FRANCE: CURRENT WAVE OF STUDENT UNREST RESEMBLES MAY 1968 REVOLT AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIES.
Record ID:
1062012
FRANCE: CURRENT WAVE OF STUDENT UNREST RESEMBLES MAY 1968 REVOLT AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIES.
- Title: FRANCE: CURRENT WAVE OF STUDENT UNREST RESEMBLES MAY 1968 REVOLT AT FRENCH UNIVERSITIES.
- Date: 28th April 1976
- Summary: 1. SV Students' leaflets blowing in wind (3 shots) 0.11 2. TOP VIEW Students demonstrating 0.19 3. LV ZOOM TO Police firing teargas and students throwing stones (3 shots) 0.38 4. CU ZOOM OUT FORM School benches (2 shots) 0.45 5. SV PAN ALONG Electrical instruments in classroom TO Empty desks 0.54 6. GV PAN OVER Empty classroom TO Student leaders talking in groups (2 shots) 1.07 7. TOP GVs Students in mass demonstration (2 shots) 1.26 8. LV INT. Students attending physics lecture (3 shots) 1.44 9. SV Students sitting in grounds of university & GVs University building (3 shots) 1.55 10. SV Closed university gates 2.00 11. SV ZOOM OUT FROM Sign on building 2.05 12. SV High school pupils hold demonstration (4 shots) 2.18 13. SV French school children running along road with banners 2.27 14. SV Riot police and student demonstrators 2.32 15. GV Student demonstrators throwing stones at riot police (3 shots) 2.40 16. GV Riot police moving along road towards demonstrators 2.48 17. SV Students throwing stones as police approach them and students are arrested (3 shots) 3.02 "Eight springs ago, the same winds gushed through the campuses of Paris. A cyclone of discontent swept French students into a wave of protests flooding the streets with a carnival of riot. Strikes spread, barricades blazed, heads were broken, authority trembled. Everything was impossible. The agitation which has emptied French classrooms this past fortnight is still purely a student affair. It's about university courses, graduate degrees, educational qualification and jobs for university leavers. They are anxious and practical concerns which are reflected in the unflambuoyant character of this generation of student leaders. If the students wanted to show what's wrong with French higher education, they couldn't have chosen a more graphic way to demonstrate it. The root of the problem is that there are simply far too many students in France, more than in Britain and Germany combined. Despite the strikes, there is still a faithful handful attending physics lectures. But the 90 per cent who are boycotting the lectures and are out on the streets have literally nothing to lose because astonishingly, nine out of every 10 French students either drop out or fail their final degree. Disappointment is an integral part of the curriculum. It's an organised educational shipwreck designed to produce a handful of survivors. This makes campus number seven of the University of Paris a somewhat depressing place. In the last 12 months the government decided to take the educational system by the scruff of its unkempt neck. High school students like these would be streamed according to ability, the less gifted being encouraged to leave early and learn trades. This is one of the reasons why French school children have joined their student seniors in a campaign of strikes and demonstrations. If verbal provocation fails, the next stage in the classic ceremonial of demonstration is for the extremist elements to take more direct action The riot police then move in, truncheons flash, martyrs are made. The fury of tomorrow's demonstration is assured." Initials CL/1721 CL/1745 DAVID JESSELL Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 12th May 1976 13:00
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- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA4E40VTRAOHQKGHL71A3TKMIHY
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