by Fraser Myers, spiked
The teens burning schools, assaulting police and glorifying Islamist terrorists are not protesting about class sizes.
‘In the name of Allah, we can kill them all!’, screams a masked student rioter named ‘Yanis’. He was filmed standing on top of a car, gesturing to the 10 or so police officers struggling to contain a restless crowd of teenagers. His chilling cry is met with cheers and exultation from the students outside the Honoré de Balzac high school near Paris. ‘Yanis, the voice of reason’ reads the subtitle on the now viral video of the speech.
This is just one of the many unnerving scenes from what have euphemistically been dubbed the French ‘school protests’. Since 18 September, when protests broke out at a school in the Parisian banlieue of Créteil, teenagers and young adults have been engaging in some of the worst rioting the country has endured in decades. At least a third of French high schools have been closed or disrupted in some way. More than 6,000 people, overwhelmingly minors, have been arrested. Around a thousand people have been injured, three-quarters of them police officers. With the rioting showing no signs of stopping, and with more organised protests involving teachers and trade unions planned for the coming days and weeks, the unrest is certain to surpass the damage and destruction caused by comparable unrest in 2023 and 2005.
Nevertheless, the delusion persists that these are merely protests – and even ‘peaceful’ ones at that. Judging by much of the coverage, the international mainstream media might as well be broadcasting from a parallel universe. Reports from the likes of the BBC and Sky News have tended to focus on the problems in French schools, from dilapidated classrooms and packed lesson timetables to teacher absences and the hated new system for university applications. No doubt these are valid concerns that have animated many earnest students, as well as the thousands of teachers and trade unionists who have been striking in solidarity with the teenagers. But this surely cannot explain the displays of nihilism and violence that have taken over the streets.