France's fed-up youth: Can presidential candidates connect with student movement?

Home Shows The Debate To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: Protesters hold a banner reading "We are young, and we won't stay silent" during a demonstration by French high school and university students in Paris as part of a nationwide protest movement led by students, supported by teachers, school parents and labour unions, demanding better school conditions and concrete measures, France, October 13, 2026. © Sarah Meyssonnier, REUTERS 43:53 Issued on: 13/10/2026 - 20:10 From the show Will it be autumn recess to the rescue for a beleaguered French government? Ministers no doubt counting the days until Friday evening when the holidays start in hopes that an unexpected student movement disappears as quickly as it materialized. A movement sparked three weeks ago by deteriorating conditions in a Paris area high school may take a leave of absence… but what about demands for a generation that feels left behind by cost cutting? Only one party’s sided vocally with the students since the very start, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Unbowed. We’ll ask whether that will consolidate his second place in the polls ahead of next Spring’s presidential election. That would qualify Mélenchon for the May Second runoff against the far-right’s Marine Le Pen. Have the mainstream center-left and center-right candidates gifted the youth vote to the 75-year old firebrand? Do they understand what’s fueling the aspirations and anxieties of a generation that’s been through COVID, climate change and the sudden acceleration of AI? What does the next generation want? Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente. Video by: