Activists say struggle must go on until their ‘maximum’ demands are met over teacher shortages and building repairs

French children should continue to barricade their schools and take part in street protests, a student union said on Monday after the government announced a package of education measures to try to stem the crisis.

“Today we’re at the negotiating table, we’re able to negotiate with the government,” Pierre Sourzat of Les Lycéens told France Info television. “We’re in a power struggle and we still need to call for continued mobilisation to meet a maximum of our demands.”

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Amid widespread protests, Muriel E Cockcroft has sympathy for French youth but fears how much steam will be let out at the next convulsion

I’m writing in response to your editorial (The Guardian view on France’s protests: a polarised country is in a perilous political moment, 19 October). While the focus is on Emmanuel Macron, let us not forget the hierarchical structure of French administration, from mayors to MPs to senators to prefects and heads of region. All are part of the government, but few stood up to bring leaky school roofs and missing teachers to national consciousness. I deplore the senseless destruction of shops and state buildings. But I also deplore the fact that students had to protest to be heard. In the many administrative tiers of this highly hierarchical country, no one acted and inertia prevailed.

Centrally, the government is financially challenged but refuses to acknowledge that having a huge deficit, an ageing population and a low retirement age are perhaps connected. Modest attempts to increase the retirement age also provoked violent protests. Financial tools for individual retirement remain complex and restricted. Thus, this sclerotic system presses on until the next crisis.

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© Photograph: Roses Nicolas/ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roses Nicolas/ABACA/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roses Nicolas/ABACA/Shutterstock

Line Renaud a annoncé le 24 octobre sur France Musique son souhait d'adopter Claude Chirac, fille de Jacques et Bernadette Chirac, décédée en juin 2026. Cette adoption de personne majeure, soumise à l'approbation du...

Exclusive: Coordinated airstrikes on territory held by al-Shabaab are driving the civilian population to find refuge alongside a river where rising water levels are a threat to safety. Is it a deliberate military strategy?

The water was rising rapidly. It had already reached Cayni Ali’s waist. Her home, five metres from the flooded River Juba in southern Somalia, never stood a chance. There was nowhere to go. Ali’s city of Jilib was under attack. Repeated airstrikes, said the mother of six, were pinning its population beside the rising river.

“The drones come all the time,” said the 27-year-old. “We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere.”

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© Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

© Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

© Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

Faced with a stagnant jobs market, many are spurning children or pets in favour of ‘raising bricks’

Young adults in China looking for a cheaper, low-maintenance alternative to having children or pets have found an answer: raising bricks.

Bricks may not be as cuddly as cats or as life-affirming as human offspring, but they also cost next to nothing. “No cats, no dating, I started raising a brick,” wrote one brick parent on social media.

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© Photograph: xiaohongshu.com

© Photograph: xiaohongshu.com

© Photograph: xiaohongshu.com

We should not let the skepticism of our age rob us of properly lauding heroes from an earlier age. If we aren’t careful, we will find ourselves denying the supernatural altogether and wondering if God is too good to be true. In the end, the way to read martyr stories like those of Perpetua and... Continue Reading