France in flames over teacher shortage!

France woke up on Saturday to nearly a month of marches, barricades and tear gas. The triggers are fairly ordinary: expensive fuel and people tired of wages that do not stretch far enough, run-down schools and a shortage of teachers.

The protests began on September 18 in high schools in the working-class districts of northern Paris. Students demanding decent teachers and facilities ended up driving a national movement against the cost of living, inequality and the deterioration of public services. 

Alongside the many demonstrations, there were also attacks on police, media and public buildings, and damage to the city hall in Marseille. No social cause turns indiscriminate violence into a political argument: destroying a school, a station or a neighborhood shop harms precisely the same protesters.

But the state's response cannot be normalized either. The police used tear gas, and at least 24 complaints of police violence are under investigation. A teenager lost a hand after picking up a stun grenade. The government, for its part, reported that more than 900 officers had been injured during the student protests. 

The irony is painful: resources for teachers and schools are lacking, yet helmets, shields and tear gas never seem to run short when protests arrive. The state can take months to repair a school bathroom, yet it can deploy a police operation within hours. Strange administrative efficiency.

France also faces public debt costs at their highest level in more than 20 years. That limits the use of the budget for the public good, yet no expense is spared on public security forces. When a school loses its teachers, a hospital lacks supplies or transport eats up much of a paycheck, inequality stops being a statistic and becomes a daily experience.

Governments often ask for calm when citizens have spent years demanding answers. Calm might come more easily if classrooms had teachers, wages covered the basics and dignity appeared in more than speeches. When power listens late, even a school notebook can end up as a placard.