On November 5, 2026, workers, trade unions, and members of the Yellow Vest movement took to the streets across France in a mass nationwide strike, joining the student uprising that has gripped the country and captured the attention of the world, with demonstrations, riots, and barricades spreading throughout towns and cities.
The movement began weeks earlier, when students started blockading schools across France, protesting deteriorating conditions in the education system amid a deepening cost-of-living crisis. As demonstrations spread, they faced severe police repression, including horrific injuries caused by so-called non-lethal riot control weapons. These injuries included students loosing eyes from rubber bullets and hands from stun-grenades. The police violence helped galvanize wider support, turning school protests into a broader national movement, which at times has teetered on the brink of a full-scale insurrection.
For this on-the-ground report, Ross Domoney of The Real News Network and Shadowgraph Media was in France documenting the uprising, police repression, and the growing movement of workers and young people challenging the old-order.
The uprising has now spread across Europe with riots and protests happening in multiple countries.
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Credits:
- Produced by The Real News Network and Shadowgraph Media
- Filmed, edited and directed by Ross Domoney
- Local Producer Tulyppe
- Special Thanks to Nadia Péridot
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Speaker 1:
An uprising has spread across France and the cops are cracking down hard. Teachers are trying to protect their students from batten charges. What began as school blockades over crumbling conditions has erupted into a nationwide revolt against the cost of living crisis and police violence. The real news network was on the ground as the uprising cumulated into a general strike. On one of Paris’s wealthiest shopping streets, students are blocking traffic and urging others to join the strike. We wanted to find out why they’re here. As climate catastrophe and reckless wars led by fascist politicians drive prices higher for all of us, students are left facing a collapsing job market and an uncertain future.
Earlier in October, the situation exploded into an insurrection across France after an upsurge in police violence and a unified rage against the cost of living came sprawling out onto the streets. Now, police are moving to shut down any form of gathering as students face brutal violence simply for demanding their basic rights. Some students have even lost eyes and hands from so-called non-lethal riot control weaponry. Today, the students are using the massive demonstrators that are part of the multi-union led strike to move as safely as possible through the protest. Thousands of riot police line the parallel streets. We spoke to a teacher who was at the strike to support her students.
Speaker 2:
I think that both students and teachers alike, we were also very moved by the very strong repression that started on people who were underage. They were minors. You had minors who were simply demonstrating and who got their hands cut off by grenades. And so what can we say about a nation that launches weapons of destruction on their youth when they are asking for a better education? At Republic, before the demonstration, we were just attending a concert, a very peaceful concert by an orchestra, and then we started being teargassed. And tear gas has become something of a staple of all demonstrations in France, but it’s not nothing. There is one man who died probably due to as fiction. Many young women have reported issues, health issues after demonstration. So this has got to stop.
Speaker 1:
The students from the suburbs of Paris faced extreme police violence on a daily level long before the start of this uprising. And as the students on the front line mask up, ready to face the violence, they know they have nothing left to lose and everything to fight for. With protests now spreading across Europe, the old order is facing a growing rebellion it may struggle to contain.
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