It’s a little too early to make any definitive appreciations of the recent demonstrations and riots which have spread across metropolitan France during the last five or weeks. Doubtless, readers of the blog will have seen the images of massive gangs of young people looting and setting fire to shops and attacking police dressed in riot gear. As is only to be expected, it’s the most violent scenes which have found their way onto the mainstream news; the fire which destroyed the Town Hall of Limoges being a case in point. On the other hand, the media also showed images of the enormous and well-ordered demonstrations by students who were more often than not accompanied by teachers and parents. There were demonstrations in small towns right across France which recalled in many ways the monster manifestations in defence of retirement pension of a few years ago.

Mysterious wreckers

Demonstrations are, of course, part and parcel of everyday life in France there being something of a deeply rooted culture of defiance common to the left and right. What was notable in this case was the massive presence of hooded and masked casseurs – vandals – uniformly dressed in black who were clearly operating in organised and one suspects disciplined mobs. These agents provocateurs incited the more disorganised groups of casual looters who are now found in all mass disorders breaking out across the globe.

Strangely enough these violent groups, sometimes known as the black bloc are rarely picked up by the police and arrested. Nobody knows who they are. They are used to maintain ordinary citizens at a cautious distance from their rights to free expression. Amazingly those conventional politicians who managed to find their way across the Parisian battlefield into the safe havens of the TV studios seem to be convinced that their membership consists of highly organised members of the ‘ultra-gauche’. (Earlier references to the black bloc seem to have been edited out of the official narrative).The designated culprit it would seem are what they call the ‘anti-fa’ (anti-fascist); heretofore a fantastical organisation which has miraculously put down solid roots in the USA. There they have – according to the official narrative – violently interrupted the work of Trump’s anti-immigrant agency and rendered the (strictly anti-constitutional) operations of the ICE goons problematic. One may ask, aren’t we supposed to be anti-fascist in a democracy?

Political ineptitude

For the point, of course, is that we are talking about a movement initiated and organised by kids ; high-school students to be precise. Consequently the maintaining of public order and the protection of protestors should run together. However, parents would do well to realize that the government at times seems to be applying the selfsame tactics cynically deployed against the gilets jaunes of a few years ago. This was a movement which was quite violently repressed in every sense of the term.

In the case of the students, however, a certain circumspection was in evidence in the days preceding the events of last Saturday even though some youngsters were roughed up, injured and arrested. It’s quite possible that something changed in the clumsy official response on Saturday 17 October. TV coverage insisted heavily upon the destruction of shops and public buildings, to the exclusion of the peaceful marches undertaken by school students and sympathisers. Up to a point, the authorities seem to have attempted to calm down the situation, although if anything Macron’s typically leaden televised address to the nation on Sunday made clear his crass insensitivity to the demands of the students – mentioned in passing – and to his incredible political ineptitude.

For the point is that once the tear-gas has wafted away, it will become evident that the students had drawn up an extremely intelligent and reasonable list of demands, demands which would give some substance to the egalitarianism established by the republican constitution and proclaimed above the façade of every single school lycée in France.

Neglected issues

To give effect to these aspirations, the students were asking for the urgent building of schools and for the renovation of ill-adapted and run-down premises. The recent and stifling heat waves which hit France over the summer saw school pupils attempting to tackle the baccalaureate exams in building lacking window blinds and adequate ventilation, as teachers and administrators ran around with water bottles to quench the thirst of distressed youngsters. In the winter many classrooms are freezing, ceilings are leaky and sanitary facilities are filthy. Many schools lack facilities to deal with students experiencing psychological problems often resulting from learning disabilities.

Other demands include a demand for a massive recruitment drive to deal with the shortage of trained teachers. The typically French drama of classes without teachers at the beginning of the school term is high on the list of preoccupations.  But teacher recruitment is difficult given stagnant wages and disaffection. Note that the hapless Minister of Education hurriedly pulled hundreds of trained teachers out of a standby status when the demonstrations started to tilt public opinion onto the side of the youngsters.

Other demands made by the students were nothing if not legitimate. Better student grants, subsidies to help with student accommodation, more places to be made available in the (increasingly run-down) universities, more student representation in schools and at long last, measures to reform the ludicrous and exhaustingly over-loaded school curriculum. More time to eat in the midday pause and so on and on. In short, these are measures which aim at the re-establishment of an equilibrium centred on student well-being; welfare measures and so on. In short, the kind of bread and butter issues neglected during the long and uncaring duration of Macron’s atrocious term in office.

MALCOLM MANSFIELD, PARIS