French students' protests demand structural change in education
A protest over missing teachers and inadequate resources at one high school in Créteil has grown into a wider movement against inequality in France's public education system. Sociologist Gökçe Tuncel says the young people are demanding structural, not short-term, change.
In France, a protest over missing teachers and inadequate resources at a high school in Créteil, a suburb of Paris, has quickly grown into a broader movement. Its participants are challenging structural inequalities in the country's public education system. Sociologist Gökçe Tuncel discussed the movement on France 24, in an interview led by Delano D'Souza. She is a post-doctoral researcher associated with the Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC) and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris.
Demands are structural
Tuncel says the problem cannot be solved with short-term fixes. In her words, the students are denouncing a structural problem, and what they demand is structural change.
More than the power of social media
The movement's rapid growth is not explained by the organizational power of social media alone. It also points to a growing political consciousness among young people. They are confronting deteriorating educational infrastructure, unequal access to resources and an increasingly uncertain future.
The source does not say how many schools or students have joined, how the protests are being carried out, or whether the authorities have responded.
