UK media reports on the ongoing protests across France typically focus on the downside of the unfolding situation regarding predominantly peaceful protests by students, parents and teachers at the quality of education, the crumbling high school estate, excessive hours worked by the teachers who themselves are in short supply.
Some video evidence circulating suggests police are acting as agents provocateurs, stirring up violence before retreating behind police lines.
Tuesday 6th October 2026 saw a national day of action with upwards on 90,000 people taking part in demonstrations in cities like Marseille, Nantes and Lyon, with a later, bigger protest in the French capital, Paris
ILN member Jeremy Wilcox sends his opinion from the ground in Saintes
The people of France need international support now. The BBC is upset about burning bins and communist flags rather than that schoolchildren are being maimed by a specifically violent repression that has been ordered by the Macron government. Every news outlet in the UK is reporting the protests with pictures of burning bins as a backdrop and blaming violence on the protestors when it is all coming from the police who are being incredibly heavy handed, using their arsenal of heavy weaponry which the French arms industry is keen to showcase.
The French people need international solidarity, particularly from the left – and this is lacking from the British at the moment. The repression is at a level which is deliberately provoking chaos which is then being blamed on the Communists and La France Insoumise, who had nothing to do with the initiation of the protests but, with the trades unions, have taken up the call for an immediate political response to the demands.
Solidarité – please !! This is not just the French being French, this is about the suppression of the right to protest, and the entire legitimacy of the leftwing political opposition.
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