France Is Burning — and the Far Left Risks a Backlash

France is burning — literally. And its schools are on the front line. In under four days, at least several dozen high schools, from north to south and east to west, have been hit by arson. At Nantes, the Nelson Mandela high school, built only a few years ago, was partly gutted by fire, while two other schools narrowly escaped the same fate. At Bordeaux, the entrance of the François Mauriac high school was reduced to cinders, and two other schools were scarred by assorted blazes. At Paris, the entrances or façades of several high schools were damaged in much the same way.Add to this the torched cars and dumpsters, and “walls of fire” raised across streets by setting alight fuel and other flammables. In some cases, the arsonists sought to keep firefighters from reaching the flames. At Castres, outside the Borde-Basse high school, one of these reckless youths was himself engulfed.Beyond the fires lie street battles, fireworks mortars fired at the police, barricades thrown up, and the mob beating of some sixty teachers and police officers, men and women alike, caught on their own. The Interior Ministry speaks of “urban violence.” Everyone understands what that means: A situation that looks more and more like civil war.Police fire tear gas towards French students during a march through the streets of Aubervilliers, a northern suburb of Paris, on October 1, 2026. Tom Nicholson/Getty ImagesIt all began innocuously enough, with a “high school protest movement” calling for “more resources to ensure better educational conditions.” It is true that the overall standard of French state education, once excellent, has been sliding steadily according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment rankings. This, however, cannot necessarily be blamed on a lack of resources. Education is France’s second-largest budget item, at 63 billion euros in 2026, just behind debt servicing at 64 billion euros, but well ahead of national defense at 54 billion euros, or universities and scientific research combined at 33 billion euros.It soon became clear, however, that the financial demands of the students and of some of their teachers were merely a pretext, and that the movement is part of a political — and perhaps even paramilitary — strategy advocated by, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s half far-left, half Islamist party, La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed.Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon delivers his speech at his election night headquarters, June 19, 2022. AP/Michel EulerIn January 2026, at a rally at Toulouse, Mr. Mélenchon welcomed the “great replacement” of the older generations by the new — but also of France’s native population by non-European, non-Judeo-Christian peoples. In doing so, he deliberately appropriated an image hitherto regarded as racist and the preserve of the far right.In May 2026, the France Unbowed mayor of African descent, Bally Bagayoko, recently elected at Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, went one better in an interview with the Islamist website Oumma.com. French politics, he argued, now boils down to a battle between Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, the party of Old France, and France Unbowed, which embodies the New. Should the National Rally win the 2027 presidential election, he added, there will be a “popular insurrection.” When his interviewer expressed concern at such remarks, he observed that insurrection had made possible “all of France’s great transformations,” starting with the Revolution of 1789.In September, Mr. Mélenchon launched his own presidential campaign as France Unbowed’s candidate. “French society as a whole,” he declared, “will then have to go through a phase of citizens’ revolution,” with “mass popular involvement” relying on the trade unions, as well as measures of “popular intervention” and “popular control.” It is hard not to see here the fantasy of a Robespierrist Terror — or of a dictatorship of the proletariat.A public execution at Paris in 1793 during the French Revolution, depicted by Pierre-Antoine Demachy, ‘Une exécution capitale, place de la Révolution,’ detail. Via Wikimedia CommonsIn late September, France Unbowed threw its weight behind the “high school movement” — all the more readily since, in many French cities, teenagers from immigrant backgrounds make up a large share, or even a majority, of state secondary school pupils, so-called “native” French families preferring private schools, Catholic or otherwise. The party, which in 2025 sought to “block” French society in order to topple François Bayrou’s government, may well have inspired the 2026 “blockades” of numerous high schools by activist minorities.A France Unbowed deputy, Manuel Bompard, the party’s national coordinator, says the “high school mobilization” must be supported. Two other France Unbowed lawmakers, Éric Coquerel and Clémence Guetté, urge that blockades be multiplied. So does Louis Boyard, who on September 25 called for the movement to “spread” — as does Mr. Bagayoko, carried in triumph by pupils at the Paul Éluard high school at Saint-Denis even as urban guerrilla weapons were being reported there. Finally, Mr. Mélenchon, at a rally in Paris, denounced “police violence” against high school students and vowed that “when the day comes, nothing will be forgotten or forgiven.”The escalating violence — involving, according to the authorities, outside elements, criminals or near-professional revolutionary commandos — has triggered a backlash. The conservative presidential candidate, Bruno Retailleau was the first to say that “the question of dissolving” France Unbowed “has been raised.” Without going that far, several members of the government, starting with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, have openly taken Mr. Mélenchon’s party to task.

France Is Burning — and the Far Left Risks a Backlash

France Is Burning — and the Far Left Risks a Backlash

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