Bobby. wrote on Oct 11
th, 2026 at 10:08am:
Frank wrote on Oct 11
th, 2026 at 9:31am:
Bobby. wrote on Oct 11
th, 2026 at 9:03am:
UnSubRocky wrote on Oct 10
th, 2026 at 3:24pm:
The French students are obviously not serious about getting a quality education if they are out mindlessly rioting on the streets of Paris. Seems like the quality of their education is determined by their behaviour problems.
I heard a French female student on ABC News radio 1026 - she said:
the toilets at schools have no toilet paper - no soap, no hot water,
even the doors in front of many cubicles are missing -
most classes have broken windows that are never fixed so
it's brutally cold in winter and boiling hot in summer,
there are not enough tables or little desks for each student
to sit and listen to the teachers and take notes.
the classes have too many students so they are standing against walls
and almost right out the door.
Bollocks.
She sounded very convincing on the radio.
I believe her.France is in decay - it's finished.
Then I have a pont across the Seine to sell you.....
Many journalists here are missing the point: not only has France not cut funding for schools, its education spending levels are at all time highs.
The riots in which more than 6000 people have been arrested and 1000 police, students and teachers injured are the work of a radical blend of traditional socialist trouble-making and Islamist identity politics coming from kids of immigrants who prefer the Palestinian flag to France’s Tricolore.
The political driver of the protest movement is the far left France Unbowed (LFI in France) leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who sees his socialists as the best chance to stymie right-wing leader Marine Le Pen at next year’s election. Her National Rally party is polling 36 per cent, ahead of Melenchon on 20 and centrists between 13 and 19.
Just as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is benefiting from the economic failures of Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who presides over galloping federal spending but falling living standards, and the social cohesion missteps of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Le Pen may emerge the main beneficiary of France’s troubles.
French workers do not like financial austerity, but are even less tolerant of those who claim to hate France, as many of the protesters claim.
It is no coincidence One Nation’s polling here has surged since the Islamist attack that killed 15 people celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at Bondi on December 14. Australians are a tolerant bunch: think the gay marriage vote in 2017. But they don’t like ancient hatreds from the other side of the world spilling on to Australian streets.
Michael Shellenberger pointed out on his Public Substack site on October 5 that French funding across all school levels, adjusted for inflation, had doubled since 1980 to $US14,204 per student.
This compares with $US6632 in Algeria and $US2843 in Morocco, the two largest sources of French immigrants.
Shellenberger criticised CNN, National Public Radio and Associated Press for repeating the students’ line about “perceived inequalities in the school system”.
Here the Nine papers and Guardian Australia have accepted the protests are mainly about schools. As The Wall Street Journal reported on October 6: “If you believe that, we have a pont over the Seine to sell you.”
Over 34pc of France’s under 18 population is of first, second or third generation immigrant origin. Two thirds of immigration is from the Third World and 44pc from Muslim majority countries.”
Those Muslim countries are in the main not democracies, and among all French Muslims aged 15 to 24, “57pc say sharia rules outrank French law, and 32pc express sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood”.
You can see why Melenchon is trying to harness this Muslim youth wave in competing with Le Pen in what seems likely to be a polarised left-right election when Macron leaves office ahead of the April 18 presidential vote.
Here the Muslim population is small by comparison, but it is important in outer suburban seats held by the Labor federal government.
The Muslim vote is influential enough that neither the PM nor the premiers of NSW and Victoria were prepared to call for the banning of pro-Palestinian marches on October 7 last week – analogous to marching for Satan on Easter Sunday.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/frances-manufactured-leftwing-school...