Why France Is Burning: Student Protests Spark Nationwide Outrage

What Is Burning in the Heart of France?

In a society where social mobilisations cut across age groups, the French have once again shown that their courage to gather in the streets is not an isolated reaction. On September 17, students from Lycée Saint‑Exupéry, a public school in the suburb of Créteil on Paris’s periphery, launched a protest in front of the alarming conditions that affected them: chronic teacher shortages, substandard infrastructure and a continuously declining educational quality. This initial wave was quickly replicated in other cities, and within two weeks, protests spread across France, involving hundreds of schools and dozens of universities, along with parents, teachers and unions. By the third week of demonstrations, more than 160,000 students and unionists took to the streets, and this movement, largely dominated by high‑schoolers, generated violent episodes: over 200 students, 85 teachers and 700 police officers were injured in clashes in various regions.

In some cases, protesters forced entry into schools and set occupied or blocked buildings on fire. On October 5, a 15‑year‑old lost a hand after being struck by a police grenade during a protest in Lens, in the north of the country, an incident that highlighted the strength of the authorities’ response from the beginning of the movement. More than 6,000 participants were arrested following these demonstrations, most of them minors, and after release they were not charged.

Roots of the Outrage

These protests appear after nearly a decade of „Macronism”, a right‑center, top‑down style of governance symbolised by President Emmanuel Macron. They also express a broader discontent: anger at disparities in the educational system, university admission decisions, latent racial discrimination and the feeling that authorities do not listen to young people, that the future offers no hope. At the same time, the movement unfolds amid a wider political crisis. Between 2027 and 2028, France will hold presidential elections, and opinion polls show that the far‑right and far‑left groups are leading. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, has for years tried to make her party more electable, promoting immigration, crime and criticism of a „remote” political class. Her party is already the largest opposition in parliament, and a possible early legislative election could consolidate this position.

On the other hand, Jean‑Luc Mélenchon, president of France Unbowed, a far‑left party, promises massive redistribution of power and resources to working classes. Both campaigns rely on opposition to the establishment, promises to eliminate budget constraints and a deep antipathy toward the European Union. If France seems at a fork, it truly is. The post‑war model of a large welfare state, regulated by a class of civil servants who must modernise the economy, ease market forces and establish the common good, has reached its end. France’s current budget deficit is one of the largest in Europe, with public debt reaching 119.3 % of GDP and expected to rise next year. Fears of a devastating financial crisis are mounting. Borrowing costs have risen so much that France is compared to Greece, whose 2010 crisis threatened the Eurozone’s survival. With stagnant economic growth, there is no easy solution.

If anything is clearer, France needs more investment: in defence, as Russia becomes more threatening, as the war in Ukraine continues, as the United States withdraws from its traditional role as a guarantor of European security; in new technologies, because the country that once produced the Concorde and high‑speed trains now lags in high‑tech and AI innovation; in strained public services, from schools to hospitals to neglected neighbourhoods; and in infrastructure capable of withstanding the increasingly severe effects of climate change. Successive governments have promised to change the system and allow the investments the country needs, but no one has succeeded.

The Deeper Problem

The French problem is deeper. Inequality has been one of the main complaints of students. They were not at fault. Like in many other countries, France’s economic inequality has risen over the last two decades, under the influence of globalisation, industrial decline and the growing concentration of inherited wealth. In the book „Capital in the Twenty‑First Century”, French economist Thomas Piketty showed how wealth perpetuates across generations and how the divide between those who hold capital and the rest tightens. This concentration of wealth and power remains deeply resented: for many, the „Maconian” example still dominates the Rothschild Investment Bank before entering politics. But the most harmful form of inequality lies elsewhere: in the national meritocratic myth that claims social position is largely determined by academic performance. At the top of this system are the grande écoles, elite higher‑education institutions that have produced leaders in politics, culture and business.

What makes this myth so corrosive is not that academic achievements are unrecognised, but that they remain a relatively safe path to better jobs, higher status and positions of power. In such a system, students from underfunded public schools face a profound disadvantage compared to peers who attend better‑equipped schools and parents who are better educated and know how to navigate the system. Private schools offer another path, but remain criticised as a way to buy an advantage.