Hundreds of Thousands Join Another Round of Protests in France

By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit · November 1, 2026

Students and workers march in France against soaring costs and decaying schools as police deploy tear gas to protect concentrated wealth over human need.

When the dorm walls rot and the police bring the tear gas

Across Europe, the ledger of our generation comes due in the streets. In France, 320,000 people demonstrated nationwide, according to RFI English. This is the third weekend of mass mobilization. President Emmanuel Macron’s response has been to flood the streets with 70,000 police and gendarmes, firing tear gas, dispersion grenades, and water cannons into crowds of students and workers. As reported by NBC News and CBS News, the French Interior Ministry deployed this massive security apparatus under Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who warned of a "very high risk" of disorder. They call it law enforcement. It is actually a war on the young to protect property while public infrastructure collapses.

Let's look at what drove these kids into the path of police batons. Corentin Cabreux, a 21-year-old student, told RFI English about his state-run student residence: “there are damp stains all along the bottom of my walls, whole sections peeling off, cockroaches everywhere, rats.” In Berlin, high school student Janelle Schulz described her school to CBC News: “At my school, the ceiling is collapsing because of water damage, nothing is being done about it, we have a shortage of teachers, the toilets are broken.” This is the reality of modern European austerity. Governments starve public services to feed debt-reduction targets while ordinary people watch wages fail to keep pace with inflation. Now, with presidential elections less than six months away and far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading in the polls, the technocrats in power offer nothing but batons and curfews.

The comfortable argue for order while the ceiling caves in

The defenders of the status quo argue that the state has no choice but to maintain public order and protect commerce against radical elements. Alain Di Crescenzo, president of France's chamber of commerce, lamented to CBS News that "Shopkeepers can't wait for Saturday to be over." Cafe employee Wael Boubaker complained that "Everyone is staying home. No one is coming to buy anything." Roman Poseck, the interior minister for the state of Hesse, told NBC News, “We all have those images from France in our minds — looting, burning houses, burning police vehicles, and attacks on police officers.” The ablest advocates for the ruling class demand absolute quiet. They point to broken windows to erase broken lives, framing a desperate youth movement as a criminal nuisance.

This defense collapses the moment you walk through a public school or a state student residence in Europe today. You cannot lecture students about property destruction when their ceilings are literally caving in from water damage and rats are running across their floors. The state has plenty of money for 70,000 cops, tear gas, and helicopters circling overhead, but none for classrooms, healthcare, or housing. This prioritization reveals the rot at the heart of the system. As Luca, a 20-year-old medical student in Italy, told NBC News, “We have been completely screwed by the fact that the wages do not keep up on inflation and the wages in general do not keep up with the cost of living.” When peaceful marches are met with tear gas and banned from city centers—as happened when police barred entry to Place de la République—the state proves it fears democracy more than it fears the collapse of its own youth's future.

May 68 shows how student desperation sparks the wider fire

This uprising follows the exact trajectory of May 68. Student desperation over decaying institutions acts as the fuse for a broader working-class explosion against a detached state. Back then, university conditions and government repression catalyzed a general strike of millions that shook the nation to its foundations. Today, we see the exact same mechanism at play. High school and university students, facing a future of gig work, unaffordable housing, and climate catastrophe, have opened the door. Now trade unions and port workers striking against militarisation are stepping through it. Just like the 2011 Chilean student protests, this generation refuses to accept the slow death of public goods without a fight.

The French Senate recently toughened proposals to make rioters pay for damage. The government relies on EU fiscal rules to justify its refusal to invest in human beings. But cosmetic financial tweaks will not save a system built on exploitation. As Sabrine Kharbach, spokesperson for the Union etudiante union, told RFI English, students will blockade universities and high schools before joining nationwide worker demonstrations. President Emmanuel Macron's administration will likely attempt to defuse this revolt with temporary spending patches while preserving the austerity rules that starve public schools, triggering deeper cynicism and recurring mass mobilizations. The cost of living crisis is a political choice made by leaders who serve concentrated wealth over human need. True justice would require taxing the billionaires at the rate the corner hardware store pays, funding public education fully, and dismantling the apparatus of police repression that protects the rich while youth inherit a ruin.

Hundreds of Thousands Join Another Round of Protests in France

When the dorm walls rot and the police bring the tear gas

The comfortable argue for order while the ceiling caves in

May 68 shows how student desperation sparks the wider fire

Sources