French Student Strikes Continue after Impasse in Talks

PARIS (11-11) – Dissatisfied with Monday’s negotiations with the government, labor unions, students and professors, participated in another nationwide strike on November 10 by taking to the streets as leverage to press for better conditions on all the issues needing resolution before considering an end to their blockades and strikes.

Euro News has reported that the meeting in the prime minister’s office regarding Parcoursup reform (online university entrance exam portal for high school graduates) resulted in an impasse when “Most of the pupil and student groups, along with education unions, walked out in protest at the presence of far right and business representatives.” The students characterized the concessions offered thus far from the government as “unsubstantial and crumbs.”

The student and teacher unions have called for another strike this coming Saturday along with a nationwide strike on November 17th.

The organizers’ original route request for the rally and march was, as usual, denied by the Préfecture de Police, which instead allowed it to begin in front of the Panthéon, one of France’s most dramatic and historic buildings. The setting, despite light rain showers, provided an exceptional backdrop for the colorful protest. The march followed a heavily police-escorted route which ended at the Place d’Italie. Elsewhere in France there were some minor disturbances associated with the protest, but nothing on the scale of a few weeks ago.

The crowd of several thousand filling the streets loudly repeated several chants as a warm-up before setting off on their march, surprising many tourists arriving in the area to visit the Panthéon, who instead stumbled upon the scene. “We’re coming for you at home, Emmanuel Macron, president of the bosses. We’re coming for you at home—Macron, Le Pen, too.”

Among many notable and creative signs held by protesters was one which reflected a gentleman’s creative double entendre with sentiments about Macron and Trump reading “Macron nous a tous Trumpé.” (Macron you fooled us all [Trumpé meaning deceived or fooled in French]). His sign was a popular hit with the crowd as numerous people all requested photos.

Others read: “Today Intifada, tomorrow coup d’Etat?” another with a drawing of Macron said: “You break it, you fix It;” while others noted that, “One day the poor will have nothing to eat but the rich;” “Hand over the money not the cops;” “Crazy capitalism=terrorism, it kills nature.”

And profoundly two messages on a cardboard signs at a high school that students whose entry had been blockaded by them before marching off to join the protest warned that “We get gassed at the age of high school graduation, we will respond to you at the age of voting;” and “We are missing our lessons in order to teach you one.”

At the busy Place d’Italie where the march concluded, the skies continued to rain lightly on the crowd as the protest came to an end. How long these nationwide protests continue now is anyone’s guess and if no breakthrough is achieved soon, they portend to become an even greater weight on the French economy making all matters much worse.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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