Students Revive May-68
There’s no country in the world like France where its citizens wait until the beginning of the scholar year to welcome government proposals: it’s protests season, as we saw with the students’ community after the executive branch has rolled out its 2026-2027 budget, loaded with major cuts in social programs. Teachers announced the first strikes, but students in the overseas region of Guyane ignited today’s movement.
Prime Minister Sébastian Lecornou blames the staggering public debt of 121,7% of the GDP. France is one of the developed countries with the most elevated debt. Thus, the youth’s ras-le-bol (discontent) against a government that prioritizes military spending over welfare. Furthermore, on October 6, while students boiled over the executive’s blatant negligence of their basic needs, Emmanuel Macron was aboard the nuclear submarine Le Vigilant. He was busy watching the launch of the M51.3 ballistic missile as a way to express the fearless military apparatus. NATO and the EU are facing threats of warfare with Russia, albeit the United States reduces its cooperation with the bloc.
By September 18, the student movement gained popularity across the country, involving protests in Belgium and Italy as well. They wrote their demands in ten points: climate-appropriate A/C and heating in their rotting buildings; hiring actual teachers, nurses, and counselors; a 90-minute lunch break; and the death of Parcoursoup and Mon Master, the sorting algorithms that filter students out based on socio-economic background. They also want seats on governing councils, a 200-euro bump in scholarships, universal one-euro meals, an end to the 105-euro campus contribution tax, habitable Crous dorms, and for the police to stop beating them.
Despite the 6.8% (197.1 billion euros) of government spending, the context tells otherwise. The reality is decomposing architecture overrun by cockroaches and rats, overcrowded rooms packing more than 35 students per class, and a total absence of substitute teachers. The national math is currently 12,459,500 students handed to a meager 851,500 teachers. The collapse is hardest in the underprivileged banlieues, crushed by high turnover, rampant sick leave, and deliberate budget cuts from local authorities.
The youth are currently reviving May 1968 strikes, forcing a mirror up to the State repression and decaying universities of a half-century ago. Other sectors of society are now joining the teenagers. The students’ demands have captured a wider population desperately trying to survive climbing inequality, bleeding taxes, climate change struggles, and a government visibly rotting from corruption. France has reached its ras-le-bol.
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