the Académie française, Alain Finkielkraut, to Le Figaro.

Is this protest part of a wider crisis in the education system and the transmission of knowledge? “The demonstrations come just a few days after the publication of the PISA rankings, which lay bare the collapse in educational standards in France,” notes Finkielkraut, before adding: “To understand what has happened, we need to go back to Pierre Bourdieu and the books he published with Jean-Claude Passeron, Les Héritiers and La Reproduction. The two sociologists denounce, with the support of statistics, the great lie of meritocracy. Under the pretext of following Condorcet’s famous maxim, ‘free peoples know of no other means of distinction than talents and virtues’, selection, say Bourdieu and Passeron, transforms social heritage into individual merit. It leads students from well-to-do families to believe they are the best because they achieve the highest marks, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds to believe they have only themselves to blame for the fate assigned to them, since most of them fail to achieve a pass mark. The education system has heeded Bourdieu and has sought, reform after reform, to rectify the injustices he highlighted. The unified education system was established. Failing a year and the consequent need to repeat it have virtually disappeared. The school-leaving certificate has become a human right. And the fight against inequality has led to weaker pupils being admitted into higher-level classes and, subsequently, to the curriculum being adapted to their abilities so as not to leave anyone behind. The result: standards have plummeted. The compassionate and remedial policy born out of reading Les Héritiers penalises, first and foremost, precisely those to whom it is meant to extend a helping hand. The others can always get by thanks to private education or private tuition.”

“Social reproduction,” continues Finkielkraut, “is guaranteed precisely thanks to the measures adopted to put an end to it. And why stop now? To eliminate the advantage enjoyed by the heirs once and for all, everyone has been disinherited. Students have been given a voice even before they have been taught the language; the humanities have been abolished; the new elites cheerfully repeat that ‘France has its strengths’; and who would imagine today a President of the Republic quoting a few lines by Paul Éluard, as Georges Pompidou did at a press conference in the wake of Gabrielle Russier’s suicide? When Ministers of Education attempt to reintroduce a semblance of rigour and selectivity, they are disavowed by their successors (…). What secondary school pupils should be demanding is a return to the humanities and chronological history, a strengthening of the study of the French language, and time to read. Instead, they spend more and more hours with their eyes glued to their mobile phones and want a lighter timetable.”

Is this movement part of the legacy of May ’68, or is it of a radically new nature? How does it differ from traditional ‘student folklore’? According to Finkielkraut, ‘in May ’68 a great deal of nonsense was spoken or written, but there were also some gems: “Enough with deeds, let’s get on with words”. And it would never have occurred to us to burn down or ransack schools. We were, to use Philippe Muray’s brilliant expression, ‘Panurge’s rebels’; we were not vandals. At that time I was young – that is to say, a conformist. I went with the flow, did what everyone else did, was outraged as people were outraged, rebelled as people rebelled. And then, thanks to books, I grew up early. I broke free from the tide of my generation, learnt to think for myself and, well before reaching old age, came to appreciate this reflection by Fellini: ‘I wonder what happened at some point, what sort of curse might have befallen our generation, because all of a sudden we began to regard young people as the messengers of who knows what absolute truth. Young people… Young people… Young people. It was almost as if they’d arrived aboard spaceships’.”

Is the comparison with the riots of 2005 and 2009 valid? “What seems valid to me is to highlight the growing role of new technologies in demonstrations and riots. People see in real time what is happening elsewhere and do the same. They do not want to be left behind; they do not want to be excluded. Violence spreads and will continue to spread ever more through mimetic contagion,” Finkielkraut explains to Le Figaro.

The government condemns the exploitation of the movement by La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left-wing party. Is this, too, anything new? “La France insoumise courts the protesters by raising the bar on their demands whilst, at the same time, playing the anti-Semitism card to persuade the inhabitants of the Republic’s ‘lost territories’ to vote in its favour. This is a strict application of the 2011 recommendation by the Fondation Terra Nova. Since the working classes are hopelessly nostalgic for the France of yesteryear, a new majority must be forged, comprising graduates, young people, minorities and women fighting for equality. Judging by the keffiyehs and Palestinian flags appearing at secondary school student demonstrations, the coalition is taking shape. Will it ever become the majority? “We must hope that the majority of the French people, shaken by the urban violence, will punish Mélenchon in 2027,” says Finkielkraut.

During the week of commemorations for the 7 October massacre, Palestinian flags and pro-Gaza slogans accompanied the student violence. What does this ubiquity tell us about a student movement whose demands seem very far removed from this issue? ‘On some posters displayed in secondary schools, one could read: “7 October, a day of celebration”.’ In an essay entitled ‘The Grey Zone’, Primo Levi writes: ‘It is young people, above all, who want things to be clear, distinctions to be sharp. Having little experience of the world, they do not like ambiguity’. For many teenagers, the Arab-Israeli conflict boils down to the oppression exerted by a bloodthirsty state upon the new wretched of the earth, namely the Palestinians.”