In today’s newsletter: A youth-led movement is protesting crumbling school buildings and teacher shortages while turning adult focus onto wider educational inequalities.

Good morning. At any protest, the most memorable and encapsulating slogans are often those written by hand on cardboard placards. One such sign held aloft by a student in Paris read, “School is a right, not a privilege,” as huge youth protests over the state of high school education brought tens of thousands of young people and adults onto the streets, with further strikes planned today. Another sign stated, “A state that gasses high school students is a weak state,” referencing growing public anger at alleged police brutality towards young protesters.

Tens of thousands of young people have also taken to the streets in Spain in recent weeks to protest against the country’s deepening housing crisis. Outside the Labour conference in Liverpool last week, a crowd of jobless young people protested against what they perceived as bleak employment prospects. From Paris to the north of England, a common thread runs through these protests: a generation feeling betrayed by the absence of basic economic security and the erosion of public services that older generations took for granted.

I spoke to our Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis, who has been reporting from the center of the French protests. But first, the headlines:

Headlines

  • UK Politics: Kemi Badenoch announced that the Conservatives would abolish inheritance tax on family homes if elected, prompting criticism that she is prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy.
  • Education: Labour’s flagship changes to special education in England are at risk of unravelling as parents rush to secure support for their children before the system changes, new analysis has found.
  • Spain: María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction sparked nationwide protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.
  • Science: A type of gene therapy based on Nobel prize-winning science is safe and can partially restore sight in blind people, researchers have revealed.
  • Epstein: British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith warned that Jeffrey Epstein was a “sexual deviant” decades before the FBI closed in on the abuser, a Guardian investigation has found.

The Movement

The most significant youth movement to emerge across France in recent decades began on September 17. Pupils returning to the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, southwest of Paris, discovered they couldn’t continue their studies due to extensive staff absences. The 15- to 18-year-olds blockaded their high school in protest. After negotiations with the education ministry, staffing gaps were filled, but complaints about crumbling buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and long school days resonated in the suburbs.

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“This movement grew from the ground up, from teenagers speaking to others outside their lycées. Over a couple of weeks, it has spread to hundreds of schools across France,” Angelique tells me.