The Guardian view on the French school protests: the political class needs to heed the voice of students | Editorial
A generation facing unprecedented challenges deserves better than an underfunded education system
One of the most famous slogans in France’s May 1968 student protests declared “L’imagination au pouvoir” (Power to the imagination). In a postwar context of steady growth, the ’68ers dreamed of shaping an egalitarian society, freed from the social constraints of their parents’ generation. Nearly five decades on, in a very different economic climate, the goal for most of the tens of thousands of pupils disrupting schools across the country is more modest. As one placard on display had it: “I’d like to be worrying about my maths exam, not my future”.
A huge turnout of hundreds of thousands of protesters on Tuesday – a number that included many parents and teachers – confirmed the depth of resentment at years of budget cuts leading to crumbling school buildings, overcrowded classes and chronic staff shortages. Other complaints point to a lack of resources to deal with the now frequent heatwaves that make classrooms intolerable in May and June, and the unfairness of an opaque, algorithmically driven selection process for universities.
