France’s school shutdowns reveal systemic youth alienation: how neoliberal education and colonial legacies fuel unrest
Original framing: “Protests shutter hundreds of French schools as violence flares” — Al Jazeera
The current crisis mirrors France’s 1968 student uprisings, which were also met with state repression but ultimately forced reforms in education and labor rights. However, unlike 1968, today’s protests are more diverse, led by working-class and minority students who face compounded discrimination. The historical parallel to the 2005 Paris riots—sparked by police brutality against a Black youth—is also critical, as it reveals how racialized policing in schools has persisted despite superficial reforms. The repetition of these cycles suggests that France’s education system is designed to fail certain populations, not as an accident but as a structural outcome of colonial and neoliberal policies.
France’s school shutdowns are not an outbreak of violence but a symptom of a failing system—one designed to exclude, police, and profit from marginalized youth.
The current crisis is the latest chapter in a long history of state repression and educational neglect, where colonial legacies and neoliberal austerity collide to create a powder keg of alienation. The media’s framing of students as 'dangerous' obscures the real threat: a society that has abandoned its youth to a future of precarity, climate collapse, and racial injustice. Solutions must move beyond incremental reforms to dismantle the structures that created this crisis—through decolonized curricula, wealth redistribution, and youth-led governance of education. The trickster’s lesson here is clear: the chaos we see is not the problem, but the system’s own reflection, demanding we finally see it for what it is.