'Apocalyptic scenes' in Aubervilliers lead FRANCE 24's coverage of the school protests
Olivia Bizot's short report from the Paris suburbs drew a far bigger audience than the channel's own studio discussion of what the protests are about.
FRANCE 24 EnglishStory of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 123,781 views a day, 14 times a normal first day on this channel (9,068).
'Apocalyptic scenes' as France school protests escalate • FRANCE 24 English
What are the French school protests actually about? FRANCE 24 English has reported on them from the start, and the first complaints were modest: overloaded timetables, too few staff, run-down buildings. They began at isolated high schools in Rennes, Caen and Villeneuve-d'Ascq, near Lille. Within days they had spread to Saint-Denis and Créteil, on the edge of Paris, and from there across the country.
The report that drew the crowd shows where things stand now. Olivia Bizot reports from Aubervilliers, a suburb north of Paris, and calls what the protests left behind "apocalyptic." Pupils have blocked school entrances and clashed with police. The video passed 95,000 views in its first fourteen hours. A new upload on the channel usually ends its whole first day with about a tenth of that.
The comment section is busy, and many viewers ask the same question: why does a protest about schools leave schools damaged? Others want the reporter to explain what the movement is about, and one of the most liked requests asks the channel to interview the young people themselves.
The channel's answer came the same day, in a Spotlight discussion with Jean-Rémi Girard, a teacher in Asnières who leads a union of education workers. Its description traces how the movement turned: a school set on fire in Nantes, a fire engine burned in Marseille, a police officer attacked. The government calls it urban violence and says hard-left agitators are exploiting real concerns ahead of the election. La France Insoumise denies this and says it favors no violent action. That discussion has found far fewer viewers than Bizot's footage.
France was not the channel's only big story. The Africa program, which opens with the Ethiopian army pushing toward the Tigrayan capital, also started about five times faster than usual. Between the two, the channel drew roughly double its usual daily views.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- FRANCE 24 English
- Subscribers
- 3,680,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 9,289,133
- Channel views, pace per day
- 2,303,409 (on a normal day: 1,131,985)
- Video published
- October 2, 2026
- Video views so far
- 95,778 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 123,781
The numbers
The figures below show how far one short report from the Paris suburbs ran ahead of a usual first day on the channel.
💡 Test your knowledge
Aubervilliers, where Olivia Bizot filmed her report, is in which French département?
Aubervilliers is a commune in Seine-Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.
