PARIS—Left-wing unions and housing rights groups from France and six other countries met in Paris “to unite our struggles, coordinate our forces and build an internationalist response to the injustices we share,” the delegations said in a statement on Nov. 3.
Socialist activists from the UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Belgium called for “coordinated demonstrations across Europe” from Nov. 20 to Nov. 22, stating that they want to unite their “voices in a common message capable of reaching every corner of the world.”
Their demands include a guaranteed right to housing, healthcare for all, and taxes on the rich “to combat social inequality and fund collective needs.”
“We are the ones who refuse to give in to governments at the service of the capitalist class. We will not allow new forms of fascism to advance,” the statement reads.
Benjamin Ball of the Yellow Vest movement, who attended the meeting, according to AFP, said, “By the millions, we will take to the streets and show that the people must rule, not the billionaires.”
However, Benjamin Cauchy, one of the leading figures of the 2018 Yellow Vest protests, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 27 that the movement had been “completely hijacked by the far left.”
Blockades Resume in ‘Residual’ Form
Meanwhile, the far-left-driven youth movement that has roiled France since September returned from a two-week school break in much reduced form, two days before a nationwide strike it intends to join.
The National Union of Students of France had called for a “black day,” urging students to take to the streets in large numbers.
However, the Education Ministry reported 48 blocked high schools out of roughly 3,700 nationwide (1.3 percent), a figure Education Minister Édouard Geffray described as “residual.”
The High School Students’ Union, a major left-wing student union, claimed that the number was about 500.
Disruptions were mainly reported in the Paris region, northern France, Toulouse, Marseille, and Rennes, where police dispersed hundreds of students who marched despite a ban.
Even though Geffray warned on Nov. 2 that the school year was now “at risk” for hundreds of thousands of students preparing for the baccalaureate, France’s high school exit exam, student unions continue to demand the abolition of Parcoursup, the university admissions system, despite government measures announced last week to replace it.
Geffray also reiterated that blocking high schools was “illegal,” even when students were pursuing “legitimate” demands.
‘Another Model of University and Society’
Despite a ban issued by the police prefecture and backed by an administrative court, several thousand people also gathered at the Sorbonne and tried to reach the Panthéon, where police held them back for about an hour before they dispersed at about 4 p.m.
The prefecture said two “wild processions” had been “spotted and immediately contained.” No arrests were reported.
Ajar, a 23-year-old member of the Interfac Île-de-France student movement who gave only his first name, told The Epoch Times that the rally was about “another model of university and society.”
“The billionaires have never been so rich, and we have never been so poor. The money to fund universities exists. We will go and get it from the coffers of the CAC 40 bosses,” Ajar said, referring to France’s blue-chip stock index.
Emna, a high school junior from Seine-Saint-Denis, the department north of Paris with a large immigrant population, told The Epoch Times that she had been mobilized “since the beginning of the movement” a month and a half ago and that she wanted to address “the lack of consideration from the government and police repression.”
The Nov. 5 strike was called by France’s main labor confederations over wages, pensions, and the cost of living, and to demand a rewrite of the draft budget, which Sophie Binet, the leader of the labor union General Confederation of Labour, has called “catastrophic for the country.”
Strike notices cover the railways, schools, hospitals, the postal service, and the civil service.
Student unions intend to join, as does the Yellow Vests’ national coordination, which has called a fourth “act” of protests on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7.
Interior Minister Admits ‘Failure of Anticipation’
The French think tank iFRAP estimated the cost of the violence on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 alone at 1.1 billion euros (about $1.2 billion), with stores accounting for the largest share, at 666 million euros (about $748 million).
The French National Assembly’s parliamentary inquiry into the violence and riots that erupted on Oct. 17 also began its proceedings on Nov. 3, with a hearing featuring Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
Nuñez said the French intelligence services had pointed out in an Oct. 15 note the “insurrectionary potential” of the mobilization and the ultra-left’s plan to infiltrate it and turn it into a riot.
However, he said, “there was a failure of anticipation.
“[The failure] is first of all mine.”
This lack of preparedness had already led several National Rally members of parliament to call for his resignation.
Prefects requested 200 units of mobile riot police that day, he said, when only 110 were available.
The minister said he took responsibility for not having recalled officers, insisting on “the necessary physiological rest.”
