French sixth-formers are not giving up. But the left is pushing them on, alongside the yellow vests

Paris. French sixth-formers say they have received ‘nothing but crumbs’ from the government and are threatening to block schools indefinitely if their demands are not met. Yesterday in France, Act V of the student mobilisation took place – a protest now in its fourth week, launched to highlight the shortage of teachers, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated school buildings and insufficient investment. “They’re not listening to us, so we’ll go and find them,” wrote the Union étudiante, one of the student unions leading the mobilisation, on X.

In the draft budget for 2027, presented on 1 October by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, there is an additional allocation of 1.2 billion euros compared with last year for the education sector. To alleviate the chronic shortage of teachers, Lecornu has also promised to urgently deploy 3,000 supply teachers to secondary schools in the most critical situations and has stated his willingness to amend the Budget Bill on the basis of “some of the proposals put forward” by secondary school pupils via the collaborative platform Agora (launched by the government to enable secondary school pupils to voice their difficulties, expectations and proposals for improving the education system). However, the gap between the government’s announcements and the students’ demands remains vast.

The Union syndicale lycénne, a student union aligned with the radical left, is calling for a €10 billion plan to renovate and modernise school facilities, as well as the abolition of Parcoursup, the university admissions guidance platform, which is accused of causing severe anxiety and inequality. Both measures are strongly supported by France insoumise (LFI), the far-left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “Parcoursup must be abolished,” Mélenchon stated on Sunday, arguing that the platform widens the gap between Paris and the banlieues. “Parcoursup is the opposite of social selection. There have never been so many graduates from Île-de-France studying in central Paris today,” replied Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste remotely yesterday, during Question Time in the National Assembly.

According to police figures, 161,500 students took to the streets across France for Act V (41,500 in Paris alone). These figures are down on previous rounds of protests (on Tuesday 6 October, for Act I of the protests, there were 266,000 across the country), but with “violence intensifying”, in the words of Education Minister Édouard Geffray. Today, a Maison Nicolas shop – a chain specialising in the sale of wines – was vandalised near Duroc metro station, whilst a car was set alight on Boulevard des Invalides.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has also arrived for Act V. This morning she appeared outside the Paul-Éluard secondary school in Saint-Denis, one of the hotspots of the protests, where LFI mayor Bally Bagayoko had been dancing with students in front of a burning rubbish bin and had declared that violence against the police is, in some cases, ‘legitimate’. Wrapped in a keffiyeh and fresh from Saturday’s pro-Palestine march in Naples, Greta echoed the LFI’s rhetoric against the police, denouncing the “extreme violence” of the police and saying she was “extremely proud of the French students”. “Young people are not being included in the discussions. They are stealing our future,” she added. Next Saturday, French students will join teachers, employees and farmers for a major national mobilisation “against the high cost of living”: a convergence of struggles that is causing concern for the government.

“We invite you to join the ‘yellow vests’ movement en masse on Saturday to finally bring about this convergence of struggles,” said Ryad Rani, leader of the Union syndicale lycéenne, Mélenchon’s agitprop organisation in secondary schools.