Why France Is Burning

For the past few days, France has been burning.

Last week, high school students in Paris took to the streets to protest what they described as excessively long school hours, overheated classrooms, frequent staff absences, and crumbling buildings. Since then, the movement has spread across the country. It is pandemonium: Students are piling trash bins and other objects across school entrances to prevent their classmates from entering; they are setting piles of garbage on fire in the streets; they are wrapping their faces with masks and balaclavas; they are violently clashing with police.

In Marseille on Thursday, firefighters responding to burning trash outside Saint-Exupéry high school came under attack. One firefighter was injured, and an emergency response vehicle was torched. In Paris, a police lieutenant was chased, tripped, and kicked on the ground by several attackers. Footage carried by the news outlet Actu17 includes a cry of “Kill her!” Its report did not establish whether the attackers were students, but so far, more than 100 schools have been damaged, and 65 staff members and 170 students have been injured.

And there is no end in sight. On Sunday, education minister Édouard Geffray said that between 400 and 500 schools will be closed on Monday as security conditions “have not been fulfilled.” Student unions have called for a nationwide day of protests on Tuesday.

The protests have confounded observers, both in France and overseas. Yes, the students have reason to be angry about overcrowded classrooms and absent teachers. But why has it gotten so out of hand? Why has a high-school protest movement turned into a nationwide violent riot?

A big part of the answer lies with a man named Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Mélenchon is the leader of France Unbowed, the country’s principal radical-left party, known by its French initials, LFI. In the 2022 French presidential election, Mélenchon won almost 22 percent of the vote, narrowly missing the runoff between the top two contenders. And with the current president, Emmanuel Macron, barred from a third consecutive term, the presidency is up for grabs this coming April. Some polls suggest the race could become a runoff between Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen.

To advance his political prospects ahead of the election, Mélenchon’s strategy appears to be to capitalize on the discontent currently roiling the country. After all, the problems are not limited to the schools. Public debt has reached 119 percent of national output. On Thursday, the government proposed a $61 billion budget squeeze, even as demands for better public services grow. The French parliament is deeply divided, and investors are increasingly anxious as the economy teeters. Meanwhile, just a few days ago, the investigative outlet Mediapart accused Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally, of sending antisemitic private messages early in his career. Bardella denies the allegations and says he has filed a defamation lawsuit.

Mélenchon’s answer to the country’s troubles? Confrontation. In a 2012 speech, he argued that progressive political action must “turn everything it touches into conflict.” His opponents call this approach bordélisation—roughly, making a mess of everything. Mélenchon calls it a citizens’ revolution. In his account, people who feel abandoned by the existing parties can be brought together against a common adversary and remake the country’s institutions. Keeping the conflict alive is part of the plan.

That’s why Mélenchon and his party have actively supported the protests. Over the past few days, LFI lawmakers have appeared at school gates and called for the blockades to spread, while Mélenchon has urged his elected representatives and activists to place themselves between students and police and intervene against the law enforcement response. In Saint-Denis, north of Paris, LFI mayor Bally Bagayoko told protesters that while it was preferable to keep protests peaceful, “violence, at some point, can be legitimate.”

Mélenchon has also accused authorities of repression with a racist undertone—the idea being that many of the members of the protesters are Muslim, and that is why they are being targeted by the government. Online influencers have echoed this accusation. As Nora Bussigny reported in the French news magazine Le Point, one activist making videos about the protests belongs to RED Jeunes, a radical-left collective that campaigns against Islamophobia. Her content has linked school conditions to restrictions on Muslim clothing: Why can the state, she argues, ban hijabs in state schools but cannot provide a teacher or a decent classroom? Such messaging has been spread, Bussigny reported, by LFI lawmakers and other active online accounts—including one run by Shahin Hazamy, who has been described as an influence agent for the Iranian regime and was recently convicted of glorifying terrorism.

Should we be all that surprised, then, that Palestinian flags have appeared at the school protests? What does Gaza have to do with a shortage of teachers in France? I’ll tell you what: LFI has spent years making hostility to Israel a central part of its appeal to young voters. Bringing that cause into the school protests helps fuel the racial dynamics and turn a demand for better classrooms into a much broader confrontation with the government.

On Thursday, the government accused LFI and its far-left allies of organizing the student movement, citing intelligence assessments. LFI rejected the accusation, but the facts are against them. On Thursday evening, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported that a leaked internal intelligence note from the Paris police attributes the protest movement’s origins to far-left organizations and high school student unions.

The strategy is simple: If Mélenchon can bring enough young people to the polls in the spring elections, he will improve his chances of making the runoff, and then he will call on the rest of the left—and anyone who fears the National Rally, which is currently the most popular party in the country—to support him. Indeed, no matter how the protests play out, Mélenchon will likely benefit. If the unrest drives voters toward the far right, he can hope to emerge as the leader of the opposition. If he succeeds in mobilizing enough voters himself, he could reach the presidency. Either prospect gives him a reason to keep the confrontation going. Neither gives him much incentive to lower the temperature.

French students need their teachers to show up to class, and their parents need to know they will be safe at school. But Mélenchon is not interested in these goals. Instead, he is encouraging the citizens to see their schools as a front in a larger political battle, one whose real prize is the presidency.

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen is senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).