By Rieley McDonnell, Staff Writer 

Students have been protesting for better educational opportunities across France, amidst violence from law enforcement.  

These protests were spurred by grievances from teachers concerning a lack of resources and staff. According to a translated statement from a union representative found in radiofrance, at a particular lycée, the equivalent of an American high school, in Créteil, Saint-Exupéry, there were multiple unfilled teaching positions along with the school nurse being on leave.  

Further, to have adequate care for both staff and students a minimum of two nurses would be needed, not just one. The teachers began going on strike over a lack of staff. 

“The thing about protest is that it begins in very everyday forms. Sometimes with a small complaint or a joke that communicates a certain disenchantment with life,” Associate Professor of Sustainability and Global Cultures Dr. Surparna Chatterjee said. 

Students at the lycée in the Parisian suburb of Créteil stood in solidarity with their teachers on Sept. 18, the day after the teachers began their strike. Many pupils at this school felt unprepared for national French language exams that they were required to take because their school had been missing a French teacher for six months. 

The French education system has structural inequalities with students with the lowest outcomes going to the schools that are most disadvantaged and dilapidated. Government reports estimate that billions will need to be spent in the upcoming years to fix the school buildings that are falling apart. 

“It’s important to note that the protests begin in some of the most impoverished places in France, and that is directly tied to France’s history of immigration, and which ties into existing class inequalities,” Chair of the department of race, intersectionality, gender and sociology Dr. Mich Nyawalo said. 

According to Observatoire des Villes, Créteil has a median income of €21,270 which is below the French median of €23,160. Protests spread to some of the lower income areas as well like Saint-Denis, where a viral clip emerged of the mayor, Bally Bagayoko, protecting protesters from police. Saint-Denis has a median income of €15,700. 

The force that police have exerted is a major topic of discussion. Most of the protests have been peaceful, like the original one at Saint-Exupéry, while others have become more destructive in nature. 

At a lycée in Lille in late September, students set fire to trash cans and vandalized public property. Protesters also began throwing bottles and small stones at police officers, who responded by deploying tear gas into the crowd.  

In Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, France at the Lycée Château d’Épluches, a teen was reportedly hit in the face with a Cougar Launcher, a device used by some law enforcement groups to launch certain GM2L and tear gas canisters.  

Protest opposition say the student provoked the law enforcement officer first and then was hit with the munition from the Cougar Launcher. Multiple of his teeth were knocked out, and he was hospitalized after the altercation.  

“Of course, some of them were violent and destroyed property, so a police response is to a certain extent understandable, but we know that even in cases where you have peaceful protest – including under Macron’s presidency, especially under Macron’s presidency – there’s been a propensity to antagonize protesters, to use violence as first recourse,” Nyawalo said. 

Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), a human rights advocacy group within France, has made a petition to stop police violence against protesters.  

“The police repression that is falling on high schools has crossed a critical threshold. We are all shocked by such repression that shatters lives: a high school student had his jaw fractured in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône by a grenade launcher; another lost an eye in Tours under the impact of an LBD shot,” the LDH stated on their petition page. “Their crime? To have demanded, with their classmates, decent conditions of education. We cannot wait for other young people to be mutilated before taking action.” 

Students in France have been protesting for access to a better future for themselves and for their classmates. The government has defended its deployment of police forces to try and quell the protests.  

“Mostly students come in here and say ‘I want to do something with my life.’ That’s all people want, to realize their potential as a human being,” Chatterjee said. 

As protests continue across the country, students and lawmakers alike must work to create a better future for professors and educators.