Act III: France's Students March Again on October 31

France's student movement goes back into the streets on Saturday, October 31. High school students, university students and teachers have called a new national day of action, which organizers are calling "Act III" of the protests against the high cost of living. It comes just days after the 21st anniversary of the 2005 deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré in Clichy-sous-Bois, the Paris suburb where the long story of this revolt begins.

What the Government Offered

The movement began on September 17, when students in suburban high schools, many of them Black and North African, started blockading their schools over overcrowded classrooms, missing teachers and crumbling buildings. On Monday, October 26, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu met students, unions and, to many students' anger, social media influencers at Matignon, his official residence. That afternoon the government announced its answer:

• An overhaul of Parcoursup, the university admissions platform, in 2027 and its replacement in 2028.
• 15,000 new places in higher education: 10,000 in two-year technical programs (BTS), 4,000 in university institutes of technology (IUT) and 1,000 in health programs.
• 5 billion euros to renovate school buildings.

Why Students Say It Is Not Enough

Students and teachers answered with one word: insufficient. "We are only getting crumbs," student unions in Lorraine told France 3. Their complaints are specific. The biggest changes are promised for after the April–May 2027 presidential election. Students want Parcoursup abolished, not reformed, and the plan says nothing about MonMaster, the similar platform for graduate admissions. Teachers' unions say renovations need about 4 billion euros a year for ten years, not a one-time pledge, and that 15,000 seats will not cover the roughly 50,000 students who got no placement last year. Nothing was announced on fees for foreign students, housing aid or new teaching jobs.

"It's rather contemptuous to receive influencers before high school students on these issues," said Anaïs Ella of the student union Les Lycéens.

Sabrine Kharbach, a spokesperson for the student union Union étudiante, was blunter about the guest list, calling the Matignon meeting "le bal des tartuffes" — the ball of hypocrites.

Calm, Security and the Next Strike

President Emmanuel Macron has called for "calm" to return to the high schools and for classes to resume on Monday, November 2, after the All Saints' Day vacation. In an interview released Wednesday, he defended Parcoursup as a system "better than what came before" but conceded that it "creates distrust" and must be rebuilt. Education Minister Édouard Geffray, who puts the damage from three weeks of blockades and protests at 30 to 40 million euros, met lycéen associations and the regions on Thursday to set "methods of work" for the return to school.

The security picture is tightening around Saturday. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez received leaders of the main lycéen organizations at his ministry on Thursday afternoon, hours before presenting the security plan for the marches. The students planned to demand a change in the doctrine for keeping order — an end to tear gas, sting grenades and rubber-ball launchers at school blockades — and amnesty for students sanctioned during the movement. "On the question of police violence, we will be uncompromising," said Pierre Sourzat of Les Lycéens!

Saturday's map is smaller than last week's but still national: more than 160 marches are announced across the country, against 556 on October 24. Lyon's prefecture has authorized a cost-of-living march after dispersing the last one, while Épinal has banned demonstrations in its city center through Monday. The gilets jaunes, who have joined the movement, called pot-banging "casserolades" outside the National Assembly for Friday evening. Amnesty International, in a new note on authoritarian practices, warned that France "is no longer sheltered," while government spokesperson Maud Bregeon promised the state would be "intractable" with violence. After October 31, unions are already pointing to Thursday, November 5, the date of a national strike called jointly by several unions.

Why It Matters

The demands began in the same suburbs that exploded in 2005, when France answered the anger of Black and Arab youth with a state of emergency. This time the young people of those suburbs have built a national movement, and they are asking the same question their older brothers and sisters asked: does the Republic include us? Saturday will show how many people are still willing to march for the answer.

We will update our ongoing story, Beyond the Schools, as the day unfolds.

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