French students demonstrate solidarity in the fight for better schools

It began as a protest over crumbling classrooms and missing teachers, but France's student movement is now challenging the political establishment to give young people more of a say in decisions about their future.


Issued on: 10/11/2026 - RFI

Cover image: Students at the Hélène Boucher high school in Paris blockaded the entrance for more than three weeks before riot police were sent it to end the blockade. AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga - Nicolas Garriga
02:11

By:  Alison Hird


“There’s a massive hole in our classroom," says Marianne Gerbet, 19, who is in her second year of a literary classe préparatoire – intensive programmes to prepare students for the entrance exams for France's most prestigious universities – at Hélène Boucher high school in Paris.

With winter approaching, she fears it will become increasingly difficult to study. "How are you supposed to sit a mock exam when water is falling on your paper?” she asks.

The situation in poorer working-class neighbourhoods is far worse, she says, with “ceilings collapsing, rain coming through the roofs... rats running round your feet”.

As at hundreds of high schools across France in recent weeks, Marianne and her fellow students have been blockading entrances in protest at run-down schools and a shortage of teachers, and over the Parcoursup online university admissions platform, which they say is unfair and overly selective.

"It's a movement of solidarity," Marianne said, standing by a banner reading “Gen Z, Generation Revolution”, as riot police – sent in on Tuesday to break the blockade – allowed a handful of students to enter the school.

“It’s not normal to have police in front of a school,” says Maya, 16, who claims she was tear gassed and chased by police at 7am that morning, after trying to build barricades out of green rubbish bins.


'Collective exhaustion'

Despite the police presence, and missing out on lessons, protesting students say they won't back down.

“It’s a sacrifice,” Gerbet says. “We’re being told to go back to class, but how on earth are we supposed to study properly when we’re not in the right conditions?”

Pupils will have to catch up, she admits, but returning to school without proper facilities is not the solution.

There is “a contradiction” at the heart of the protests, acknowledges Alice de Brito, a 22-year-old representative of the National Union of Students of France (Unef).

“They’re losing weeks of education because they want to have the right to study, it’s really crazy,” she notes, while underlining that without the blockades it wouldn’t have become obvious that teacher shortages were so bad.

For 17-year-old Aissata Ba, the whole education system needs overhauling.

“These blockades are the result of collective exhaustion,” she says. “We don’t have time to do anything. We’re at school from 8am to 6pm, we see our teachers more than our parents.”

Spotlight on France, episode 152 © RFI
Listen to a report and interviews on the student protests in the 

Spotlight on France podcast

Too young to vote

The younger generation as a whole doesn't have much to look forward to, says Rebecca Lyon-Caen, 16, who describes herself as a good student from a well-off family.

“There’s a shortage of housing, jobs, the threat of AI and the international situation is worrying,” she says. “We don’t have the right to strike, and we can’t vote. We really feel that our voice is constantly being suppressed. It’s frustrating, because we have things to say.”

This frustration is shared by de Brito, who has been taking part in discussions with government ministers in her role as a union representative.

“We’re really tired of not being taken seriously because of our age,” she says. “We want the government to take young people seriously and to start seeing us for what we are: young adults, not children any more.”

'They think we're idiots'

Initially, the government response largely focused on the rioting and looting that broke out on the margins of the demonstrations of 17 October that were otherwise largely peaceful.

But on 26 October, following another weekend of protests involving teachers and unions, the government announced a series of concessions.

These measures include up to €4 billion in low-interest loans to renovate schools, some 3,000 fully qualified replacement teachers to fill staffing gaps, 15,000 additional places in higher education and a proposed limit of 28 pupils per class. The education ministry also pledged to phase out Parcoursup by 2028.

“None of the decisions we make are empty promises,” Education Minister Edouard Geffray said. “Everything we say will be done and respected within specific time frames and with figures.”

But with presidential elections coming up in April and May next year, Ba is not convinced the government will make good on its pledges.

“Who can tell us that they will be maintained and put in place?” she asks, questioning whether the announcements are intended to bring lasting change or simply “calm the revolt”.

“We haven’t been heard,” she says, arguing that the 15,000 extra university places promised by the government fall far short of the 250,000 they are asking for.

“We’re not satisfied with these crumbs,” said 16-year-old Marguerite, adding that a few weeks of missed lessons was a “relatively small price" to pay in their fight for better school conditions.

As for Parcoursup, which student unions have contested since its inception in 2018, de Brito says the government’s proposed changes amount to smoke and mirrors.

“They’ve agreed to stop it but they’re going to put in another website that does the same thing, with another name,” she says. “They think we’re idiots.”

Years of underinvestment

A spike in births in 2010 has led to a rise in the number of 16-year-olds now attending schools that have been underfunded for years, and where teacher numbers have not kept up with the number of students.

The anger currently being expressed by students and teachers alike reflects years of neglect in the education system, says sociologist Fabien Truong.

“It’s the underinvestment of the past 15 or 20 years that we are paying for today,” he told RFI. The consequences have become so serious, he argues, that the system is struggling simply to function.

These protests should not be seen as those of a generation preoccupied only with its future, he noted.

“It’s a feeling of anxiety about the present, even more than the future,” he said. “Pupils are fighting for schools that work now – with functioning buildings, teachers in classrooms and enough places in higher education.”

The government insists it has heard the students’ concerns, but the dire state of France’s public finances means it cannot come up with the €10bn the student unions are demanding.

However de Brito says the government "finds adjustments when it wants to".

She cites the example of a July 2025 Senate commission enquiry which claimed up to €211bn had been handed to big French companies in reduced tax and social contributions.

She also points to a voluntary military service plan announced by President Emmanuel Macron this year for the sum of €2.3bn – although the financing is spread out over the next four years.

Sense of solidarity

While the stand-off between the government and students is ongoing, de Brito says there are positives. The concessions obtained so far show that “if they continue [protesting and blockading], they can obtain more”. And they've been part of the dialogue, which she says “hadn’t happened for a long time”.

The biggest source of satisfaction for her is the way high-school and university students of all backgrounds have come together.

Pupils at Henri-IV, one of the capital’s most prestigious secondary schools, told de Brito they were protesting because they did not understand why students in poorer areas should be left behind

“When you talk to high school students in the suburbs they talk about overseas territories, when you talk to overseas territories they’re talking about rurality... everyone is looking after each other,” she says.

At the University of Créteil, where de Brito studies, students have organised tutoring for high school pupils who have missed lessons because of blockades.

She has seen students from prestigious schools in Paris bringing their notes, giving them to other high schoolers so they can keep up.

“That solidarity is the best thing I’ve seen come out of these protests,” she says, hoping it continues long after the protests end. “It’s great that we’ve built this collectively."

Listen to more on the student protests in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 152.

 

Smart glasses and sensors bring AI to vocational skill assessment

A five-layer end-edge-cloud system records every operation at the workbench and pairs automated scoring with expert judgment, offering a route to large-scale, fairer assessment of practical skills

ECNU Review of Education

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Vocational skill instruction is conducted at the workbench, where effective assessment is correspondingly difficult. An instructor responsible for thirty students cannot observe every movement of every hand, and a formal hands-on examination that documents each step is costly to administer at scale. Some assessment frameworks have responded by reducing the time allocated to authentic practical tasks, a compromise that weakens the competence such frameworks are intended to certify.

A study published in the

  ECNU Review of Education (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20965311261489286) argues that artificial intelligence can relax this constraint. Guoqing Xu and Jinfang Cai of the Institute of Vocational and Adult Education at East China Normal University, together with Qi Xuan of the university's School of Teacher Education and Hangzhou Electronics and Information Vocational School, present the architecture of an intelligent vocational skill assessment system and examine its operation in one major.

The authors identify three persistent difficulties. The first concerns scale. Skill instruction is organized as whole-class teaching, whereas hands-on assessment is time-intensive per candidate and therefore resistant to mass implementation. The second concerns process. Traditional craft production was evaluated through its final product, so that a master could diagnose a learner from the completed work alone. Modern industry, however, operates with speed, precision, and tightly sequenced procedures, in which the correctness of each step is consequential, yet continuous observation of every student's every action lies beyond the capacity of any instructor. The third concerns fairness. Assessment continues to rest largely on examiners' observation, so that standards are difficult to unify and reliability remains low.

The proposed system treats the workbench as a site of data capture. Students wear smart glasses equipped with miniature cameras that record the operation from the first-person perspective of the operator, capturing soldering angles, tweezer manipulation, instrument readings, and component layouts that a fixed camera would not register. The bench is instrumented in parallel with current and voltage probes, microphones that detect equipment sounds and debugging prompts, and force-sensing gloves. An edge gateway cleans, de-noises and time-aligns the data streams before transmission, and in the cloud these streams are fused with operation logs to construct a digital representation of the student's skill execution.

Assessment proceeds in tiers. Skills governed by programmable rules, such as instrument operating sequences and standard soldering gestures, are scored through computer vision action recognition, which applies pose estimation and temporal action segmentation to verify the order and standardization of each step. Skills with objectively quantifiable outcomes, such as circuit output waveforms, are assessed by comparing real-time signals with benchmark libraries through dynamic time warping. Only skills that require genuine diagnosis, such as fault-repair strategy or the originality of a design, are referred to a large multimodal model, which returns evidence and hypotheses rather than verdicts.

This division of labor is intentional. The system operates on a principle of automated scoring followed by expert adjudication: the model scores what it can, flags items whose confidence falls below a threshold, and refers them, together with a time-stamped evidence chain of video and sensor segments, to an examiner. Experts review the flagged segments, score dimensions such as originality and problem-solving strategy, and their corrections re-enter the training set as reference data.

The authors emphasize that the objective is not to replace examiners but to reposition their work, so that expert attention is directed toward the judgments that genuinely require expertise.

Applying the framework to the electronic technology application major, the study maps foundational, specialized, comprehensive, and career-development skills onto three modes of assessment: fully automated, human-machine collaborative and human-centered. Routine circuit calculation can be graded entirely by machine; hand-soldering quality is screened by computer vision and confirmed by an expert; fault diagnosis in a complete electronic unit remains a matter of human judgment.

The anticipated benefits are practical: assessment that can operate at the scale at which vocational education is delivered, millisecond-level quantitative analysis of process that exceeds the resolution of the human eye, and diagnostic reports that inform students which operations they have mastered and which require further work. Two conditions are specified. The system depends on two curated training assets, namely a standard-operation video repository and a sensor-signal benchmark database, and on anonymized data processed at the edge in accordance with regulations such as the GDPR. Its results must also be validated against human scores before they can carry certification weight.

For vocational education, the implication is that its most persistent weakness may at last become addressable through instrumentation rather than through additional demands on teachers' attention.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261437798

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Intelligent Vocational Skill Assessment System: Development and Application Prospects

 

New teaching model offers a way forward for Zimbabwe’s multigrade classrooms

ECNU Review of Education

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A new study in Zimbabwe highlights the challenges teachers face in rural multigrade classrooms, while limited necessary training, teaching materials, and instructional support, making it difficult to teach students from different grade levels simultaneously. Drawing on qualitative evidence from teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators, the researchers developed a six-step progressive teaching model to strengthen classroom management, teacher preparation, and learning outcomes in multigrade settings.

Teacher education in many developing countries has long been criticized for emphasizing theory while offering insufficient preparation for the realities of classroom practice. As a result, providing quality education to remote rural communities remains a persistent challenge. Published on May 19 2026 in ECNU Review of Education (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20965311261437798), the study examines this challenge in Zimbabwe's fast-track resettlement satellite schools, where multigrade teaching has become a common response to low enrolment and limited resources.

The research focuses on satellite schools established following Zimbabwe's Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), which began in 2000. These schools were created to provide education for children living in newly resettled farming communities. Located largely in remote and sparsely populated areas, many lack sufficient enrolment to maintain separate classes for each grade. Teachers therefore often work with students from two or more grade levels in the same classroom.

The study adopted a qualitative case study design informed by interpretivist and grounded theory approaches. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and document reviews. Participants included experienced multigrade teachers, school administrators, and heads of teacher education departments. The researchers used thematic and interpretive analysis to identify recurring patterns and challenges in multigrade settings.

The findings reveal the considerable pedagogical and management challenges created by  the diversity of multigrade classrooms. Many teachers reported having to manage what effectively amounted to two separate classes within a single classroom. They often prepared separate lesson plans, schemes of work, and classroom records for each grade, substantially increasing their workload. Classroom observations further showed that students from different grades were frequently taught separately within the same classroom, often facing different chalkboards and receiving different instruction.

Limited preparation for multigrade teaching emerged as a major concern. Teachers reported that their training focused primarily on monograde classrooms, leaving them with little or no preparation for teaching multigrade classes when they entered satellite schools. Interviews with teacher educators similarly indicated that teacher education curricula do not adequately address the pedagogical and management approaches required in multigrade settings. An analysis of teacher education syllabi reinforced these findings, revealing little content specifically designed to prepare teachers for multigrade classrooms.

Curriculum materials add to these difficulties. Existing textbooks, teachers' guides, and other instructional resources are largely designed for monograde classes. Teachers explained that the lack of materials adapted to multigrade settings often forces them to teach different grades separately rather than build a cohesive learning community. The researchers argue that this mismatch between curriculum design and classroom realities places additional pressure on teachers and makes classroom management more difficult.

The study also draws attention to the gendered dimensions of multigrade teaching. Female teachers described having to balance the demands of managing multigrade classrooms with substantial domestic responsibilities. According to the stud, these pressures may affect career development and contribute to unequal professional experiences between female and male teachers.

To address these challenges, the researchers developed a Sequential Pedagogy Model for Multigrade Classes. The model emphasizes establishing learners' zones of proximal development, presenting content through a developmental sequence that connects grades, assigning practice work to one group while advancing another, and regularly assessing learners' understanding. Its aim is to shift multigrade teaching away from managing multiple several separate classes toward a more integrated pedagogical approach.

The authors conclude that effective multigrade teaching depends on specialized pedagogical training, appropriate curriculum materials, and sustained professional support. They recommend revising teacher education curricula, expanding pre-service and in-service training, developing handbooks on multigrade and gender-responsive pedagogy, and conducting further research into barriers to gender-transformative education in resettlement schools.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261437798

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Toward a Progressive Model for Teaching Multigrade Classes in Zimbabwe's Fast-Track Resettlement Satellite Schools: Aligning Theory With Practice in Education

SAY IT AIN'T SO

Misunderstandings about statistics common even among experienced researchers

Uppsala University

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image: 

Per Lytsy and Ronnie Pingel, authors.

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Credit: Anna Edling

Even researchers and people with extensive training in statistics often find it difficult to interpret statistical results correctly. This is shown by a new systematic review carried out by Uppsala University and others, in which researchers have analysed 55 studies involving over 15,000 participants.

Statistics are an important tool in many scientific fields. Using statistical methods, researchers can not only describe what has been observed but also draw more general conclusions. For example, this might involve investigating whether a medicine is effective or whether there is a link between air pollution and human health.

Drawing conclusions from statistical results is known as statistical inference. The way in which the results of statistical analyses are described and understood influences the conclusions that are actually drawn. Concepts such as the p-value, statistical significance and confidence intervals play a central role here.

But how well do we actually understand these concepts?

“We have found many studies that have examined this in various ways. What’s striking is that, despite using different methods, the researchers have reached such similar conclusions: understanding of what can actually be inferred from statistical results is inadequate and misunderstandings are common,” says Per Lytsy, affiliated researcher at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University.

Misconceptions even amongst those with a knowledge of statistics

The systematic review comprises 55 studies published between 1963 and 2024. Most of the studies were questionnaire surveys in which participants were asked to interpret statistical results or to judge whether various statements were correct or incorrect. Other studies examined how statistical results influence confidence in scientific conclusions. Participants included students, researchers, healthcare professionals, statisticians and teachers of statistics.

A common misconception is that statistical significance is regarded as proof that a hypothesis is true or that an effect is significant. For example, a medicine may produce a statistically significant improvement without that improvement having any practical significance for patients.

One reason why misunderstandings are so common may be that statistical concepts are often difficult to understand and do not always correspond to the way we intuitively reason about probabilities and uncertainty. Furthermore, statistical methods are based on different theoretical foundations and are sometimes used in combination, which can make it even more difficult to understand which conclusions are justified.

“A common example is to interpret the p-value as the probability that the hypothesis we are testing is true or false. However, that conclusion cannot be reached on the basis of a p-value. Such misinterpretations can lead us to attribute a greater degree of certainty to research findings than is warranted,” says Ronnie Pingel, senior lecturer at the Department of Statistics, Uppsala University.

Important for education and decisions

By compiling studies spanning several decades, the new review provides a broader picture of just how widespread and persistent these misconceptions are, even amongst people with extensive training in statistics. The researchers hope that the review will help to raise awareness of misinterpretations of statistics, improve the teaching of statistics and encourage a more critical examination of scientific findings.

“Being able to use statistical methods is not the same as understanding what the results mean. Our review shows that misunderstandings are common even among experienced researchers. This risks leading to incorrect conclusions and, ultimately, poorer decisions," says Lytsy.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0362071

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Inferences of p-values, statistically significant results, and confidence intervals – a systematic review of empirical studies.

Article Publication Date

11-Nov-2026

France: Mélenchon Fires Up His Base For Le Pen Runoff

France's Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Photo Credit: @JLMelenchon, X video screenshot

November 9, 2026

Rapporteur

By Elisa Braun

Key Takeaways:

On Saturday Jean-Luc Mélenchon rallied 20,000 supporters near Paris, positioning France Unbowed for a presidential showdown with Marine Le Pen and urging youthful followers to convert parents and grandparents.

He reaffirmed radical positions—leaving NATO, supporting Donbas self-determination, escorting Gaza aid flotillas—while softening attacks on social democrats and omitting Europe.

With older voters decisive and current polls unfavourable among them, the campaign’s challenge is to broaden the enthusiastic youth base into a runoff coalition within six months.

(Rapporteur) — The 20,000 supporters cheering Jean-Luc Mélenchon at his political convention near Paris on Saturday had their marching orders: go home and convince your parents and grandparents.

The far-left leader’s France Unbowed (LFI) movement, which is rising in the polls, used the gathering to cement the prospect of a presidential showdown with far-right leader Marine Le Pen and galvanise his troops against their designated enemies.


LFI leaders portrayed Macronists and their “far-right allies” as part of the same establishment, vowing to campaign relentlessly to “bring the far right back to the dustbin of history, where it belongs”.

This came two weeks after Le Pen assembled 10,000 supporters in Orléans, courting conservatives as potential coalition partners.

Mélenchon, meanwhile, called for sweeping change. “I only have one reasonable thing to suggest: change everything,” he said during his hour-long speech.

His Le Bourget rally highlighted the 75-year-old’s central electoral challenge in his fourth presidential bid: how to turn an enthusiastic, youthful crowd into a coalition broad enough to reach the runoff, despite widespread opposition to his candidacy.
The whole menu

Mélenchon vowed not to “water down his wine” to please others, a French expression for moderating one’s stance, instead doubling down on policies that divide the social democrats and centrists he needs to win over.


He condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while denouncing escalation by “warmongers” and calling for self-determination in the Donbas. He also said France would leave NATO and stay out of American wars.

On Israel, he promised action against what he described as genocide in Gaza and the gradual annexation of the West Bank. French ships, he pledged, would escort civilian aid flotillas if elected.

Calls to end the war in Gaza drew some of the loudest cheers from a crowd dotted with keffiyehs, also sold at the entrance of the convention. Environmental pledges drew less enthusiasm, although party officials said climate policy was now a central pillar.

The young, diverse crowd embodied the “new France” at the heart of Mélenchon’s strategy: a country he describes as positively transformed by immigration, women’s rights and the demands of younger generations.

“You either love France as it is or you don’t. We do,” he said. “You don’t pick and choose – it’s the whole menu,” he added, calling on the ‘New France’ to hold its chin up.

Rap performances and songs punctuated the speeches. One video featured a French flag marked with 93, the number of Seine-Saint-Denis, a poor Paris suburb and LFI stronghold. Speakers saluted single mothers, Uber drivers, teachers and protesting students.

“We’ve become much younger and diverse,” one party official said, adding that many attendees were first-time rally goers, motivated less by left-wing ideology than by opposition to discrimination.
Now convince grandma

The challenge is to turn enthusiasm into broader electoral support.


Short, Netflix-style films presented proposals from Mélenchon’s 212-page manifesto on education and work, complemented by theatrical performances. Purchasing power, housing and low-paid jobs featured heavily.

“We don’t want this to be a sad campaign,” said Antoine Léaument, an MP and France Unbowed’s communications director.

Supporters received a 100-page “victory notebook”, combining voter-registration checklists with arguments for dinner-table debates. A WhatsApp group distributes campaign material, while a gaming app rewards participation.

With older voters carrying considerable electoral weight, Mélenchon cannot rely on Gen Z alone.

“Convince your parents, convince your grandparents,” Mélenchon’s lieutenant Manuel Bompard urged.

Le Pen has a head start. She is courting conservative allies such as former Republican leader Éric Ciotti and cultivating a presidential image, pressuring EU leaders over budget negotiations as if already at the table.

Mélenchon’s rally offered little evidence of support beyond his existing camp, apart from overtures to Communists and Greens. Policies targeting older voters included home care, support for family caregivers and replacing commercial nursing homes with nonprofit providers.

Still, he struck a softer tone, making no mention of Europe and sparing social democrats from his attacks.

“Don’t ask yourselves whether you like me,” he said. “Ask whether you think the solutions we are proposing should be implemented.”

For now, polling suggests many older voters remain unconvinced. His young supporters have six months to change their minds.Nicoletta Ionta contributed reporting.


About Rapporteur
Rapporteur, formerly EurActiv, is Europe’s expert media organisation for policy and politics. Through deeply reported journalism, trusted expertise and a commitment to engagement with our audiences, we aim to help the people shaping Europe’s future make better decisions.
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Mélenchon bets on radical change as French presidential race takes shape

Leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has vowed to pursue an uncompromising programme of radical change as he bids for the French presidency in 2027. This sets up a potentially decisive confrontation with far-right leader Marine Le Pen, despite warnings that his divisive politics could ultimately hand her victory.


Issued on: 09/11/2026 - RFI

Jean-Luc Mélenchon un-------- -  veils his manifesto for the 2027 presidential election in Le Bourget, Seine-Saint-Denis, on 7 November 2026. © KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

Addressing more than 20,000 supporters at Le Bourget, north of Paris, on Saturday, the 75-year-old leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) movement rejected calls to soften his message to appeal to a broader electorate.

“Other commentators advise me to water down my message to win people over and be less divisive. I will not do that,” he told a predominantly young crowd.

“I have only one sensible thing to propose to you: we must change everything.”

The rally showcased LFI's newly published presidential manifesto, L'Avenir en commun – A Shared Future – containing 1,069 proposals ranging from higher taxes on the wealthy and retirement at 60 to lowering the voting age to 16.


Central to his programme is replacing France's Fifth Republic, established in 1958, with a new constitution giving citizens greater power to challenge legislation and even remove elected leaders.

Mélenchon also attacked President Emmanuel Macron's decade in office, describing its final months as a period of “Macronist agony”, while accusing the government of responding to recent student and cost-of-living protests with excessive police force.

He reserved particular criticism for the far-right National Rally (RN), declaring: “They have no ideas, apart from racism.”

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the French far-left opposition party France Unbowed (LFI) and candidate for the 2027 French presidential election, delivers a speech during a political rally to present LFI's government program for the presidential election, in Le Bourget near Paris, France, 7 November 2026. REUTERS - Tom Nicholson

Political backlash over Ukraine

But Mélenchon's foreign policy positions quickly overshadowed his domestic proposals, triggering accusations that he was echoing Russian propaganda over the war in Ukraine.

Speaking about a possible peace settlement, he argued that territorial concessions involving the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine should not be agreed without consulting local populations.

“It is for the people themselves to decide what they want,” he said.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot accused Mélenchon of becoming “the Kremlin's spokesman”, arguing that his position disqualified him from holding the presidency.

Raphaël Glucksmann, his main rival on the left, similarly accused him of repeating talking points promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Critics argue that any referendum in Russian-occupied territory would be fundamentally compromised by the displacement of Ukrainian residents since the invasion.

Mélenchon rejected the accusations, countering that Barrot had misrepresented his position and pointing to previous discussions involving possible territorial exchanges.

The dispute comes ahead of planned US-mediated peace talks involving Moscow and Kyiv in Abu Dhabi, with Ukraine continuing to reject territorial concessions.

More broadly, Mélenchon's foreign policy agenda includes withdrawing France from NATO's military command and ultimately the alliance itself – a proposal that would have significant implications for European security.

Mobilising young voters

The stakes, however, extend well beyond foreign policy.

After three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, Mélenchon is polling strongly enough to make a second-round appearance a realistic prospect for the first time.

In 2022, he missed qualification for the runoff by just over 421,000 votes. Recent surveys suggest he could now face Le Pen in the decisive vote on 2 May 2027.

But those same polls indicate he would lose heavily to the RN leader.

His strategy relies on mobilising young voters, working-class communities and the ethnically diverse suburbs where LFI has established a formidable electoral base.

The weekend rally in Seine-Saint-Denis – one of France's poorest departments – was designed to demonstrate that strength, drawing heavily on the energy of recent student protests.

Yet his outspoken style, confrontations with political opponents and recurring accusations of antisemitism, which he denies, have made him deeply unpopular among sections of the wider electorate.

That presents a fundamental dilemma: while his radicalism energises supporters, it could also discourage moderate and centre-left voters from backing him against Le Pen.

Mélenchon also faces competition from Glucksmann on the left and former prime ministers Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal in the centre.

Reaching the runoff would mark a breakthrough after three unsuccessful presidential bids, but defeating Le Pen would require support well beyond his traditional electorate.

Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry hits back at hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon over Donbas referendum

Copyright AP Photo

By Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 9 November 2026 - EURONEWS

The leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party declared that Ukrainians living in the Donbas should be "consulted' on their future.

Ukraine's spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Heorhii Tykhyi hit back at Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Monday, after the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, declared that Ukrainians living in the Donbas should be "consulted' on their future.

During a major campaign ally on Saturday, Mélenchon said that his party refused to "allow discussions about peace in Ukraine" to be headed by European leaders. This comes as France, Germany and the UK are set to take part in US mediated Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, alongside a joint EU team.

"We cannot accept the notion of a peace agreement that involves territorial concessions in Ukraine without first seeking the consent of the affected populations to live on either side of the border", said Mélenchon.

Responding to Mélenchon's remarks on X, Tykhyi declared that Ukrainians had "already settled the question of their country's border" during the country's 1991 independence referendum

Tykhyi said that Russia had chosen to "disregard the choice of Ukrainians" with its invasion of Ukraine, adding that "'referendums' under occupation are a tool of annexation, not an expression of the people's will."

"No civilised, democratic country would ever accept this for its own borders, so it should not be proposed to Ukrainians", he said.

Moscow has already staged sham consultations in annexed Crimea and in the four regions of south-eastern Ukraine it partially controls, procedures rejected by Kyiv and the international community.

France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also weighed in on the controversy Sunday, describing Mélenchon as a "mouthpiece of the Kremlin."

"All over the world the Kremlin is trying to convince heads of state and government that, basically, the Donbas is Russian and that the war of aggression is a war to liberate the Donbas", said Barrot.

"This is obviously of unprecedented seriousness and, in my view, definitively disqualifies him [Mélenchon] from holding the offices he aspires to", he added.

The France Unbowed party programme affords less space to the question of Russia's war against Ukraine in comparison with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is featured more prominently.

The war in Ukraine has become an increasingly controversial topic over the course of France's presidential elections. The far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, said in mid-October that she would end French financial aid to Ukraine, which she estimated at €6 billion a year, if she were to win the 2027 presidential election.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy then responded that "Madame Le Pen does not have a very good grasp of certain details" of French-Ukrainian military cooperation, defending a "win-win" partnership that he said was also beneficial to France's security.

 

French pupils step up protests as government concessions fall flat

Copyright AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga

By Nathan Joubioux

Published on 10 November 2026 -  EURONEWS

Unions walked out of talks with the prime minister’s office over the presence of the far right, while firework mortars have been set off inside schools as tensions rise.

Secondary school pupils in France are back on the streets on Tuesday. Nearly two months into their protest movement, the government’s concessions have failed to bring it to an end.

A coalition of trade unions and youth organisations has called a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations. It is the latest escalation in a dispute that has seen sporadic violence at schools across the country.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government tried to calm things down. It promised to overhaul Parcoursup, France’s national online platform for allocating university places, from 2027 and to replace it completely in 2028. It also pledged more money for school buildings and extra resources for the most deprived schools.

Protesters were not won over. Relations got worse at a meeting on the Parcoursup reform at the prime minister’s office in Paris. Most of the pupil and student groups, along with education unions, walked out in protest at the presence of far-right and business representatives.

"We are calling on everyone who supports the legitimate demands of young people, but also those of workers, to be out on the streets," said Éloïse Lefebvre-Milon, co-leader of the Union étudiante student union, after leaving the talks.

Relate

The coalition includes some of France’s biggest labour unions, such as the CGT and FO, alongside pupil and student organisations. It said in a joint statement that now was the time "to step up the mobilisation by continuing to put pressure on the government".

"Giving fresh momentum to the mobilisation"

Pupil leaders say they have no intention of backing down. "The balance of power is in our favour, we have to keep going," said Ryad Rani, president of the Union syndicale lycéenne, a secondary school pupils’ union.

“We have to stay mobilised. We are not only fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for teachers, for their working conditions,” Rani said.

Sophie Vénétitay heads Snes-FSU, the largest union for secondary school teachers. She said Tuesday’s action would include “supervised and secure marches”, since tensions outside schools are rising.

Youth protests have a long history of putting pressure on French governments. Former president François Hollande faced mass demonstrations against his labour reforms in 2016. At the time, he privately compared a student movement to toothpaste: "You can get it out of the tube, but you cannot get it back in."

Violence reported in several secondary schools

Most of the protests have been peaceful, but there has been a string of violent incidents on the fringes.

On Monday, firework mortars were set off inside two secondary schools in Seine-et-Marne, in theeast of Paris. The regional council said two pupils were hurt at one of them. At the other, nobody was injured, but education officials said pupils were left "in shock".

Police arrested five people after trouble outside schools in Le Havre and Rouen in Normandy, according to France 3 Normandie (source in French). Fireworks were also set off outside a school in Angers in western France (source in French). Further incidents were reported in the north-eastern Meurthe-et-Moselle department, according to Ici (source in French).

French student protests continue amid

deadlock over education reforms

Students and teachers are planning a new day of strikes and demonstrations Tuesday, as talks with the government remain deadlocked, nearly two months after the start of protests by high school and university students.


Issued on: 10/11/2026 - RFI

High school and university students at a demonstration in Nantes, 15 October 2026. A new day of strikes and protests is being called for Tuesday as talks with the government remain deadlocked, nearly two months after the start of the movement. 

© Stephane Mahe/Reuters

“This is the time to step up the mobilisation and continue putting pressure on the government,” wrote a coalition of student organisations and teachers unions, calling for the strike, on Saturday.

Demonstrations are planned in most of France’s major cities. In Paris, a march will leave off from the Panthéon at 2pm and head towards Place d’Italie.

Some teachers are expected to be on strike, said Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of the Snes-FSU teachers’ union, notably in some areas, though participation is expected to be lower than last week, on 5 November, when nearly 16 percent of teachers went on strike, according to the Education Ministry.

“The balance of power is on our side, and we must keep going. I am not saying we have won anything, but I am saying we are on the right track,” said Ryad Rani, president of the USL secondary school students’ union on Monday evening, after the first meeting of the committee set up to reform Parcoursup, the national university admissions platform.
Students walk out on Prime Minister

The meeting with the Prime Minister ended prematurely after a number of student and teachers’ organisations walked out in protest against the presence of right week representatives, far right lawmakers and employers’ organisations.

The groups criticised the attendance of student union UNI, which describes itself as the leading right wing student movement, as well as Thierry Tesson, a far right National Rally MP and Gaëlle Frontoni, a senator for the right wing UDR.

“We want to make it absolutely clear that we will never sit in a room with the far right, with people responsible for spreading racist, fascist and hateful ideas,” Manon Moret, General Secretary of Unef, the French national union of students, told reporters.

Student unions also objected to the influence given to employers’ organisations.

“We refuse to let higher education be reformed around the needs of businesses. Young people are the ones who need to be heard,” said Eloïse Lefebvre-Milon, co-general secretary of Union étudiante.

Parcoursup is at the heart of the protests, with students continuing to demand it be scrapped. The government announced a revision of the platform two weeks ago, ahead of its planned replacement in 2028.

Organisations representing schools also walked out of the meeting.

“The government is incapable of offering a new response to students and education staff,” said Vénétitay.

Making up missed lessons

Meanwhile, Education Minister Édouard Geffray said on Monday that students who have missed lessons because of the protests could be offered catch-up classes during school holidays,

Such classes already exist, but they will be expanded into school holidays in February and at Easter, to make up for teaching time lost during the student protests, Geffray said in an interview with public broadcaster France 2.

School representatives rejected the proposal, questioning how the government would recruit enough volunteer teachers to work during their holidays.

Geffray also confirmed that the dates of the baccalauréat examinations would remain unchanged.