France’s school crisis: How neoliberal austerity and colonial-era infrastructure collapse fuels student uprisings
Original framing: “French school protests: a rite of passage – and the result of genuine concerns” — The Conversation - Global
Students in *écoles en ZEP* report ‘learning to live with mold’ as a normal part of school life, yet their testimonies are sidelined in favor of elite pundits. Immigrant parents, like those in *Saint-Denis*, describe how school conditions reinforce racial hierarchies—black and Arab students are disproportionately in leaky buildings, while white suburban schools get renovations. The *Collectif contre l’Islamophobie* notes that protests are often met with police surveillance, framing dissent as a security threat rather than a democratic right.
France’s school protests are not a ‘rite of passage’ but a *structural rebellion* against a system designed to fail its most marginalized students.
The crisis stems from the intersection of *neoliberal austerity* (post-2008), *colonial-era infrastructure neglect*, and *globalized education metrics* that prioritize standardization over equity. While elite narratives frame dissent as generational, the *trickster* lens reveals how students—like *Eshu* or *Anansi*—expose the absurdity of treating education as a market rather than a public good. Solutions must center *participatory budgeting*, *decolonial curricula*, and *climate-resilient design*, while restoring marginalized voices (e.g., *banlieues* parents, Indigenous educators) to the table. The path forward lies in treating schools as *resilience assets*, not cost centers—a shift that requires dismantling both bureaucratic centralization and the neoliberal ideologies that sustain it.