Rundown schools, not just riots: DW News traces France's protests to the classroom
Journalist Cole Stangler and researcher Anja Durovic explain how a dispute over school funding grew into nationwide unrest, as Trump, Macron and Marine Le Pen offer competing readings of it.
DW News
Story of Why this story? One of DW News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 43,559 views.
What the French want you to know about the protests | DW News
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:00Amien Essif contrasts the coverage abroad with protests that began over underfunded French schools.
- 1:06Trump says the unrest is about immigration. Macron rejects claims of foreign manipulation.
- 2:34Cole Stangler cites dilapidated schools, rodent infestations and budget deficits as the movement's starting point.
- 3:41In Marseille, according to eyewitnesses, peaceful daytime marches were followed by masked groups looting stores.
- 5:51Anja Durovic places the rioting in the history of the banlieues and segregation.
- 8:04Marine Le Pen condemns the violence while acknowledging the public's economic grievances.
The images that traveled furthest from France were burning cars and smashed shopfronts. DW News' new analysis starts somewhere else: crumbling school buildings, rodent infestations and school budgets in deficit, the conditions that journalist Cole Stangler says set the movement off.
The report, presented by DW editor Amien Essif, has drawn more than 40,000 views since yesterday, the most of any new DW News video. Other outlets this morning are covering the security measures and the crowds. DW's report asks why the protests remain popular after a week of looting.
It opens with the argument abroad. Donald Trump is shown saying, "What's happening in France has to do with immigration, not schools, not anything," and warning, "You got to close up your borders. You're going to ruin your country." Emmanuel Macron, speaking in French, says he sees no visible foreign interference in the events and calls some of the commentary, including remarks by foreign leaders, unacceptable and stupid.
Stangler, a French-American journalist based in Marseille, describes what eyewitnesses there saw: peaceful daytime marches, followed by masked groups looting stores. Anja Durovic, a postdoctoral researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research, places the rioting in a longer history of unrest in the banlieues, the suburbs she links to entrenched segregation.
The report also turns to Marine Le Pen. According to DW, the far right stopped short of condemning the protests themselves: Le Pen condemned the destruction and looting, which she blamed on politicized groups, while acknowledging the economic grievances behind the movement.
The broadcast arrives as France prepares for another weekend of demonstrations. In a separate report, DW says authorities are deploying 70,000 police and gendarmes and that museums and major events have been canceled. Earlier in the week, as we reported here, the government announced localized partial curfews. Essif ends the analysis on the movement's breadth, describing demands that reach from school reform to relief from the cost of living.
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💡 Test your knowledge
In which French city is journalist Cole Stangler based?
DW's description identifies Stangler as a French-American journalist based in Marseille.