French student protests: 'Illiberal' Macron govt dismisses social movement as 'urban violence'

Jennie Shin is pleased to welcome Éric Fassin, Sociologist and Professor at Université Paris 8. “In a democracy, elections are very important, but it’s not the end of democracy. It’s the beginning,” explains Fassin. He interprets France’s student protest movement growing into a challenge to socioeconomic policy and what he describes as an “illiberal turn” in government. Connecting the treatment of working-class, racialized youth with wider restrictions on dissent, he argues that racism and democratic participation are central to understanding the unrest. His analysis also challenges the attribution of responsibility to the left, placing the government’s response within a broader debate over the normalization of oppressive measures and the far right.