(including Montpelier, Nantes and Rennes) called general assemblies to discuss a new government project to increase student fees and the ongoing campaign to stop the introduction of selection criteria for university admissions, and limit access to certain prestigious courses. These assemblies raised the question of joining the yellow vests, partly to promote their own demands – which raises the possibility of a nationwide student movement in solidarity with the yellow vests.

Subsequently, over the past week, over 300 high schools have been occupied and blockaded around the country, including in the southern city of Toulouse and in Créteil in the Paris area. A number of high school students were arrested after riot police were called to the Jean-Pierre Timbaud high school in Aubervilliers in the northern Paris suburbs. Videosblack-arab working class suburb, and those are high school students arrested by the police. It was filmed by a cop who commented “here’s an orderly classroom!”.

Videos showing rows of French high school students on their knees, with hands on heads, some lined up against a wall with helmeted police officers armed with batons standing over them, have stirred waves of criticism online.The footage captures the moment officers detained education reform protesters in Mantes-la-Jolie in north-central France on Thursday. The majority of them were teens from local high schools.

The movement is larger than the sum of its parts.

A mass grassroots movement has exploded onto the scene in France, aimed squarely against the Macron government. The left must help to give this radical movement a political expression.

In France, since mid-November,