Latest / The Real News Podcast / French Students and Unions “Preparing for a Massive Strike” on November 5

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French Students and Unions “Preparing for a Massive Strike” on November 5 · The Real News Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: All right, welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about
0:11
Speaker 1: the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today.
0:16
Speaker 1: My name is Maximilian Alvarez, and today we are taking
0:19
Speaker 1: you to the streets of France, where mass student-led protests
0:23
Speaker 1: have swept the country for the past month. We've gotten
0:27
Speaker 1: so many requests from y'all to cover this, and... We're
0:30
Speaker 1: here to deliver. What you're about to hear is an
0:32
Speaker 1: edited-down version of a two-hour Zoom webinar that I hosted
0:37
Speaker 1: on Sunday, October 25th. Now, the webinar was co-produced and
0:41
Speaker 1: co-sponsored by the Chicago Teachers Union, Haymarket Books, The Real
0:46
Speaker 1: News Network, and the French union Force.
0:49
Speaker 2: Ouvrière, or Workers' Force. The goal was.
0:52
Speaker 1: To provide a space where we could actually hear and
0:55
Speaker 1: talk directly to a range of rank-and-file students, and union
0:59
Speaker 1: members across France who were on the front lines of
1:02
Speaker 1: this massive protest movement, and to put them in conversation
1:06
Speaker 1: with working folks right here in the United States.
1:10
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we did.
1:12
Speaker 1: And unless they are expressed by organization leaders, all views
1:17
Speaker 1: that are shared in this conversation are those of the
1:20
Speaker 1: speakers alone. Guests were asked to share their own thoughts
1:24
Speaker 1: and speak from their own perspectives. not to speak on
1:27
Speaker 1: behalf of any of the unions or movements that they're
1:30
Speaker 1: a part of or any of the countries that they're
1:33
Speaker 1: speaking from. And if you want to stay up to
1:35
Speaker 1: date on the protests in France or you want to
1:37
Speaker 1: know how you can get in touch with the people
1:40
Speaker 1: and orgs on this webinar, then use the links that
1:43
Speaker 1: we provided in the show notes or reach out to us.
1:46
Speaker 2: Okay, that's enough from me. Let's get to the good stuff.
1:52
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone who is here on this call, friends and
1:57
Speaker 1: comrades and fellow workers from France and the United States
2:01
Speaker 1: and beyond.
2:02
Speaker 2: My name is Maximilian Alvarez.
2:05
Speaker 1: I'm the editor-in-chief and co-executive director of the Real News
2:08
Speaker 1: Network in Baltimore. And I am genuinely honored to be
2:13
Speaker 1: here with all of you. And I'm grateful to be
2:15
Speaker 1: part of this vital panel discussion and international webinar today.
2:21
Speaker 1: organized and produced in collaboration with the Chicago Teachers Union,
2:25
Speaker 1: Haymarket Books, the Real News Network, and the Confédération Générale
2:31
Speaker 1: du Travail Force Ouvrière.
2:33
Speaker 2: Oh, God, I murdered that.
2:34
Speaker 1: The General Confederation of Labor Workers Force in France.
2:38
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
2:40
Speaker 1: Something monumental is happening in France right now. But all
2:45
Speaker 1: we're getting here in the United States is corporate and
2:49
Speaker 1: right-wing media propaganda and skewed selective coverage of the protests
2:54
Speaker 1: that are shutting down the country. Today, we are going
2:58
Speaker 1: to get the real news about what is happening on
3:00
Speaker 1: the ground in France, and we're going to talk to
3:03
Speaker 1: folks who are on the front lines of the struggle.
3:05
Speaker 3: I want to welcome everybody to this forum. My name
3:08
Speaker 3: is Dennis Kosuth. I work as a nurse in Chicago
3:11
Speaker 3: Public Schools and I'm the chair of the Human Rights Committee.
3:14
Speaker 3: As a little bit of background to this forum, in
3:17
Speaker 3: December of 2025, less than a year ago, Forest Ouvier,
3:21
Speaker 3: a union that represents 300,000 workers in France, invited a
3:25
Speaker 3: delegation from the Chicago Teachers Union to their convention in Angers.
3:30
Speaker 3: I'd never been to France before, and FO showed me
3:33
Speaker 3: and my partner, incredible hospitality during our short stay. And
3:37
Speaker 3: we made some amazing connections, which is what's led to
3:39
Speaker 3: today's forum being organized. So deep thanks to FO and
3:44
Speaker 3: Devon in particular for bringing this idea of a solidarity
3:48
Speaker 3: forum to the fruition. We were asked to share experiences
3:52
Speaker 3: at CTU to the FO convention when it came to
3:55
Speaker 3: connecting wider social issues with our bargaining demands, otherwise known
3:59
Speaker 3: as bargaining for the common good. FO wanted to know
4:02
Speaker 3: how we in Chicago linked together the issues of school fundings,
4:07
Speaker 3: with the issues of our government's war spending, for example,
4:10
Speaker 3: how we linked learning conditions to the attacks in our
4:12
Speaker 3: communities last year with ICE's Midway Blitz on Chicago, where
4:17
Speaker 3: tear gas was being released around many of our schools
4:20
Speaker 3: and students and their families were being torn apart in
4:23
Speaker 3: a racist attempt to drive a wedge between undocumented people
4:26
Speaker 3: and those who have a piece of paper saying they're
4:28
Speaker 3: allowed here. Because let's be clear, no one can be
4:31
Speaker 3: illegal on stolen land built with stolen hands. The FO
4:36
Speaker 3: wanted to know how we organize alongside our students, parents,
4:39
Speaker 3: and the wider community to fight for the schools our
4:41
Speaker 3: students deserve. As we all know, there is no shortage
4:44
Speaker 3: of taxpayer money when it comes to bombing schools in Iran,
4:47
Speaker 3: burning children alive in Gaza, or giving tax breaks to
4:50
Speaker 3: billionaires who are on their way to becoming trillionaires. Our
4:54
Speaker 3: hosts in France showed us tremendous solidarity during our stay,
4:57
Speaker 3: and now the people of France are showing the world
5:00
Speaker 3: something even more important and amazing. As often happens in history,
5:04
Speaker 3: sometimes the educators become the students, and what the people
5:07
Speaker 3: in France are showing us in the United States is incredible.
5:10
Speaker 3: They're showing us that we don't have to accept the
5:13
Speaker 3: status quo, we don't have to watch our neighbors literally
5:16
Speaker 3: be burned alive from climate change this past summer as
5:18
Speaker 3: they witnessed in France and accept that there's nothing that
5:21
Speaker 3: can be done about it. That we don't have to
5:23
Speaker 3: see our resources that we as workers create, those resources
5:27
Speaker 3: being used to kill, maim, and starve people in other
5:30
Speaker 3: countries who had nothing to do to deserve it. It's
5:33
Speaker 3: not just in France, but the youth of Albania, India, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium,
5:39
Speaker 3: to say a few, are taking to the streets. These
5:41
Speaker 3: young people are showing us an immense lesson that we
5:44
Speaker 3: all have to learn. We have an amazing opportunity to
5:47
Speaker 3: learn from our siblings around the world as we are
5:49
Speaker 3: all facing similar conditions, as is obvious by the hundreds
5:53
Speaker 3: of thousands of people that took to the streets in
5:55
Speaker 3: Paris yesterday. Those numbers show that we outnumber those who
5:59
Speaker 3: are harming our communities while enriching themselves. We outnumber them
6:02
Speaker 3: by multiple factors, and we can show our power. So
6:05
Speaker 3: thank you all for taking the time to join us
6:07
Speaker 3: today from France and those in the U.S. who wanted
6:09
Speaker 3: to learn our lesson. So I'll be quiet with those
6:12
Speaker 3: opening remarks.
6:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks a lot, Max, Dennis.
6:15
Speaker 5: Jackson Potter, Vice President of Chicago Teachers Union, expressing a
6:19
Speaker 5: tremendous amount of solidarity with our siblings in France leading
6:25
Speaker 5: this fight. We are all experiencing a similar phenomenon, the
6:28
Speaker 5: rise of extremist right-wing populism. The neoliberal assault on public
6:34
Speaker 5: education across OECD countries that have really gutted the public sphere.
6:39
Speaker 5: You know, so we've got a situation, for example, in
6:43
Speaker 5: the United States where the Mississippi miracle model is being implemented.
6:49
Speaker 5: shown as the example we should all follow because they
6:52
Speaker 5: have high literacy scores. What they don't tell you is
6:55
Speaker 5: they also have the highest infant mortality in the nation.
6:58
Speaker 5: So they want to deny children and their families food assistance,
7:03
Speaker 5: rights to access of health care, public education, lower class sizes,
7:09
Speaker 5: better food.
7:11
Speaker 2: All of the things that make a life.
7:13
Speaker 5: Worth living in service of reproducing this economic system that
7:19
Speaker 5: keeps many people at the bottom and a minority in
7:23
Speaker 5: power and with all the wealth. And so I think
7:25
Speaker 5: what France is showing us, Spain, others in this moment, Belgium,
7:30
Speaker 5: is that when we build bigger, broader markets, deeper movements
7:34
Speaker 5: for the common good, where our demands are, you know,
7:38
Speaker 5: we want it all. We want housing, human rights. We want,
7:42
Speaker 5: you know, to feed and fund schools in our countries,
7:47
Speaker 5: not bomb them abroad, that these are demands that can
7:50
Speaker 5: actually coalesce a majority. And we're seeing it right before
7:55
Speaker 5: our eyes. So really want to hear more from you all.
7:58
Speaker 5: And we'll be listening intently. Thank you for being here.
8:01
Speaker 1: You're about to hear from a broad range of those
8:03
Speaker 1: folks in a minute. But just to give you a
8:06
Speaker 1: sort of base of what we're talking about here, in
8:09
Speaker 1: case you have not been getting the basic information about
8:13
Speaker 1: these protests, I want to read from a report that
8:16
Speaker 1: was published today in The Guardian to just give you
8:19
Speaker 1: that base of information. And then we're going to have
8:21
Speaker 1: our guests introduce themselves. So in The Guardian earlier today,
8:26
Speaker 1: they report, quote, Hundreds of thousands marched in cities across
8:31
Speaker 1: France on Saturday in largely peaceful protests to support schoolchildren's
8:36
Speaker 1: demands for more teachers and repairs to dilapidated buildings as
8:41
Speaker 1: Emmanuel Macron faces a social and political crisis in his
8:45
Speaker 1: final months as president. The prosecutor's office in the southern
8:49
Speaker 1: city of Nice said on Sunday that 59 people had
8:53
Speaker 1: been taken into police custody, including 11 suspected of belonging
8:57
Speaker 1: to extreme right groups. They were alleged to have gathered
9:00
Speaker 1: with the intent of committing violence. In Paris, at least 110,000
9:07
Speaker 1: people marched along the eastern edge of the city, according
9:10
Speaker 1: to government estimates.
9:12
Speaker 2: They supported high schoolers, but also.
9:15
Speaker 1: complained of the high costs of living and the government's
9:18
Speaker 1: heavy policing, saying riot police had been sent to target
9:22
Speaker 1: school protesters over the past month instead of the government
9:26
Speaker 1: offering political solutions. More than 70,000 police were on the
9:31
Speaker 1: streets of French cities, with shops boarded up and many
9:35
Speaker 1: museums closed. The government had feared a repeat of last
9:39
Speaker 1: Saturday when, despite peaceful protests taking place, France saw one
9:44
Speaker 1: of the most violent days of unrest in years, with
9:47
Speaker 1: public buildings burned, hundreds of shops destroyed and looted, and
9:51
Speaker 1: at least 2,700 people arrested in cities across the country.
9:56
Speaker 1: The government has been facing a crisis since the start
9:59
Speaker 1: of high school demonstrations in mid-September when children aged between
10:04
Speaker 1: 15 and 18 began protesting against staff shortages at their schools,
10:09
Speaker 1: leaking and crumbling buildings, and a lack of chairs in
10:13
Speaker 1: overcrowded classrooms. It grew into the biggest youth movement in years.
10:18
Speaker 1: with trade unions, teachers, and parents joining. Police investigations are
10:23
Speaker 1: underway after some children and protesters were maimed and injured
10:27
Speaker 1: by explosive police weaponry.
10:30
Speaker 2: End quote.
10:31
Speaker 1: So that is the, again, just kind of mainstream media
10:36
Speaker 1: account of these protests. It's one of the least bad
10:41
Speaker 1: ones I could find. But I want to give you
10:44
Speaker 1: all access to the folks who are actually on the
10:47
Speaker 1: front lines of this struggle and can tell you exactly
10:50
Speaker 1: what is happening.
10:51
Speaker 6: Hello, I'm going to speak French.
10:54
Speaker 7: Sorry, I don't speak English.
10:57
Speaker 6: My name is Irina Yahi.
11:02
Speaker 8: I am a high school student in one of the
11:08
Speaker 8: poorest neighborhoods of the city of Nantes. And so I
11:12
Speaker 8: have participated in high school mobilization since 2023. I participated
11:19
Speaker 8: in blockades. So that I have seen the evolution of
11:24
Speaker 8: the situation.
11:28
Speaker 7: Hello, everyone.
11:29
Speaker 9: My name is Clement. I am a student at the
11:32
Speaker 9: University of Nanterre, so near Paris. And I am also
11:36
Speaker 9: a trade unionist at SNFOLC, so Syndicat National pour Souverain
11:42
Speaker 9: L'Essai Collège, which is a trade union for teachers and
11:45
Speaker 9: staff members in secondary schools and sixth form colleges.
11:50
Speaker 7: Hi, I'm Lina. I'm a student in Clermont-Ferrand, which is
11:54
Speaker 7: in the middle of France.
11:57
Speaker 10: I'm a street medic, and I'm also a liaison between
12:05
Speaker 10: the high schooler and the students.
12:08
Speaker 7: And I'm trying to help them.
12:11
Speaker 10: I've been asked to help the high schooler to.
12:17
Speaker 7: Assist them in the general assemblies.
12:20
Speaker 11: Hi, I'm a French high school student. My name is Abogine.
12:25
Speaker 11: I'm from Calais Montferrand, famous as Lena. I've been active
12:30
Speaker 11: on the blockade since the beginning of the blockade in September,
12:34
Speaker 11: and I've seen how the police have been treating us,
12:37
Speaker 11: students and minors, on those blockades.
12:41
Speaker 12: Hi, my name is Chloé. I'm a PhD student in
12:44
Speaker 12: economics at Institut Polytechnique de Paris, so Polytechnique Institute of Paris.
12:50
Speaker 12: I'm also a teaching assistant there for Polytechnique, bachelor to
12:53
Speaker 12: master students, and I'm an activist for La France Insoumise.
12:58
Speaker 13: Hi, I am Clément Poulet, general secretary of the FNEC-FP
13:04
Speaker 13: Force Ouvrière, and I'm going to say a few words
13:08
Speaker 13: about how my union sees the movement in France. I
13:14
Speaker 13: would like to thank you for this international event. This
13:20
Speaker 13: is very important for us to know that what is
13:23
Speaker 13: happening in France is seen from all over the world.
13:27
Speaker 13: Something important happened yesterday. Refusing to address the demands of
13:33
Speaker 13: young people and workers, President Macron decided to ban demonstrations.
13:40
Speaker 13: He wanted to impose of states of exception and terror.
13:47
Speaker 13: Huge crowds responded by taking the streets in massive peaceful numbers,
13:52
Speaker 13: young people and workers supported by trade unions. In dozens
13:57
Speaker 13: of cities across France, 800,000 people demonstrated for freedom and
14:05
Speaker 13: support in their demands. Paris did not burn. The coercion
14:11
Speaker 13: of the people overcame terror. The revolt unfolding today is
14:15
Speaker 13: the consequence of 10 years of struggle and to which
14:21
Speaker 13: the only response most of the time has been the repression.
14:25
Speaker 13: Young people have taken the lead in this movement, and
14:29
Speaker 13: it's now spreading across Europe, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and beyond.
14:37
Speaker 13: and workers are beginning to take up the baton because
14:41
Speaker 13: they are facing the same policies because fuel prices are
14:45
Speaker 13: skyrocketing and wages are not long enough to get by.
14:51
Speaker 13: This revolt will not stop because the demands must be
14:56
Speaker 13: met and the government is attempting to push a sweeping
15:01
Speaker 13: austerity budget through the National Assembly. 54 billion in cuts
15:08
Speaker 13: to public services and social spending.
15:12
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, billions are spent on war.
15:16
Speaker 13: All of this places a big responsibility upon the labor movement.
15:22
Speaker 13: My union has supported high school and university students from
15:26
Speaker 13: the beginning. And we believe that Macron and his government
15:33
Speaker 13: have left us no choice but to prepare for a
15:36
Speaker 13: total strike leading to a shutdown of production and public services.
15:43
Speaker 13: By uniting our trade union confederations and standing in solidarity
15:49
Speaker 13: with the students, we are preparing for a massive strike
15:54
Speaker 13: beginning on November 5th. Thank you for your attention.
16:00
Speaker 14: I'm not sure if everyone else from France went, but
16:03
Speaker 14: good morning here from America. My name is Caitlin Sovato.
16:08
Speaker 14: I am currently a second year in my undergrad at
16:12
Speaker 14: the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. I
16:16
Speaker 14: have been a organizer and a community organizer and abolitionist
16:21
Speaker 14: since I was 13. I'm from the south side of Chicago.
16:24
Speaker 14: And what sparked my organizing was our calls following the
16:31
Speaker 14: murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor back in 2020.
16:34
Speaker 14: Since then, my work has focused on restoring restorative justice
16:38
Speaker 14: practices in Chicago public schools, removing police from Chicago public schools,
16:44
Speaker 14: and getting all of the things that all of our
16:46
Speaker 14: communities need. So I'm grateful to be here and have
16:50
Speaker 14: so much solidarity in my heart for all of us and.
16:52
Speaker 11: All of you all.
16:53
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much.
16:57
Speaker 1: History here, right, that is not visible to so many people, right? Kate,
17:03
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked to Chicago Teachers Union members on
17:08
Speaker 1: our podcast, working people many times about the overcrowded schools, the,
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, crumbling school infrastructure, especially in poor black and
17:19
Speaker 1: brown parts of Chicago, you know, like, so I know
17:24
Speaker 1: that the issues that that are so central to the
17:28
Speaker 1: CTU are, you know, very much connected to what, you know,
17:35
Speaker 1: students and this whole movement in France is fighting for.
17:41
Speaker 1: But also to our friends and comrades in France, I
17:46
Speaker 1: know that, you know, like in the grand French tradition,
17:51
Speaker 1: you know, you guys know how to shut shit down.
17:54
Speaker 1: And I remember interviewing students and teachers and workers during
17:58
Speaker 1: the general strike of 2019, 2020, during the pension strikes
18:04
Speaker 1: of 2023. And so like, I say that to let
18:09
Speaker 1: the audience know that like these, what we're seeing now
18:13
Speaker 1: did not come from nowhere, right?
18:15
Speaker 2: And we are seeing it spread.
18:20
Speaker 1: In Gen Z protests from Bangladesh to Nepal, you know,
18:25
Speaker 1: like the cockroach movement in India, like something is really
18:30
Speaker 1: happening here. And so I wanted to ask, again, starting
18:34
Speaker 1: with our guests from France, if you could just, you know,
18:40
Speaker 1: in taking maybe two to three minutes each, like tell
18:44
Speaker 1: us what is happening there. Where did this come from?
18:47
Speaker 1: What does it look like on the ground? What are
18:51
Speaker 1: you seeing that we're not seeing?
18:54
Speaker 16: I'm just going to focus on the demands, properly speaking,
18:58
Speaker 16: the students' demands that Clément talked about. And they will
19:03
Speaker 16: sound very familiar to you, Chicago, because they are the
19:06
Speaker 16: basics of education. So more teachers, but just like Clément said,
19:12
Speaker 16: Macron government keeps cutting teaching positions. 4,000 last year, another 1,500
19:19
Speaker 16: next year. And I'll give you a concrete example. When
19:24
Speaker 16: school resumed last September after the summer break, I met
19:29
Speaker 16: with my 35 new students, the equivalent of your sophomore
19:35
Speaker 16: students in America, in the American school system. And I
19:39
Speaker 16: gave them the list of their teachers, but that went
19:43
Speaker 16: quite quick, because no Spanish teacher, and some of them
19:46
Speaker 16: study Spanish are the major no physics and chemistry teacher
19:51
Speaker 16: no technology teacher so more teachers yeah that's demand number
19:55
Speaker 16: one well actually i'm not sure if it's the number
19:57
Speaker 16: one or number two number three but that's one demand
20:00
Speaker 16: they have and that we have as teachers, so there
20:06
Speaker 16: is a connection, we connect our parts.
20:10
Speaker 17: Another demand is, you talked about the class.
20:12
Speaker 16: Sizes, 35, sometimes 36, and among them, students with disabilities
20:19
Speaker 16: who do not have any proper learning conditions and one-on-one
20:23
Speaker 16: aid despite their status. An example, September 2025, If I'm
20:31
Speaker 16: not mistaken, official numbers were 50,000 special needs students with
20:37
Speaker 16: no proper aid being in the class, being crowded in
20:42
Speaker 16: classes of 45, 46 students. Two years ago, I had
20:46
Speaker 16: an autistic student who would hurt his head on the desk.
20:56
Speaker 16: I felt like I needed to protect him, obviously, but
21:00
Speaker 16: I also needed to protect the other students of my class.
21:05
Speaker 16: So that's the number two class sizes. buildings to study
21:15
Speaker 16: with dignity rather than with rats, as you might have
21:19
Speaker 16: seen on the news in schools, of Paris mostly, old
21:25
Speaker 16: roofs collapsing, elevators not working, no soap, no toilet paper
21:31
Speaker 16: in the toilet, buildings that are way too old to
21:36
Speaker 16: face global warming issues.
21:39
Speaker 17: Here in France, we.
21:40
Speaker 16: Had our first episode of the heatwave back in May,
21:45
Speaker 16: and some schools just shut down, just closed.
21:48
Speaker 11: Just like.
21:50
Speaker 16: If students could feel better at home, but we know
21:54
Speaker 16: that's not the case either. So no fans to cool
21:57
Speaker 16: down the classes, nothing for them to feel good at school.
22:04
Speaker 17: Too hot in the summer, too cold.
22:05
Speaker 7: In the winter.
22:07
Speaker 17: I guess it's the same for you in the US.
22:09
Speaker 16: In school, in American schools, not enough desks, not enough chairs.
22:14
Speaker 16: Having to ask our colleagues, co-workers next door, whether they
22:18
Speaker 16: can help or not. There is another demand, a very
22:22
Speaker 16: important one, which is Parcoursup. Parcoursup is our university admission platform.
22:33
Speaker 17: The students are very angry about of a.
22:38
Speaker 16: Continuous assessment weighing heavily in the baccalaureate and the opacity
22:42
Speaker 16: of Parcoursup. Our students keep checking their phone, obsessed with
22:48
Speaker 16: their grades. So this platform basically is a tool of
22:52
Speaker 16: social sorting that left thousands and thousands of graduates without
22:57
Speaker 16: any solution after an exam, except conscription, unfortunately, except conscription,
23:05
Speaker 16: because that's one choice they have. You know, you have
23:09
Speaker 16: to tick little squares. If you end up with nothing,
23:13
Speaker 16: you can tick this square and go to war.
23:17
Speaker 2: Jesus. That's bleak, man.
23:19
Speaker 10: Yeah.
23:23
Speaker 16: And last but not least, our students are also opening,
23:27
Speaker 16: just like I told, the growing militarization of schools through
23:31
Speaker 16: official texts and legislations that require teaching on defense issues.
23:38
Speaker 17: How am I supposed to teach about defense issues? That's
23:41
Speaker 17: not my job.
23:42
Speaker 16: I'm an English teacher. I'm just a teacher and we're
23:45
Speaker 16: not at war. So, what, do you want me to
23:49
Speaker 16: do that? And the students, even when they're 15, 16, 17, 18,
23:54
Speaker 16: they are perfectly aware that billions of euros are going
24:00
Speaker 16: to the march to war and not to public services,
24:04
Speaker 16: just like Clément said. like schools and hospitals. So they
24:08
Speaker 16: are saying no to the war budgets currently under discussion.
24:11
Speaker 10: First and foremost, I would like to express my regrets
24:15
Speaker 10: at the absence here of anyone from the Dran Fram,
24:19
Speaker 10: which are the overseas regions of France, because they are
24:21
Speaker 10: the ones who started the movement and their convictions are
24:26
Speaker 10: far much worse than those of us Metropolitans.
24:29
Speaker 7: So it's something I think we should all remember that
24:32
Speaker 7: they started it and I... Their conditions are really, really hard.
24:36
Speaker 7: And it's a shame they cannot speak here.
24:42
Speaker 10: But so as I said before, I spend a lot
24:45
Speaker 10: of time with the high schoolers in Tarmac Ferrand. And
24:48
Speaker 10: I've been able to discuss a lot about what the
24:50
Speaker 10: demands are, ranging from too much pressure to having to
24:54
Speaker 10: live in a dorm with windows that cannot close in winter.
24:58
Speaker 10: I've heard and seen a lot of what they are feeling.
25:01
Speaker 10: One of the most notable is anger. And there are
25:04
Speaker 10: all the adults that have never or have stopped listening
25:08
Speaker 10: to them, to us, because what affects high school students
25:11
Speaker 10: affects us all, especially college students.
25:14
Speaker 7: We're already in a precarious situation.
25:17
Speaker 10: And the government has only made matters worse by raising tuition,
25:21
Speaker 10: by leaving students with no choice but to live in
25:23
Speaker 10: dilapidated and unsanitary cross-housing, and failing to provide enough funding
25:29
Speaker 10: to renovate universities.
25:31
Speaker 7: To give you a few examples, in Clermont, in.
25:35
Speaker 10: 2023, the Frederico Storm hit us, and the roof of
25:39
Speaker 10: Jeanne d'Arc.
25:40
Speaker 7: High School blew off.
25:41
Speaker 10: And now, in 2026, there's still no actual roof left.
25:47
Speaker 10: In my university, we have to go to class with
25:49
Speaker 10: throw blankets because there's no insulation, but we don't have
25:53
Speaker 10: the right to take them to our midsums, or we
25:58
Speaker 10: cannot have any coats for our midsums, and it's in
26:01
Speaker 10: December or January, so we'll probably be freezing while taking.
26:04
Speaker 7: Our exam, so.
26:06
Speaker 7: That's cool.
26:08
Speaker 10: And I would just like to point out that I'm
26:11
Speaker 10: talking as someone privileged enough to be able to live
26:13
Speaker 10: with my parents. And even if I left, I would
26:16
Speaker 10: have a bit of financial help. So I'm not concerned
26:22
Speaker 10: about what I'm going to say, but I've seen friends
26:24
Speaker 10: live in housing and I've seen them pay 300 euros
26:30
Speaker 10: for a small room with no real locks and sometimes
26:33
Speaker 10: no fridge. I've heard horror stories about watches in appartments
26:37
Speaker 10: that have never been treated or inspected, or even in Clermont,
26:40
Speaker 10: about a girl that was held captive and raped by
26:43
Speaker 10: her downstairs neighbour in a cruise housing with thousands of
26:47
Speaker 10: people around her. The government is responsible for all the
26:51
Speaker 10: violence inflicted on young people. That is the very reason
26:55
Speaker 10: for the high schoolers' movement. We seek only to make
26:58
Speaker 10: a united voice heard. The voice has been heard by
27:02
Speaker 10: some and has brought about a convergence of struggle. But
27:05
Speaker 10: it has also been suppressed by the police and thus
27:08
Speaker 10: by the states.
27:09
Speaker 7: Even in Carmel, which isn't a big city, I, as
27:12
Speaker 7: a street medic, had.
27:13
Speaker 10: Had to treat many high school students, many children, I
27:17
Speaker 10: heard parents express fear that their children would be protesting
27:20
Speaker 10: for their rights. So they came to stand in front
27:22
Speaker 10: of the high schools to act as human shield. I
27:25
Speaker 10: saw teacher and elected official. And today that's the main
27:28
Speaker 10: focus of the French media and government.
27:31
Speaker 7: Political exploitation.
27:32
Speaker 10: Not the demands, not the children named by the police,
27:36
Speaker 10: but the.
27:36
Speaker 7: Control of high school students by the far left.
27:39
Speaker 10: Except that I spoke with the high schooler, and I
27:42
Speaker 10: can assure you that they don't need to be manipulated
27:44
Speaker 10: by anyone to organize a blockade. They all have their
27:48
Speaker 10: own political opinion, but the movement belongs to themselves. I've
27:53
Speaker 10: heard them express their anger even at unions, because sometimes,
27:56
Speaker 10: even students' unions, I'm speaking about all unions, because sometimes
28:00
Speaker 10: they take up a lot of space and they speak
28:03
Speaker 10: a lot for the students, but students have.
28:08
Speaker 7: Their own way of thinking. And in Clermont, we have
28:12
Speaker 7: a lot of problems with that, especially with the CGT.
28:16
Speaker 10: Because sometimes they talk a lot to say nothing, and
28:20
Speaker 10: they try to explain to the high schooler what they
28:23
Speaker 10: are living, which is not fair because they know.
28:26
Speaker 7: Exactly what the conditions they live in are. They're very,
28:29
Speaker 7: very well informed about what the demands are.
28:32
Speaker 10: And is the far left politically culting the movement?
28:39
Speaker 11: Possibly.
28:40
Speaker 7: But that doesn't mean that blockades.
28:41
Speaker 10: Are being manipulated by them or even by the Muslim Brotherhood.
28:46
Speaker 7: Like, absolutely not.
28:49
Speaker 10: Our government actually is sliding towards totalitarianism, but the people
28:53
Speaker 10: will not stand for it and will continue to fight
28:55
Speaker 10: against injustice and for the rights inherent to everyone.
29:00
Speaker 18: As I have told, I am in a high school
29:07
Speaker 18: from a popular, poor neighborhood of the city of Nantes.
29:13
Speaker 8: So I have been doing blockades since 2023.
29:19
Speaker 4: And what I see is.
29:20
Speaker 8: That since then, there have been blockades, but.
29:26
Speaker 4: The places where it was strong.
29:28
Speaker 8: Where the police came, was always in the high schools
29:34
Speaker 8: from the poorest neighborhoods.
29:38
Speaker 4: Since six o'clock in the morning, there were already.
29:44
Speaker 8: Dozens of police trucks in front of the schools, even
29:52
Speaker 8: if the blockade had not already started.
29:56
Speaker 4: What is generalized today.
29:59
Speaker 8: Is what was happening already in the poorest neighborhoods. Right now,
30:03
Speaker 8: it is also happening in the city centers. So it's
30:07
Speaker 8: something that is very shocking for the high schoolers of
30:14
Speaker 8: those neighborhoods.
30:20
Speaker 6: So a comrade was speaking a little before of what's
30:29
Speaker 6: happening in Guyane, in Guadeloupe.
30:36
Speaker 8: But actually, what is happening in the metropolitan France, we
30:42
Speaker 8: don't know what is happening. Everything is silenced since... Yeah,
30:52
Speaker 8: so what is happening there does not appear in the media.
30:56
Speaker 8: Regarding the working conditions we have in my school, we
31:02
Speaker 8: don't have any social worker in my high school.
31:05
Speaker 4: It's been eight years. In my high.
31:09
Speaker 8: School, we also have only a half-time nurse. She's also
31:16
Speaker 8: explaining that her management teacher and management in her.
31:22
Speaker 8: Curriculum is something that is very heavy that is in
31:26
Speaker 8: the final diploma it amounts a lot this management teacher
31:33
Speaker 8: is sick she has been sick for years she is
31:40
Speaker 8: never replaced every time she has a sick leave the
31:45
Speaker 8: teachings don't occur. And this year, she said clearly, my
31:54
Speaker 8: health will not allow me to go until the end
31:58
Speaker 8: of the year, so I have to do the curriculum
32:01
Speaker 8: very fast so that you have the most you can
32:05
Speaker 8: have for your exam. So they are pushing on the
32:12
Speaker 8: teachers to get beyond what their health allows them to.
32:18
Speaker 8: And also the students, they are overexercising us. And in
32:24
Speaker 8: any case, they are asking us to have good results.
32:29
Speaker 4: They ask us to.
32:33
Speaker 4: Resist in a system which is just crumbling.
32:39
Speaker 6: Right here in France, high school students don't have the
32:46
Speaker 6: right to strike, they don't have the right to vote,
32:51
Speaker 6: so their only possibility.
32:54
Speaker 8: To make a change is to blockade their schools. and
33:01
Speaker 8: to go to demonstrations to shout their demands. But what
33:08
Speaker 8: they are faced with, there are so many injustices, so
33:13
Speaker 8: many problems.
33:19
Speaker 4: There is a difference between.
33:22
Speaker 8: Students from poor neighborhoods and students from city centers. There
33:28
Speaker 8: is a difference between the public schools and the private ones.
33:32
Speaker 8: So this is quite normal that the anger rises among
33:39
Speaker 8: the high schoolers.
33:41
Speaker 2: What.
33:45
Speaker 8: The government sends to them, it's the police, the police
33:51
Speaker 8: which has a big role in everything. They maintain them in....
34:04
Speaker 11: Sorry.
34:06
Speaker 8: So those are the first violences that they are faced with.
34:10
Speaker 4: But they are not the only violences.
34:12
Speaker 8: They are faced with institutional violences. For instance, her curriculum,
34:23
Speaker 8: her high school, she didn't have the choice of all that.
34:29
Speaker 8: She has been sent one hour away from home They
34:37
Speaker 8: chose her curriculum for her. They chose everything for her.
34:42
Speaker 8: This is the first violence which is not condemned in
34:48
Speaker 8: French media. They have taken 1,600 professor positions. Everything, all
34:56
Speaker 8: that is not condemned in the media. What they condemned
35:00
Speaker 8: is that some trash bins are burnt.
35:03
Speaker 2: They do that here too.
35:05
Speaker 8: So let's finish with something easy. Today, us, the Gen Z,
35:13
Speaker 8: the high schoolers, the students, we are allied with the workers,
35:17
Speaker 8: with our teachers, with everyone who wants to be an
35:21
Speaker 8: actor in this struggle and with Macron's policies.
35:29
Speaker 4: Today, we are not going to.
35:33
Speaker 8: Uh to cave uh as long as uh they don't
35:37
Speaker 8: give us the 10 billions uh we need.
35:40
Speaker 9: Yeah so i want to intervene on them on what
35:44
Speaker 9: i've been seeing on these school blockades i am a
35:48
Speaker 9: university student but also a trade unionist in a union
35:54
Speaker 9: for teachers and staff members in these secondary schools and
35:57
Speaker 9: sixth form colleges And I would like to make a
35:59
Speaker 9: point on the violence I've been seeing on these different
36:03
Speaker 9: school blockades. So for the past few weeks, I mean,
36:07
Speaker 9: more than 7000 students have been student arrests have been
36:11
Speaker 9: made aged between 14 and 18 year olds. It had
36:17
Speaker 9: already been reported that more than 170 students have been
36:21
Speaker 9: seriously injured by the police. As of a few examples,
36:25
Speaker 9: we have one secondary school student who lost the use
36:30
Speaker 9: of his right eye following a direct hit from a
36:32
Speaker 9: rubber bullet. Another suffered a double fracture to the jaw
36:35
Speaker 9: and the loss of his teeth after being hit by
36:37
Speaker 9: a rubber bullet from less than three metres away. We
36:41
Speaker 9: had a video of a plainclothes officer arresting a secondary
36:46
Speaker 9: school student near a river before holding his head underwater
36:49
Speaker 9: for several tens of seconds. There have been cases of
36:52
Speaker 9: strangulation during arrests, for example involving a 14-year-old girl who
36:58
Speaker 9: could no longer breathe after being put in a headlock.
37:01
Speaker 9: The violence is not limited to secondary school pupils, but
37:06
Speaker 9: it escalates when they are left alone to face the police.
37:09
Speaker 9: And whether they are teachers, parents, trade unionists or elected representatives,
37:15
Speaker 9: everyone has been subjected to the police violence. So I
37:19
Speaker 9: went as a trade unionist to various school blockades with
37:23
Speaker 9: other members from my trade unions to form a safety
37:26
Speaker 9: cordon between the police and the students alongside teachers and parents.
37:31
Speaker 9: We were tear gassed on numerous occasions. We were targeted
37:34
Speaker 9: with rubber bullets and faced police charges. At one point,
37:39
Speaker 9: the police positioned the sniper on a rooftop with a
37:42
Speaker 9: rubber bullet launcher who was aiming at us with his
37:45
Speaker 9: finger on the trigger in a flatline trajectory shot position,
37:49
Speaker 9: which is normally prohibited. The roads were not blocked by
37:53
Speaker 9: the police. So there was a constant risk of students
37:56
Speaker 9: being hit by cars. And during tear gas attacks, crowd
38:00
Speaker 9: movements gave way to scenes of chaos. All in all,
38:04
Speaker 9: law and order enforced in a brutal, bloodthirsty manner. We
38:09
Speaker 9: had the BAC, an anti-crime brigade with its origins in
38:14
Speaker 9: repression in the French colonies and now notorious for its
38:17
Speaker 9: violence in working class neighborhoods, areas also known as police
38:22
Speaker 9: testing grounds, that turned up at the perimeter on the
38:26
Speaker 9: school blockades with balaclavas and no way to identify them,
38:31
Speaker 9: provoking police violence between school pupils and the police. And
38:35
Speaker 9: we also witnessed the presence of the BRAVEM, a unit
38:39
Speaker 9: of ultra-violent police officers who conducted manhunts on motorbikes, batons
38:46
Speaker 9: in hand, crisscrossing the narrow alleyways and knocking over students.
38:51
Speaker 9: And I have to say that this unit had been
38:53
Speaker 9: disbanded following the murder of a student, Malik Ousekine, in 1986,
38:59
Speaker 9: but was subsequently reinstated by the French President Emmanuel Macron,
39:04
Speaker 9: notably during the Yellow Vest protests and the pension reform
39:08
Speaker 9: protests in 2023?
39:09
Speaker 11: So, first, I wanted to talk about what Lina said.
39:15
Speaker 11: I know it's a bit ago.
39:16
Speaker 1: Sorry.
39:16
Speaker 11: The roof of Lycée Jeanne d'Arc, which is the high
39:22
Speaker 11: school I'm going to, it blew over three years ago.
39:25
Speaker 11: It's the roof over the boarding part of the school.
39:29
Speaker 11: So currently, the boarding students in the dormitories, they have moulds,
39:35
Speaker 11: they have cracked walls, they have water in the walls.
39:39
Speaker 11: It smells really bad. It smells like frost, basically. And
39:43
Speaker 11: the administration is telling them, oh, yes, we have a
39:47
Speaker 11: project going on to repair it, but it's been three years.
39:52
Speaker 11: The state of the school, to explain why it's not
39:55
Speaker 11: being changed as fast, the school was built at the
40:00
Speaker 11: end of the 1800s, and they can't repair it as easily.
40:04
Speaker 11: So we have large cracks in our walls with plants
40:09
Speaker 11: growing out of the walls. We don't have enough toilets,
40:16
Speaker 11: even though we have toilet paper. We don't have menstrual
40:19
Speaker 11: hygiene products. Well, we have them, but they're, like, hidden
40:22
Speaker 11: somewhere in the school. It's really difficult to get by
40:26
Speaker 11: because it's really old and it's really in a bad shape.
40:30
Speaker 11: Another thing, too, what Clément was saying with the union building,
40:35
Speaker 11: that was a really good thing for us students as
40:37
Speaker 11: we are not being protected much. They help a lot, but...
40:42
Speaker 11: yesterday we had a big protest all over France and
40:45
Speaker 11: there were less breakage of things and stealing because the
40:51
Speaker 11: army was involved and the police were much more violent
40:56
Speaker 11: in Clermont-Ferrand someone lost part of their fingers and was
41:00
Speaker 11: violently burned on the back of their hands due to
41:07
Speaker 11: I don't know how it's very it burns you and
41:11
Speaker 11: it Multiple people got burnt, but that's the worst of them.
41:17
Speaker 2: The flashbang grenades?
41:21
Speaker 11: Yeah, basically that. And before those protests, there was a
41:29
Speaker 11: bit of an unspoken tradition. agreement between the police forces
41:34
Speaker 11: and the unions that if the unions were there to
41:37
Speaker 11: keep it calm during the protests, the police wouldn't act.
41:41
Speaker 11: And that unspoken thing has been broken. Now they gas.
41:46
Speaker 11: Last Saturday, we were supposed to protest at two on
41:51
Speaker 11: the big class in Piedmont-Ferrand. Even before two, the police
41:55
Speaker 11: were already gassing us and just without problem. And People
42:01
Speaker 11: who had never been to protest and who arrived at
42:04
Speaker 11: this time, they were like, but you can't even protest
42:07
Speaker 11: because they're already gassing you. You can't march. You can't
42:10
Speaker 11: do anything. And another thing that you said about people
42:14
Speaker 11: being assaulted while they're arrested, we also have cases of
42:19
Speaker 11: sexual assault while people are being arrested of sexual commentary.
42:25
Speaker 11: Like some policemen, I think, put their... they have buttons
42:30
Speaker 11: to hit. They put that near someone's ass. So, yeah.
42:38
Speaker 10: And just to say also about this, there are also
42:41
Speaker 10: the cases of policemen calling people sluts and also touching,
42:47
Speaker 10: and I'm talking about underage high schoolers, I'm talking about
42:52
Speaker 10: children getting touched in their private places by cops while
42:56
Speaker 10: they're getting arrested.
42:57
Speaker 7: And I think it's important to just say that.
43:01
Speaker 2: That's horrifying and infuriating.
43:04
Speaker 1: And again, I am so angry hearing this, but I'm
43:08
Speaker 1: so appreciative that you all are informing us of this
43:15
Speaker 1: because it's important for people to know this. Um, and,
43:20
Speaker 1: and I have so many more questions, but I know
43:23
Speaker 1: we don't have, you know, uh, so much more time.
43:26
Speaker 1: So I did want to ask if we, if we
43:28
Speaker 1: had other guests from France who do want to hop
43:31
Speaker 1: in and share your story and what you're seeing. Um,
43:35
Speaker 1: and then, um, Let's bring in our CTU folks to
43:40
Speaker 1: respond to what you're hearing and what you think we
43:43
Speaker 1: here in the U.S. can learn from our comrades in
43:47
Speaker 1: France and what we can do to support them.
43:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
43:52
Speaker 12: And I agree with most of what has been said,
43:54
Speaker 12: but I'm going to add maybe a few numbers. The
43:57
Speaker 12: demands of the high schoolers and the students are really
44:01
Speaker 12: coming from the fact that our education system is really
44:04
Speaker 12: under strain. The public funding per university student has fallen
44:10
Speaker 12: by 20% since Macron's been elected. There are like more
44:16
Speaker 12: than 10,000 teaching posts that were uh eliminated and so
44:21
Speaker 12: many hours that are not being taught because professors are
44:25
Speaker 12: not replaced it's like millions of hours lost every year.
44:29
Speaker 11: For all students.
44:32
Speaker 12: And what is uh really striking when you go on
44:35
Speaker 12: high school blockade is that these students really know what
44:40
Speaker 12: they're fighting for we hear a lot on media is
44:43
Speaker 12: that when you're 16 you just don't know you don't
44:47
Speaker 12: understand politics you don't know what you want, you should
44:51
Speaker 12: not speak. But these students really have very current arguments.
44:56
Speaker 12: They have precise demands. They know exactly why they're blockading
45:00
Speaker 12: their school. They have signs clearly against the government, against
45:05
Speaker 12: the government's budget, against the far right. They show support
45:10
Speaker 12: for Palestinian people. They're really aware of all the struggles.
45:17
Speaker 12: They really want to and parcoursup uh when you go
45:22
Speaker 12: to college students they want to put an end to
45:26
Speaker 12: mon master which is exactly the same mostly uh similar
45:31
Speaker 12: to uh before uh graduate uh for graduate to go
45:37
Speaker 12: to find uh graduate uh curriculum what i want to
45:43
Speaker 12: add is that mostly like what we see is a
45:46
Speaker 12: lot of beans burning, but when you go on the ground,
45:49
Speaker 12: students are, they know that burning bins work, uh, we
45:53
Speaker 12: work against our coast. They are mostly peaceful. It's very festive.
45:57
Speaker 12: There's music, chants, there's solidarity. It's really far from what
46:01
Speaker 12: we see in the cows. We see, um, they, yeah, they're, they, they,
46:08
Speaker 12: they're really peaceful. They just want to be heard and, And, yeah,
46:15
Speaker 12: what I just want to add, I think it's been
46:19
Speaker 12: said already, but what really works is when there are adults,
46:22
Speaker 12: there are teachers, there are parents, they're on the ground
46:26
Speaker 12: to protect the students from the police. They just, they
46:30
Speaker 12: form groups. chains, human chains in front of the students
46:34
Speaker 12: to protect them. It's been, Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself has asked
46:40
Speaker 12: all the officials, all the activists to step in whenever
46:45
Speaker 12: they could. Their elected mayor, who now has been on
46:51
Speaker 12: a lot of social medias because he went on the ground,
46:54
Speaker 12: protected students, protected students also doing protests by protecting them directly,
47:01
Speaker 12: physically from the police. And so what seems to, yeah,
47:05
Speaker 12: what the students need seems to be like support to
47:08
Speaker 12: be heard, to go on the ground, speak with them,
47:11
Speaker 12: hear their demand and protect them from the police.
47:14
Speaker 8: Maybe just a word of explanation on what is Parcoursup.
47:17
Speaker 8: In the French tradition, which is very different from the
47:21
Speaker 8: US one, there is a diploma at the end of
47:25
Speaker 8: high school, we call it the baccalaureate, And when you
47:28
Speaker 8: have this baccalaureate, you were entitled to go to the
47:33
Speaker 8: university in the curriculum you choose.
47:37
Speaker 4: This right has been.
47:39
Speaker 8: Destroyed in 2016 leading to 2018 Parcoursup which is the
47:47
Speaker 8: electronic platform through which the students are selected and some
47:53
Speaker 8: are just left with no possibility of going to higher education.
47:59
Speaker 8: And more masters is the same thing between the bachelor
48:02
Speaker 8: and the master. In France, when you had the bachelor,
48:05
Speaker 8: you had the right to go to a master. But now,
48:07
Speaker 8: this is not the case any longer.
48:09
Speaker 13: As I have said, Macron is determined to continue his
48:15
Speaker 13: policy at all costs. He needs to push through a
48:22
Speaker 13: war budget, a budget of austerity. But yet, at the
48:26
Speaker 13: same time, is facing a historic, powerful and determined movement, mobilization.
48:34
Speaker 15: The demonstration will continue. The blockades will continue. Many are
48:39
Speaker 15: saying the government must respond or else it must go.
48:48
Speaker 15: But the elections are still six months away. That is
48:53
Speaker 15: a long time. Workers and some trade unionists have begun
48:59
Speaker 15: to join the students, only just pagan. But in the
49:04
Speaker 15: face of the government's strategy of attrition, waiting for the
49:11
Speaker 15: movement to run out of steam.
49:14
Speaker 7: What can be done?
49:16
Speaker 4: We have reached a point.
49:20
Speaker 13: Where our trade unions have a responsibility to commit all
49:25
Speaker 13: their activists in workplaces, in public administrations, to bring things
49:33
Speaker 13: to a standstill while striving for the broadest possible unity.
49:40
Speaker 13: Success is not guaranteed, but we have no other choice
49:45
Speaker 13: because only a total strike can turn the tide.
49:50
Speaker 9: I'm just going to hop in for a few seconds
49:52
Speaker 9: just to talk about what's also happening in the universities
49:55
Speaker 9: in France. So after what happened with the high school
50:00
Speaker 9: and what is happening with the high school student movement,
50:04
Speaker 9: there has been also a mass mobilization of different universities
50:08
Speaker 9: in France. At its peak, more than 90 percent of
50:12
Speaker 9: the universities in France were blocked by their students. So
50:18
Speaker 9: in my university in Nanterre, we also organise blockades, not
50:21
Speaker 9: only in support of the student movement, but also for
50:25
Speaker 9: problems we are facing ourselves at the university, but that
50:28
Speaker 9: are quite in common with the problems called out by
50:30
Speaker 9: the student movement. For example, a shortage in university places,
50:35
Speaker 9: buildings that have deteriorated over time, and the lack of
50:37
Speaker 9: funds given to universities by the government budgets. We organised
50:43
Speaker 9: different General Assemblies where we voted to send out delegations
50:46
Speaker 9: to high school blockades. around the university and also delegations
50:52
Speaker 9: to different workplaces to call the workers to strike with us.
50:57
Speaker 9: We also organized different autonomous courses on security during protests,
51:01
Speaker 9: the rise of the far right in France, the history
51:03
Speaker 9: of revolutionary movements, and also courses that were held by
51:09
Speaker 9: striking teachers for high schoolers who must pass the national
51:13
Speaker 9: exams at the end of the year.
51:18
Speaker 8: We need not forget that there is a racist dimension
51:22
Speaker 8: in all that. In the media, in what the media,
51:26
Speaker 8: the politics say about what's happening. As I already told you,
51:33
Speaker 8: I began speaking by high schools from the poor neighborhoods.
51:42
Speaker 8: All that is broken, all the bad behaviors for the
51:50
Speaker 8: state right now is assimilated to the people coming from immigration.
51:58
Speaker 8: You know that in your country, Trump is saying that
52:03
Speaker 8: the problem in France is because of the immigration, because
52:07
Speaker 8: of Islam.
52:10
Speaker 4: The reality is that in.
52:11
Speaker 8: Every movement in France, the people who are appointed are
52:17
Speaker 8: the people from the poorest neighborhoods, are the people from
52:20
Speaker 8: different races, and they are called the savages, they are
52:27
Speaker 8: taken as a representative of the unrest, of the breakages.
52:35
Speaker 4: All that is racist.
52:39
Speaker 6: All this media, all what.
52:46
Speaker 8: The media say, this pressure from the politicians, from the
52:52
Speaker 8: extreme right, but also from the right, also from the center,
52:57
Speaker 8: is nourishing, nurturing.
53:00
Speaker 4: This hatred.
53:02
Speaker 8: Against the Muslims, against the people from different races. This
53:09
Speaker 8: has led to attacks, to terrorist attacks, racist attacks. We
53:17
Speaker 8: have had a few days ago an attack in Trap,
53:22
Speaker 8: and the assailant explained that he wanted to avenge the
53:31
Speaker 8: shop owners who had been.
53:36
Speaker 8: The subject of the looting last week. And that he
53:44
Speaker 8: wanted to kill black people, Muslims, Arabs.
53:51
Speaker 4: This is that. This has an impact on our lives.
53:54
Speaker 8: And this is why the presidential elections in 2027 are
53:59
Speaker 8: an issue of life and death for us. For us
54:04
Speaker 8: high schoolers from poor high schools, but actually for all
54:11
Speaker 8: minorities in France.
54:13
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, there again are so many parallels
54:19
Speaker 1: between to what we see here in the United States, right?
54:25
Speaker 1: You know, like, there are crumbling schools all over this country,
54:30
Speaker 1: you know, there are schools closing, you know, there are
54:33
Speaker 1: hospitals closing, you know, like, we're, we, too, are a
54:39
Speaker 1: society crumbling under the weight of decades of rampant pillage
54:45
Speaker 1: by the capitalist class. And that has been squeezing more
54:51
Speaker 1: from working people and giving more to a handful of
54:56
Speaker 1: billionaires and oligarchs and the power hoarders and wealth hoarders
55:02
Speaker 1: of our society. And we're seeing the effects of that.
55:07
Speaker 1: all over the place. It's in our crumbling infrastructure. It's
55:10
Speaker 1: in our schools falling apart. It's in our children's health
55:18
Speaker 1: getting worse, you know, because they're living near toxic polluting
55:22
Speaker 1: facilities or drinking, you know, a polluted water. These are
55:27
Speaker 1: the kind of signs of a society in decline at
55:30
Speaker 1: the same time that we're seeing more wealth-generated and spent
55:35
Speaker 1: on war and private industry than ever. And so I
55:40
Speaker 1: wanted to, you know, round things out by asking, you know,
55:45
Speaker 1: for our, you know, friends and comrades from Chicago and
55:51
Speaker 1: the Chicago Teachers Union and, you know, looking at all
55:56
Speaker 1: of this from the side of the United States and
55:59
Speaker 1: Even if we're experiencing a lot of what our French
56:03
Speaker 1: friends and panelists have been saying about We're not shutting
56:07
Speaker 1: down the country and protesting the way that they are.
56:12
Speaker 1: And so why not? Or do we have to do
56:15
Speaker 1: something different? Is there something we can do to build
56:18
Speaker 1: solidarity across, you know, working class struggles around the world,
56:24
Speaker 1: not just in France, but, you know, around in other
56:27
Speaker 1: parts of the planet?
56:29
Speaker 14: Yeah, I can go ahead and hop in. So as
56:33
Speaker 14: I shared before, I was a high school student of
56:37
Speaker 14: Chicago Public Schools in one of the buildings that they
56:40
Speaker 14: intended on shutting down, in one of the buildings that
56:43
Speaker 14: also seemed the same kind of conditions that you all
56:46
Speaker 14: And I will speak to my experience as a Chicago
56:50
Speaker 14: public school student, but I think it's more important to
56:53
Speaker 14: establish this understanding that the sovereign nations of the world
56:59
Speaker 14: are in a state of empire backsliding and it's masquerading
57:04
Speaker 14: itself as society. a power that is expanding, as a
57:08
Speaker 14: power that is establishing its domination. We're seeing that in
57:12
Speaker 14: this mass production of weapons. We're seeing this in this
57:14
Speaker 14: mass production of ideology, making sure that there are no
57:18
Speaker 14: connections between those of us who are in the United
57:21
Speaker 14: States and our comrades across the globe, whether it be
57:24
Speaker 14: in Iran or France or Belgium or Spain or Brazil,
57:28
Speaker 14: wherever it is in the world. And so I think
57:31
Speaker 14: just to speak on the establishment and to speak towards
57:35
Speaker 14: what conclusions it's drawing through media, what conclusions it's drawing
57:40
Speaker 14: through your all's demonstrations and what is communicating to the
57:44
Speaker 14: rest of the world. First is this notion, right, that
57:48
Speaker 14: Gen Z is not only not in hold the integrity
57:54
Speaker 14: to be able to challenge these powers, but it's trying
57:58
Speaker 14: to establish this generational disconnection between us and our teachers,
58:04
Speaker 14: us and those who come before us. And it is
58:06
Speaker 14: causing this lack of support. It's causing division and not
58:11
Speaker 14: only how we see things, but how we communicate to
58:13
Speaker 14: each other within our own communities. I mentioned I'm currently
58:17
Speaker 14: a student at the University of Southern California. And kudos
58:21
Speaker 14: to you all for all of your work in your universities,
58:25
Speaker 14: because what we're seeing in American universities is the complete opposite.
58:29
Speaker 14: People are not only totally complicit, but not even aware
58:34
Speaker 14: of what's happening in our world. And again, that is
58:37
Speaker 14: the efforts of this empire to trying to disconnect us
58:42
Speaker 14: Americans from our understanding that we are a part of
58:45
Speaker 14: this global community. We do have responsibility and obligation to
58:49
Speaker 14: people who are halfway across the world. We do have
58:52
Speaker 14: obligation to ourselves who are two victims of this empire building.
58:58
Speaker 14: What we've seen in the last five years across the world,
59:01
Speaker 14: and I think your guys' experiences all speak to it,
59:04
Speaker 14: is this new face of teacher and student solidarity. It's
59:08
Speaker 14: an understanding that we are all growing and a comprehension
59:11
Speaker 14: that we are all holding that it is us who
59:15
Speaker 14: are those, uh, who understand the weight of what's happening,
59:22
Speaker 14: who understand and hold the actual weight of what it
59:28
Speaker 14: feels to be responsible for democracy, the actual weight of
59:31
Speaker 14: what it feels to be responsible for educating the next generation.
59:34
Speaker 14: And so what we are seeing across class, across race,
59:39
Speaker 14: we too are seeing with students and teachers. And I
59:42
Speaker 14: think the targets of the conditions of students' learning conditions
59:47
Speaker 14: and teachers' working conditions from the states and from the
59:51
Speaker 14: governments is they're not only kind of revealing of why
59:58
Speaker 14: they're targeting us, but they're kind of revealing that we
1:00:02
Speaker 14: are essential and important to what is to happen next
1:00:06
Speaker 14: in our countries. And without teachers, without students, to challenge
1:00:10
Speaker 14: the empires. And I know that the notion here in
1:00:13
Speaker 14: America is typically that so many Americans are caught up
1:00:17
Speaker 14: in the work to be able to live. And I
1:00:20
Speaker 14: think where we are currently is in a space where
1:00:25
Speaker 14: we should be understanding that the work, the labor that
1:00:29
Speaker 14: we are engaging in and that we are producing is
1:00:33
Speaker 14: directly connected to the struggles of those of us who are,
1:00:38
Speaker 14: of our siblings who are halfway across the world. It
1:00:42
Speaker 14: is directly connected at this, our taxpayer paying money is
1:00:46
Speaker 14: directly connected to bombs in Iran, bombs in Gaza. Our
1:00:51
Speaker 14: efforts towards democracy, all of these different things are directly
1:00:56
Speaker 14: connected and tied to struggles across the world. And so
1:00:59
Speaker 14: it is really, really, really important just for Americans to
1:01:02
Speaker 14: understand that our day-to-day practices, whether you are going to work,
1:01:06
Speaker 14: whether you are going to school, um, It almost exists
1:01:10
Speaker 14: this kind of like linear hypocrisy. I know I feel
1:01:14
Speaker 14: it myself all the time, even just understanding that I
1:01:18
Speaker 14: have access to drinking water. I have access to food,
1:01:20
Speaker 14: the choice to be able to think about what foods
1:01:22
Speaker 14: I want to eat in a day.
1:01:24
Speaker 2: All of these things are very.
1:01:26
Speaker 14: Small components of our everyday lives that we've been kind
1:01:29
Speaker 14: of structured and conditioned to be blind to, but they
1:01:34
Speaker 14: are now the.
1:01:36
Speaker 14: Exact components of our lives that separate us from the
1:01:39
Speaker 14: rest of the world. People not having access to water,
1:01:43
Speaker 14: people not having access to the ability to protest, to
1:01:47
Speaker 14: go to a protest and to not know that the
1:01:51
Speaker 14: state that is there to protect you is not going
1:01:54
Speaker 14: to protect you, in which we already know. But to
1:01:56
Speaker 14: engage in these different processes as an American is completely
1:02:01
Speaker 14: different than to engage in if you are a citizen
1:02:05
Speaker 14: of a different country in the world.
1:02:07
Speaker 3: It is worth remembering that the history of this country,
1:02:09
Speaker 3: just like the history around the world, anything that's decent
1:02:13
Speaker 3: that has been won was because regular people rose up
1:02:17
Speaker 3: and made it happen. It wasn't because it was handed
1:02:19
Speaker 3: down by someone we elected. It wasn't because we asked nicely.
1:02:22
Speaker 3: It wasn't because we wrote petitions and they were heard
1:02:26
Speaker 3: by the people who run our society. The international system
1:02:29
Speaker 3: of And prioritizing profits over people is what causes the
1:02:33
Speaker 3: conditions that they are experiencing in France to be felt
1:02:35
Speaker 3: here in the United States. It's an international system that
1:02:38
Speaker 3: wants to put the needs of the 1% over the
1:02:41
Speaker 3: needs of the 99%. And those connections are made for us.
1:02:44
Speaker 3: And that's, I think, what drives these protests happening, not
1:02:46
Speaker 3: just in France, but are happening across Europe and India.
1:02:50
Speaker 3: In other countries as well. And we'll come back to
1:02:52
Speaker 3: here at some point. We don't have to go that
1:02:55
Speaker 3: far in this own country's history to look at the
1:02:58
Speaker 3: occupations that took place in universities like Columbia University, where
1:03:01
Speaker 3: they renamed one of the main halls after Hind Rajab,
1:03:05
Speaker 3: a young Palestinian girl who was murdered by the state
1:03:08
Speaker 3: of Israel. Those connections are made for us when we
1:03:11
Speaker 3: see tear gas in the front of schools in Chicago
1:03:14
Speaker 3: where they attempt to divide us, saying that the problem
1:03:16
Speaker 3: is somehow immigrants coming here to flee conditions that this
1:03:20
Speaker 3: country actually produced to seek a better life, and yet
1:03:23
Speaker 3: somehow they're the ones who are taking resources when the
1:03:26
Speaker 3: fact is it's the billionaire class that is taking the
1:03:28
Speaker 3: resources that we create as workers in this country and
1:03:31
Speaker 3: redirecting them towards war and away from the needs of
1:03:34
Speaker 3: regular people. Their power is the domination of the state.
1:03:37
Speaker 3: Elections are being bought and sold by the billionaire class.
1:03:40
Speaker 3: Right here in Chicago, we're undergoing a school board election
1:03:43
Speaker 3: where a billionaire, Michael Sachs, is spending all kinds of
1:03:46
Speaker 3: wealth that he has towards stopping the candidate that would
1:03:48
Speaker 3: actually be supportive of the needs of students in this city.
1:03:53
Speaker 3: We see the actions of the police in France. The
1:03:56
Speaker 3: same thing happened here in this country in the uprising
1:03:59
Speaker 3: in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, where they
1:04:02
Speaker 3: attempted to... shut down the protest movement using their their
1:04:06
Speaker 3: power of the state so i'll just i'll just finish
1:04:08
Speaker 3: my own comments by saying it's our numbers we create
1:04:10
Speaker 3: the wealth in this society we are the vast majority
1:04:13
Speaker 3: of people in this society in every country around the
1:04:15
Speaker 3: world it's up to us to organize ourselves to fight
1:04:17
Speaker 3: back and take what we created and build a world
1:04:20
Speaker 3: that's worth living in There.
1:04:22
Speaker 11: Are things happening in France called comparution immédiate, which means
1:04:25
Speaker 11: when you get arrested in the next 24 to 48 hours,
1:04:28
Speaker 11: I'm not sure, you get judged. And the Minister of Justice,
1:04:33
Speaker 11: Gérald Darmanin, he's been telling the magistrates, who he has
1:04:38
Speaker 11: no control over, to be extremely strict and harsh. And
1:04:43
Speaker 11: so some of the sentences have been to not be
1:04:46
Speaker 11: allowed to demonstrate or to lose the right to vote
1:04:50
Speaker 11: for three years. There is no separation of power in
1:04:56
Speaker 11: how this is happening. So that's why I wanted to
1:04:59
Speaker 11: add it because I feel like it's quite important. And
1:05:02
Speaker 11: to respond to your question about the 5th of November,
1:05:05
Speaker 11: one of the things that we've been telling other French
1:05:08
Speaker 11: people who come to protest because they're sick or their
1:05:12
Speaker 11: mothers and they can't come is don't buy anything. Don't
1:05:18
Speaker 11: consume anything. Really, just don't buy anything. And that passes
1:05:25
Speaker 11: the message, even though it's not as good.
1:05:29
Speaker 10: So to support us, yes, we encourage you to stop
1:05:33
Speaker 10: buying and stop participating in any way in the economics
1:05:40
Speaker 10: of your country for a day. We also encourage strikes,
1:05:46
Speaker 10: just not going to work on those days. But also
1:05:50
Speaker 10: a good way to help is to, if you can
1:05:54
Speaker 10: afford it, the street medic, which I am part of,
1:05:58
Speaker 10: are in dire need of funding because we see more
1:06:04
Speaker 10: and more people hurt and.
1:06:10
Speaker 7: It's expensive. I am a student. I don't have any money.
1:06:13
Speaker 10: And I have to have a lot of stuff on
1:06:16
Speaker 10: me so that I can help people. And so if
1:06:20
Speaker 10: you can donate, there's a lot of pages. You just
1:06:23
Speaker 10: have to look around to donate to the street medics
1:06:27
Speaker 10: of each city. If you can afford it, it's amazing.
1:06:31
Speaker 10: And then to help us just talk about it, talk
1:06:35
Speaker 10: about what you've learned today, talk about the reality of things.
1:06:40
Speaker 10: stop listening to mainstream media. We have a lot of
1:06:44
Speaker 10: independent media in France, and we have a lot of
1:06:47
Speaker 10: them that speaks the truth, which one of the constant
1:06:52
Speaker 10: things in France right now is how all the mainstream
1:06:55
Speaker 10: media have stopped telling the truth and have only been
1:06:59
Speaker 10: there to film and talk about the violence of the protesters.
1:07:07
Speaker 10: One example that's was trending at some point was a
1:07:11
Speaker 10: guy filming journalists that were all crouched down, like 10
1:07:15
Speaker 10: of 15 journalists crouched down filming a bin in fire.
1:07:20
Speaker 7: And he went toward them and was like, oh, you
1:07:23
Speaker 7: want to interview the bin? Just interview the bin. He
1:07:26
Speaker 7: probably has so much to say.
1:07:27
Speaker 10: And it was kind of fun. So don't listen to
1:07:31
Speaker 10: the main media. And we have a lot of independent
1:07:34
Speaker 10: media and talk about.
1:07:35
Speaker 17: What you've learned.
1:07:37
Speaker 9: Yeah, I just wanted to say, I mean, for the
1:07:40
Speaker 9: first time, remember what is being organized in different trade
1:07:43
Speaker 9: unions is, as Clément was saying, the general strike. And honestly,
1:07:50
Speaker 9: the main way for support internationally would be to push
1:07:55
Speaker 9: this general strike on an international level and for that
1:07:58
Speaker 9: the only way is to organize so going to organizing
1:08:02
Speaker 9: general assemblies in your workplace i mean i know it's
1:08:06
Speaker 9: quite complicated and we've had a lot of setbacks in
1:08:09
Speaker 9: france But it's basically going to see the workers talking
1:08:13
Speaker 9: about the problems, because a lot of problems that we
1:08:16
Speaker 9: are having in France are adamant in different countries, in
1:08:20
Speaker 9: the US, in England, and as we've seen in Europe,
1:08:24
Speaker 9: in Spain, Italy, Germany. And what is happening is people
1:08:28
Speaker 9: are organizing together. So workers are going to students, students
1:08:32
Speaker 9: are going to workers. And that's how we're pushing through
1:08:36
Speaker 9: to mobilize ourselves to work. to push for a general strike.
1:08:42
Speaker 9: And for the media part, I completely rejoin what Lena
1:08:50
Speaker 9: has said. Don't follow mainstream media. There's a lot of
1:08:54
Speaker 9: independent media out there on social media in France, to
1:08:59
Speaker 9: name a few. We've got Strip Presse. We also have
1:09:04
Speaker 9: one which is Information Ouvrière. And so, unfortunately, it's not very,
1:09:12
Speaker 9: they don't translate their videos or papers in English. But,
1:09:18
Speaker 9: I mean, you do get a general sense of what
1:09:20
Speaker 9: they're trying to push through. And they are media that
1:09:22
Speaker 9: are on the streets with us and who are not,
1:09:26
Speaker 9: as Lena said, filming burning bins for no reason.
1:09:32
Speaker 8: Yes, just a word, because as a French teacher unionist,
1:09:37
Speaker 8: I have had the chance to participate in some demonstrations
1:09:42
Speaker 8: of the CTU, of the CTU striking, and I've seen
1:09:48
Speaker 8: how you know how to organize a strike in the US.
1:09:53
Speaker 8: I mean, not a school was open in the city.
1:09:56
Speaker 8: There was this demonstration with demands with signs, very square.
1:10:02
Speaker 8: And this is something very impressive for a French teacher because, yeah,
1:10:09
Speaker 8: you know how to strike. I know the situation in
1:10:12
Speaker 8: the US is very particular. You can strike only at
1:10:15
Speaker 8: the end of the contract and so on. But what
1:10:17
Speaker 8: you are building right now, I know the CTU is
1:10:21
Speaker 8: part of this push towards the 2028 May Day, is
1:10:28
Speaker 8: something that is a.
1:10:31
Speaker 4: Support for us.
1:10:32
Speaker 8: Because we see that in the US too, you are
1:10:36
Speaker 8: able to fight, you are able to define your demand,
1:10:38
Speaker 8: you are able to work towards.
1:10:43
Speaker 4: Popping off this system. And I think this is a
1:10:47
Speaker 4: big help.
1:10:48
Speaker 12: A few days ago, the Prime Minister of France has
1:10:51
Speaker 12: called main telecommunications providers to be prepared to block access
1:10:57
Speaker 12: to social media such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, as
1:11:02
Speaker 12: the huge national day of protest was being organized. It
1:11:07
Speaker 12: has used this previously for Kaneki or New Caledonia. So
1:11:14
Speaker 12: what we can do together with you, with other countries,
1:11:17
Speaker 12: is to try and create all these alternative channels of
1:11:22
Speaker 12: communications that would be free from fake news from censorship
1:11:28
Speaker 12: and just trying, yeah, communicate more together on these struggles.
1:11:33
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it is getting late there in
1:11:37
Speaker 1: France and we should be courteous hosts and let them
1:11:42
Speaker 1: go and get some rest so they can go back
1:11:45
Speaker 1: out on the streets and keep kicking ass for the
1:11:48
Speaker 1: working class. And so I just wanted to thank Everyone, again,
1:11:53
Speaker 1: for being here, our friends from France, our friends from
1:11:58
Speaker 1: the CTU, everyone who registered and is watching and sending
1:12:03
Speaker 1: us questions live. Everyone who is listening to this or
1:12:07
Speaker 1: watching it later, thank you for caring about this. We
1:12:12
Speaker 1: all have a role to play here. No one can
1:12:15
Speaker 1: do everything, but everyone can do something and do something
1:12:21
Speaker 1: by helping us share this. this story, share, you know,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: these stories and these voices, uh, from the front lines
1:12:30
Speaker 1: of struggle, help us make sure that we fight the
1:12:33
Speaker 1: corporate media bullshit and propaganda and get the real news
1:12:39
Speaker 1: out there to the people. Thank you guys so, so
1:12:43
Speaker 1: much for being here today. I'm sending all my love
1:12:46
Speaker 1: and solidarity to all of you from Ithaca, New York. And, uh,
1:12:51
Speaker 1: I will be back home in Baltimore tonight, uh, But solidarity, friends,
1:12:56
Speaker 1: now and always.
1:13:21
Speaker 4: When my face you no longer see, I live on.
1:13:24
Speaker 3: Yes, I live on.
1:13:26
Speaker 2: Wherever you go. We are going to roll the union on.
1:13:31
Speaker 10: The song, I live on, yes, I live on.
1:13:35
Speaker 4: Wherever hungry, hungry are we.
1:13:37
Speaker 15: Just as hungry as hungry can be.
1:13:40
Speaker 10: The song, I live on, yes, I live on.
1:13:44
Speaker 3: While mean things are happening in this land.
1:13:48
Speaker 4: The song, I live on, yes, I live on.
1:13:52
Speaker 16: Wherever the books, news, and things are happening in this.
1:13:57
Speaker 15: Land of grace, I live on, yes, I live on.
1:14:00
Speaker 13: Wherever the videotape of me is shown, I live.
1:14:04
Speaker 2: On, yes, I live on.
1:14:05
Speaker 6: If I have help to make this a better world
1:14:09
Speaker 6: to live in.
1:14:11
Speaker 18: I live on, yes, I live on.
1:14:14
Speaker 8: When my body is silent and in some moments of grace.
1:14:19
Speaker 2: I live on, yes, I live on.
1:14:22
Speaker 14: When my songs and poems are read, I live on, yes,
1:14:27
Speaker 14: I live on.