For university students across France, every morning begins the same way — with uncertainty. Since the beginning of October, protests have been occurring nationwide, and the majority of university buildings have been blocked daily, preventing classes from taking place.
The list of demands is long and varies between sectors. In terms of education, students ultimately want more funding for their universities, to improve teaching, and housing conditions. Independent student unions have been organising the blockades and general assemblies. At some universities, such as Toulouse, they have also engaged in negotiations with the administration of the university, but no long-term solution has been reached, and so the blockades continue.
I arrived in Strasbourg in September for a full timetable of lectures in French. The first month met those expectations, and I felt my language skills improving by the day. When the blockades began, my parents joked that I was just getting “a true French experience.” What began as a couple of days’ disruption turned into near-constant campus closure — my university is now operating at a level more rudimentary than during the COVID-19 lockdown. Classes are rarely moved online, and communication from the administration is practically non-existent. I received a two-sentence email from one of my lecturers who hadn’t offered any guidance or learning materials for three weeks. She signed off with the breezy phrase: “tenez le coup!” – hang in there!
The French government hoped that after the week-long All Saints’ holiday, the situation would return to normal and schools and universities would be able to resume teaching. This has not been the case — I spoke with students from Edinburgh on exchange in Toulouse, Lyon, Lille, and Paris, and we now face midterm exam cancellations and a sense that this is the new normal.
The main concern for international students nationwide is what will be done about our final exams in December. With over a month of disrupted classes, the expectation has been that we will be offered exceptional circumstances and some other way to determine our grades. However, a friend at Sciences Po Lyon sent me the latest communication from her university: exams for French students will be cancelled, but international students will still have to sit them.
It’s unclear whether this decision will be adopted by other French universities, but regardless, the beginning of November has brought fresh worry to international students. Although all of the international students I have spoken to support the French students’ cause, that doesn’t mean we should be singled out and expected to sit exams based on content from classes that never took place.
Photo by Pierre Herman on Unsplash.
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A “true French experience”, but at what cost?
For university students across France, every morning begins the same way — with uncertainty. Since the beginning of October, protests have been occurring nationwide, and the majority of university buildings have been blocked daily, preventing classes from taking place.
The list of demands is long and varies between sectors. In terms of education, students ultimately want more funding for their universities, to improve teaching, and housing conditions. Independent student unions have been organising the blockades and general assemblies. At some universities, such as Toulouse, they have also engaged in negotiations with the administration of the university, but no long-term solution has been reached, and so the blockades continue.
I arrived in Strasbourg in September for a full timetable of lectures in French. The first month met those expectations, and I felt my language skills improving by the day. When the blockades began, my parents joked that I was just getting “a true French experience.” What began as a couple of days’ disruption turned into near-constant campus closure — my university is now operating at a level more rudimentary than during the COVID-19 lockdown. Classes are rarely moved online, and communication from the administration is practically non-existent. I received a two-sentence email from one of my lecturers who hadn’t offered any guidance or learning materials for three weeks. She signed off with the breezy phrase: “tenez le coup!” – hang in there!
The French government hoped that after the week-long All Saints’ holiday, the situation would return to normal and schools and universities would be able to resume teaching. This has not been the case — I spoke with students from Edinburgh on exchange in Toulouse, Lyon, Lille, and Paris, and we now face midterm exam cancellations and a sense that this is the new normal.
The main concern for international students nationwide is what will be done about our final exams in December. With over a month of disrupted classes, the expectation has been that we will be offered exceptional circumstances and some other way to determine our grades. However, a friend at Sciences Po Lyon sent me the latest communication from her university: exams for French students will be cancelled, but international students will still have to sit them.
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It’s unclear whether this decision will be adopted by other French universities, but regardless, the beginning of November has brought fresh worry to international students. Although all of the international students I have spoken to support the French students’ cause, that doesn’t mean we should be singled out and expected to sit exams based on content from classes that never took place.
Photo by Pierre Herman on Unsplash.
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