Burning and blackened cars line the streets. Piles of charred bikes clutter the roads. Around the Place de la République, the ground is littered with broken glass, stones ripped from the pavement, and debris. The surrounding stores are barren, with smashed-in windows. People wearing hoods and masks, holding an assortment of projectiles in their hands, surge towards police firing tear gas and water cannons.
Meanwhile, crowds of protesters chanting France’s national anthem, waving flags, and playing instruments march toward northwestern Paris. Across France, estimates of turnout on October 17th range between 550,000 and 800,000, including about 110,000 in Paris. That Saturday, the 19th-century City Hall in Limoges nearly burned down.
Many feel that the government prioritizes older voters, as a mid-October government report found that 32 percent of the education ministry’s budget went towards pensions.
This chaos originates from high schools, with students protesting the conditions of their education.
The movement began mid-September at the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry High School in Créteil. Students followed their teachers, who were on strike, walking to protest a lack of resources. Excluding vocational schools, French high school classes average around 30 students, while more than half of middle and high schools lacked at least one teacher for reasons including insufficient wages and safety concerns at the beginning of the 2026-2027 academic year. The detrimental effects of teacher shortages are clear, with more than 19 million hours of secondary school classes going untaught during the 2023-2024 academic year.
French education also lags on the infrastructural side. Fewer than 15 percent of French school buildings have been renovated in the last ten years. As a result, the increase in heat waves in recent years has made classroom conditions nearly intolerable, with one school even setting up a testing center in an underground parking lot. On top of that, some schools struggle with rat and cockroach infestations, not enough toilets, and even a lack of tables and chairs.
Though the protests are largely due to educational issues, other factors contribute to tensions. Many feel that the government prioritizes older voters, as a mid-October government report found that 32 percent of the education ministry’s budget went towards pensions. Other concerns driving these protests focus on affordability and general dissatisfaction with the government.
One fifteen-year-old in Lens lost his hand when a police grenade exploded. On October 23rd, a man even killed one child and injured five in an allegedly racially motivated shooting to avenge shopkeepers from the October 17th looting.
Many protests are peaceful blockades, but others become violent and cause genuine harm. In a single week, from September 28th to October 5th, more than 6,000 people were arrested, with close to 90 percent of those held in custody being minors. On October 14th, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said 248 students, 149 school staff, and 937 police officers had been injured since the start of the protests. One fifteen-year-old in Lens lost his hand when a police grenade exploded. On October 23rd, a man even killed one child and injured five in an allegedly racially motivated shooting to avenge shopkeepers from the October 17th looting.
Part of the difference between French students and us may be entrenched in history itself. America’s independence is celebrated every Fourth of July, commemorating its freedom from a king across the ocean. France’s national holiday, the fourteenth of July, is tied to the 1789 storming of the Bastille, against their own king. As historian Michel Pigenet argues, violent protest is not particularly French, but mass mobilization is, leading to the notion that one way or another, the government must eventually listen.
While the exact outcomes of these protests are unclear, a handful of crucial questions remain that we as students, young adults, and Americans should be asking.
Third, at what point do issues warrant violence? Is there anything that justifies harming people and property? If so, to what degree? And who pays the price?
First, are the students and protesters right? I believe they are; everyone should have access to education where having a chair to sit on is not a concern.
Second, at what point does an issue become severe enough to mobilize people into public protest? At Haverford, we do not have rats in our classrooms or a lack of teachers. All of us are privileged to attend such an institution where we can learn and grow relatively comfortably. Even if things do not directly affect us, when do we stand up for the things that we believe are right?
Third, at what point do issues warrant violence? Is there anything that justifies harming people and property? If so, to what degree? And who pays the price? Should innocent bystanders, like Hassan Rashdul, who lost at least 70,000 euros when his phone shop was looted, be the ones to pay? On the day his business was targeted, three-quarters of those arrested in the Paris region were adults—were these individuals truly acting in support of student activism or protesting to gain self-serving capital?
Finally, did the government respond too harshly? When teenagers lose their hands or eyes at protests over their education, it is hard to say no, but police and school officials have also been injured.
Although these conflicts are occurring on a different continent separated from America by an entire ocean, we need to consider these questions for when we might be the ones in trouble, especially because we rarely do.
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