It is a piece of wisdom that all French leaders take care to heed: young people on the street equals trouble. Since the student protests of May 1968 – memorably described by President De Gaulle as chienlit (bed defecation, in other words chaos) – every government has run scared of angry French youth. Because youth movements are unpredictable and shapeless, often with no clear structure to negotiate with.
Because when they protest, other groups join in. Also: because as they're young, the public tends to sympathise. And because if the police mess up and cause injury or worse, then the consequences are incalculable.
And presidential elections are only months away. For all these reasons, when la jeunesse en colère (angry youth) is at the barricades governments tread very carefully indeed. Right now, French teenagers are at the barricades and if they are not visibly angry (the mood is more excitement), they certainly have the government of President Emmanuel Macron in what Le Monde called on Friday "the cold sweats".
A movement that started nearly two weeks ago in the low-income Seine-Saint-Denis area of northern Paris has in the last few days spread across the country. Live: Fires lit on streets across France after student protests force hundreds of schools to close On Thursday – the high point so far – hundreds of lycées (where 15-18 year-olds finish their schooling) were being blockaded. On Friday, the situation had improved but around 400 lycées were closed in order to protect staff and students.
Universities are beginning to join in. On Thursday the main hall of a lycée in Nantes was destroyed by fire. Smaller fires too numerable to mention were lit at school entrance gates around the country.
The cost of the damage is millions of euros. According to Education Minister Édouard Geffray, 65 teaching staff including 40 school heads have been injured. "Most of the staff who were hurt said that the people they were facing… were not their own pupils," he said.
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