Recently, videos have circulated online of angry French high schoolers setting fire to trash cans and taking to the streets to protest poor school conditions, absent teachers, and a lack of support for students. As a former French high school student myself, protest runs deep in my blood. Revolution, historically, has always been an art form the French have excelled at.
At Ireland’s recent ‘F*ck the Fees’ protest, organised by student unions across the country, thousands of students marched in an orderly procession through Dublin city centre. A stage, a band, a series of speakers, and let’s not forget the Wigwam afters. With around 3,000 students taking to the streets, it was one of the largest student demonstrations in the last decade. Yet, compared with the increasingly disruptive student protests unfolding in France, the Irish demonstration appeared remarkably restrained, and its impact on politics and social issues was almost nonexistent.
Burning bins, tear gas, mass walkouts, and students bringing entire cities to a standstill: these scenes have become familiar across France. Meanwhile, in Ireland, student protests tend to involve organised marches, speeches, placards and carefully planned routes through city centres. Both are forms of democratic participation, but they reveal two very different protest cultures and raise an important question: what is protest supposed to achieve?
The contrast is particularly striking when we consider the scale of the demonstrations taking place in France. Hundreds of secondary schools have reportedly been partially or completely shut down by student protests over teacher shortages, poor classroom conditions, excessive timetables and a lack of support services. Some demonstrations have escalated into clashes with police, with images of burning rubbish bins and tear gas circulating widely across social media. Students themselves have documented these scenes, sharing footage of their protests and the police response.
For many Irish observers, the immediate reaction may be to dismiss these demonstrations as excessive or even destructive. A question I find myself asking is: why are French students willing to take such drastic action, and why do Irish students generally seem less willing to do the same?
France has a long tradition of viewing protest not as a last resort, but as an essential duty that comes with citizenship. The French Revolution of 1789 remains one of the defining moments of national identity, establishing the idea that ordinary people have not only the right, but sometimes the responsibility, to challenge authority.
Perhaps the most relevant example is May 1968, when student demonstrations rapidly developed into a nationwide movement involving millions. Although the movement did not achieve all its immediate aims, it fundamentally transformed French society, labour relations and attitudes towards authority. For many French people, protest is not evidence that democracy has failed; it is, in fact, democracy in action.
Ireland’s relationship with protest is more complicated. The country certainly has a long history of enduring resistance. Wolfe Tone’s rebellion, the Land League, the Dublin Lockout, and the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland are just a short extract of the list of moments of staunch defiance to injustice in Irish history. However, modern Irish political culture often places a greater emphasis on consensus, dialogue and compromise. The peace process that emerged after decades of violence in Northern Ireland reinforced the importance of negotiation in achieving lasting political change.
Irish students have plenty to be angry about. Many face soaring rents, homelessness, long commutes and the growing difficulty of accessing higher education. Some cannot afford to move out of their family homes, while others struggle to find accommodation at all. For those who do make it to university, the cost of living can make it difficult to participate fully in campus life, from attending classes to joining societies and taking part in extracurricular activities.
But the problems begin long before college. Secondary school students face enormous pressure under the Leaving Certificate and CAO systems, with points inflation and an exam culture that many believe is no longer fit for purpose. Students in rural schools continue to face inequalities in access to resources and opportunities, while programmes such as RACE and DARE, designed to improve access to higher education for students facing particular disadvantages, operate within a wider system that remains deeply competitive. Mental health services are overstretched, and students who need additional support can struggle to access them.
Irish students have already taken to the streets to demand better housing, lower university fees, and greater student investment supports. With the recent Budget 2027 adding insult to injury, students seem to be the last priority. But if repeated demonstrations continue to receive inadequate responses, at what point do Irish students need to question whether our current approach is working?
UCD has a proud history of student activism. Previous generations fought over fees, education reform, social issues and political questions that helped shape the country. Student politics has the potential to influence national debates, but that influence depends on more than showing up for a march. It requires sustained organisation, collective pressure and a willingness to keep demanding change long after the crowds have gone home.
The grievances of French students are not fundamentally different from those of Irish students. The difference lies in how these demands are expressed, and in how far students are prepared to go to ensure they are heard.
A march that temporarily inconveniences commuters may attract attention, but a movement that closes schools, disrupts transport networks or halts economic activity is far harder for a government to ignore. When the consequences of political inaction become visible, so too does the pressure to respond.
Images of burning property and clashes with police should not be romanticised. Reports of serious injuries, including that of a 15-year-old student who reportedly lost his hand in an explosion outside a high school in the northern town of Lens, are a reminder of the dangers involved. Escalating protests can put demonstrators and bystanders at risk, and the violence that sometimes accompanies these confrontations has real consequences. Ireland’s commitment to peaceful activism is something worth preserving. However, there is a difference between rejecting violence and accepting passivity.
Maybe the lesson Irish students should take from France is not how to protest, but how seriously to take protest. French students often see themselves as active participants in shaping society rather than passive recipients of government decisions. Student politics is not treated as a niche interest, but as a collective responsibility. Young people organise, mobilise and sustain pressure over time.
Ireland has demonstrated that it can do the same. Movements such as Fridays for Future brought thousands of young people out of classrooms and onto the streets to demand action on climate change. It would not even be the first time that UCD students have followed the French in protest. The famous UCD Gentle Revolution, in which students occupied the admin building at the old Earsford Terrace campus in 1969, was inspired by similar French student protests in ’68. If history is to repeat itself in France, maybe its chain reaction in Ireland will too?
These demonstrations showed the potential of young people to mobilise around a shared cause. The challenge is maintaining that level of engagement beyond a single issue or a single day of action.
The question facing Irish students is not whether we should start setting bins on fire or confronting riot police. It is whether we have become too comfortable with symbolic protest. If the same problems persist year after year, how do we ensure our demands translate into meaningful change? Are Irish students prepared to do more than ask for change, and are those in power prepared to listen before they are given a reason to do so?
By: Sophie Gliott