Lycées: the blockades are fading, but the question of purchasing power remains

According to Le Figaro, which describes a movement that is "losing steam" after two weeks of holidays, only 41 lycées were blocked this Monday morning, according to the Education Ministry. That is 1% of the roughly 3,700 schools in the country. Youth unions are calling for a fresh mobilisation this Tuesday, 3 November.

So much for the facts as reported. Note first that the figure comes from the ministry, that is, from the other side, and that the tally kept by a government with no interest in seeing public anger grow is rarely the most generous. What the wire report does not say: how many pupils took part in the actions, what their precise demands are, and under what conditions the police evacuations took place. The editorial brief mentions a nurse and pupils who were detained; we have no verified detail on them at this stage, and we will not pretend otherwise.

In our reading, the loss of momentum has a less mysterious explanation than the morning papers suggest. Two weeks of holidays is the best strikebreaker ever invented: the school calendar does the job the police cannot always manage. A blockade is a strike by young people who have no boss to hit in the wallet; their only lever is to disrupt a place and attract attention. When the place is empty, the lever is too.

The unions, as the Gazette reminds us in its notes, are fighting a necessary but limited battle: it concerns the price of labour, or here the price of living, more than the system that sets them. And every debate over picket lines, evictions or "essential services" is in fact an argument over how much room for manoeuvre is granted to those who have nothing but their numbers. Pupils learn quickly: the right to protest is guaranteed, provided it does not cause inconvenience.

Luxemburg observed that isolated struggles, however numerous, do not turn into common action overnight, and that a strike without echo in the rest of society can die despite the sympathy it attracts. She was writing about Dutch railway workers, not final-year (Terminale) pupils, but the lesson applies: a movement not joined by wage earners, parents and teachers remains a matter of school gates.

As for the state, this "committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie", to use the classic formula, has the police, the calendar and the statistics at its disposal. It does have a degree of relative autonomy, and it can give way when the street presses hard. But it is hard to see what would push it to do so here, when 99% of lycées are opening their doors.

There remains the underlying question, which the 1% figure does not resolve: why would a generation not yet even on the labour market mobilise over purchasing power? Because it understood, before entering it, that productivity gains do not flow back to wages. Tuesday will show whether the anger has truly taken a holiday, or has merely changed its rhythm.