by Nadia Henni-Moulai Journalist, writer, on the author see this link: https://www.madaniya.info/2022/07/05/portrait-nadia-henni-moulai/ . The link of Nadia Henni-Mulayi’s newsletter: https://nadiahm.substack.com/
Who could have predicted the extent of the high school blockade? No one of course!In 2026, the only trouble this youth suffers is in two words. Same three. Heating rooms, air conditioning and… portable phones.
The ban of the latter, applied since the re-entry of 2026, has reportedly set the powders on fire.A high school whim. For 48 hours, news channel commentators have been distilling a story that is less media than political. Between accusations of instrumentalisation by LFI or mitigation or even negation of police violence, the media machine is in full swing, with invective blows, schematism, journalistic sensationalism.
As much violence is not defensible, so much the work of the media, which the GRAND is responsible for in the making of opinion, is unsatisfactory.Precisely because the high school blockade is treated as an ex nihilo eruption, an event born spontaneously. Thus, the alleged police violence resulting therefrom – IGPN seized in Sevran, Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône and Tours – would only be the legal and legitimate response to the incidents and degradations emanating from the territory. The numbers are talking.
More than 350 establishments blocked, nearly 2000 arrests, not far from 500 police officers, injured young, personal (including an injured principal) and police officers.With the rallying of several universities in Paris, Strasbourg, Marseille or Montpellier, the blockade seems to be growing, while some journalists are almost impatient with a decision that still does not come: the state of emergency. That’s for hot analysis.
For its part, the political class points to the responsibility of LFI in the inflammation of the situation.The images of the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, filmed holding a garbage can on fire, alongside high school students overflying, have, for a time, fed this theory. Relayed by Europe 1 and Frontiers, a far-right magazine, the deliberately truncated video actually shows the building trying to extinguish the fire, as shown byRelease. However, the importance of politicizing the blockade has been grasped by LFI, because the blockade is political. Political opportunity or not, the Insoumis are, I believe, the only ones who boast to be on the side of the young, to carry out their demands.A strategy assumedand visibly effective. In the 18-24 age group, J-L.Mélenchon made 34% in 2022.
If the PS or LR with such credit to a youth that is all too often described as passive, depoliticised and assisted, would he deprive of it?Whether you like it or not, LFI manages to seduce young people in bad examples and examples from the political sphere. After all, the distrust of democracy, of which abstentionism is a consequence, pre-existed in this left-wing movement launched in 2016.
While LFI seems to be the only alternative capable of counteracting Marine Le Pen and its racist and fascist party in the eyes of many French people, not all of them grant the Insoumis white-seing. Despite their openness, class reflexes structure the relations of internal powers as any space of power.Starting with the political parties. Impossible, therefore, to pour into unanimism. Even to LFI.
Yet, Matignon’s announcements of this 1andoctober attests to the political play of the government, as it should temper anger.The same political game blamed LFI on TV sets. By officially accusing « LFI and its proxies of the ultra-left » of having triggered this movement, Sébastien Lecornu, Prime Minister, reduced this blockade to a general rehearsal of the first round of the presidential election. A face to face, by proxy, between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, which would pave the way for a central block, sort of a third reassuring way.
For his part, Edouard Philippe, former Premier and presidential candidate, sees him as the hand of « LFI which prepares the generalized confrontation ». Bruno Retailleau, the boss of LR and former Minister of the Interior, recommends to « prohibit France Insoumise. A shock that would benefit this aspiring President of the Republic.
Isn’t this an example of political instrumentalization?If the movement can expand, it can also interrupt. However, the consequences of this blockade are likely to structure, in one way or another, the direction of the presidential government, intensifying the polarisation within a French society, which is already broken.
Beyond the political posture,matignon’s press release does not mention police violence, the images of which continue to shoot on social networks. Teen strangled, caught by the hair, LBD in the eye at Tours, grenade launcher shot in the mouth at Saint-Ouen-l-l-Aummone, muscular arrests. A denial already seen and which resonates with the police abuses committed on the Yellow Gilets in 2018 and 2019. E.Macron had then inaugurated the beginning of his mandate by a popular, spontaneous and apolitical movement. It closes the last months of the quinquennium in a similar manner (the charges against the BIA are, until proven otherwise, unfounded). What an irony. He, who had won the favours of youth in the second round of the presidential election, against Marine Le Pen in 2017.
Cynical operation of high school students by LFI, Edward Philippe
By describing, therefore, the blockade as a caprice linked to the « canteen » as E.Philippe or a manipulation of the Insubmis, by reducing it to its violent side (May 68, was it reduced to its violent expression?), the government hopes to evacuate the substance of the claims.
Is it useful to call her back after all?The lack of teachers and staff in national education is not imaginary. At the Lycée Saint-Exupéry de Créteil – where the movement started – the lack of teachers justified the blockade.
Overcrowded classeswith classes sometimes to 35 students (40 in private schools, which affect the exodus of families from the public), this is not imaginary.
The precarious situation of students from families facing mass povertyis a reality. Ten million poor in France, it’s not imaginary.
Old establishments, in Seine-Saint-Denis in particular, this is not imaginary. At the Paul Eluard high school, the walls infiltrated with water, the rats infest the building.
Let’s talk about territorial inequalities?
The question of territorial inequalities is not imaginary. In Seine-Saint-Denis, 22% of pupils in the second level of public education are enrolled in REP+, the highest proportion in the country.
Another key measure, the Social Profile Index (IPS) Paris peaks at 129 compared to 71 for Mayotte. The number is not imaginary either.
The differences in spending allocated to students speak for themselves. According to theDEPP(Public Statistics of National Education), the average expenditure per pupil is EUR 12,500 at the university, compared with EUR 19,000 in the preparatory class for large schools. And no, it’s still not imaginary.
In France, according to your territory, your social origin, your name, you do not go to the same school. You don’t get the same chance.
ThePISAare not imaginary either.France is falling back in terms of academic performance. Above all, it fails to decorate the social level of academic success. The poorer you are, the less successful you are at school. It is, therefore, not imaginary.
A reality that leads us toSuperpass, a post-bac guidance tool designed to reduce inequalities.While the platform facilitated formal access to training, PP (in addition to generating high pressure. Recall that the results fall during the revisions of the baccalaureate!) neither removed social inequalities nor guaranteed access to training. At my level, I have never seen so many students who have failed to train or who have been shipwrecked by the superior… Above all PP reproduces pre-existing inequalities, which, they are not imaginary.
And then, finally, this already lengthy text, it seems to me that the anger of high school students is the result of a chaotic era, confronted with conflicts of all kinds.
And, among them, a conflict of values.Whether it is the images of Gaza, whose images on social networks work much more the social circles than it seems, the concentration of wealth and the resulting inequalities, the weight of social networks in their existence and their impact on their mental health, the impoverishment of their families, the weakening of family circles, racism and discrimination, the poor journalistic work of mainstream media weakening democracy… Some will see in this list at the Prévert a potpourri. I, for my part, see a young person very aware of his fate. The world no longer offers it this field of possibilities that pushes young people forward.
N.H-M
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