'On the brink': Why French high school revolt is not the only problem facing France

Welcome to a new episode of Talking France, a special episode it turns out, because we find ourselves in the midst of a new major protest movement in France.

This one is being led by high school students, who are fed up with the state of the education system and fear they don’t have much future ahead of them. Their movement, which has seen lycees blockaded, is supported by students, parents, teachers, unions and several political parties.

In the last week or so we’ve seen thousands of young people arrested, we’ve had hundreds of school students, education staff and police officers left injured as violence and vandalism has flared at flash points throughout the country.

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This week we’ve seen tens of thousands take to the streets in a mass demonstration as well as the president calling emergency meetings with his ministers.

This wasn’t meant to be a special episode but these student uprising has caught us by surprise and so we need to breakdown what’s going on, what’s caused it and find out where it’s heading.

To do that I’ll call on the team at The Local France Emma Pearson and Emma Albright, our French politics expert John Lichfield and as well as French education expert and author Peter Gumbel. I’m Ben McPartland your host.

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