The protests over the state of high school education have brought tens of thousands of young people and adults onto the streets of Paris, with further strikes planned on Thursday. Demonstrators carried hand-written placards including “School is a right, not a privilege” and “A state that gasses high school students is a weak state”, the latter reflecting public anger at alleged police brutality towards young protesters. French police have suspended the use of stun grenades after a high school protester lost a hand.
The French unrest is part of a wider European pattern. Tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets of Spanish cities in recent weeks to protest the deepening housing crisis, and last week jobless young people protested outside the Labour party conference in Liverpool over what they saw as bleak employment prospects.
The Guardian’s briefing notes a similar thread running from Paris to the north of England: a generation that feels betrayed by the absence of basic economic security and the erosion of public services that older generations took for granted.
Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis has been reporting from the centre of the protests.