France's school protests: What lies behind the anger

 

Since late September students across France have been holding protests against underfunding in education, and have been blocking access to many high schools.

The movement has turned violent in places – hundreds of students, teachers and police officers have been injured. Thousands of people – including an unknown number of outside troublemakers – have been arrested.

The protesters are complaining about staff shortages and dilapidated facilities in the country's lycées, schools which are attended by 15-18-year-olds.

"Sometimes our teachers are absent for several weeks without being replaced," Madalena, a Paris student, told the BBC on Tuesday as demonstrations brought out hundreds of thousands across France. Her school buildings, she added, were "boiling hot" during the recent heat waves.

There is a variety of other complaints. Some resent the banning of mobile phones or school days that last until 18:00. "You get home at 19:00, and have no time to sleep or do your homework," one lycéen told France 2.

France's online platform that allocates places in higher education, Parcoursup, is another sore point.

The frustration has deep roots. About 80% of each cohort now passes the baccalauréat, which entitles students to a university place - though not necessarily their preferred choice. This leads to a scramble for desirable courses, and an anxiety focused on Parcoursup, which many regard as opaque.

Those grievances are real. But do they by themselves explain the form the protest movement has taken? How does France compare with other countries?

According to a recent report by the OECD, a club of developed nations, the French government spends more per lycée student than the EU average for upper-secondary schools.

Teacher shortages are indeed acute, but no worse than elsewhere. By OECD measures they are actually milder – fewer posts go unfilled – although French teachers receive relatively low pay.

Schooldays that stretch into the late afternoon are indeed a problem for French pupils. This is the result mostly of long lunch breaks and complex schedules rather than making up for holidays, which are not especially long compared with other EU countries.

The extended day has always been a sad fact of French school life and can hardly account for the present eruption. Neither can pressure created by a dysfunctional higher-education system.

In most European countries, 80-90% of young people complete secondary education, and competition for good university places creates stress elsewhere too.

And while underfunding, dilapidated buildings and fears about the future are behind the students' discontent, those complaints do not by themselves explain why the movement has become "unprecedented" in terms of the number of schools, pupils and the degree of violence involved, in the words of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.