Will it be autumn recess to the rescue for a beleaguered French government? Ministers are no doubt counting the days until the school holidays start on Friday evening, in the hopes that an unexpected student movement disappears as quickly as it materialised. The movement sparked three weeks ago by deteriorating conditions in a Paris-area high school may indeed take a leave of absence, but what about demands for a generation that feels left behind by cost cutting? Only one party has sided vocally with the students since the very start: Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left France Unbowed.
We ask whether that will consolidate his second place in the polls ahead of next spring's presidential elections. That would qualify Mélenchon for the May 2 run-off against the far right's Marine Le Pen.
Have the mainstream centre-left and centre-right candidates gifted the youth vote to the 75-year-old far-left firebrand? Do they understand what's fuelling the aspirations and anxieties of a generation that's been through Covid, climate change and the sudden acceleration of artificial intelligence? What does the next generation want?
*Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.*
