Two hundred and thirty-nine years since Marie-Antoinette allegedly uttered the carelessly cruel—and almost certainly apocryphal—words, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (which translates to “Let them eat brioche,” or more famously, “Let them eat cake”), to the starving mobs besieging Paris, the angry crowds are back, and they’ve stormed the Bastille.
The timing could not be more ironic. Call it the universe having a twisted sense of humor, but right when Paris is all dressed up in all its Fashion Week glory—with editors, models, designers, and celebrities navigating its cobbled streets in animal-print stilettos and luxurious leather coats while dashing from fashion show to fashion show—the youth are protesting against state violence and state neglect.
Spectacle versus survival
One is about spectacle, an outwardly frivolous bit of diversion that is underpinned, nevertheless, by a very serious billion-dollar business. The other is about survival.
The world will survive without fashion. For all that fashion signals—from geopolitical tremors to sociocultural realities, from the preservation of craft and heritage to the coded language of belonging woven into its fabric—it is, essentially, superfluous.
Clothes, yes, they are necessities. But fashion? In all honesty, we could all live without it, although our existence would be a little more drab without a drape of cloth or a splash of color here and there.
The world, however, will not survive without the youth, and without education. Or, to be more precise, an investment in education, which is what the young students of France are bravely fighting for.
The savagery in a nation
And this frightens the establishment—for why have the measures to counter the protests been so repressive?
In nine days of protests, there have been over 6,000 arrests of high school students who are still teenagers, and therefore, minors. Some 215 kids have been hurt, alongside hundreds of teachers and other education personnel. A 14-year-old girl was almost choked to death by a riot police; a 16-year-old boy lost sight in one eye due to a blow from police violence; a 15-year-old adolescent had an arm torn off by a grenade.
Countless others have been immobilized by tear gas. A brave principal locked arms with his students to protect them from the riot police in full gear.
What is this savagery in a nation that likes to extol its civilization as the standard the world aspires to? Liberté, égalité, fraternité and all those sacred tenets of French society: were they all just a sham then?
The brutality of the government’s response to the students’ legitimate claims has been so unprecedented that Iran actually said, hold my tea–and summoned the French ambassador to explain what was going on.
Is repression of the right to free speech and assembly now official French policy?
Is repression of the right to free speech and assembly now official French policy?
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Where France’s priorities lie
As the students themselves put it so eloquently, subsequent governments have promised reform but never delivered. Education is more than a syllabus; according to them, it includes building classrooms conducive to learning rather than stuffing learners into spaces without facilities, including proper sanitation. It includes adding more teachers to the school workforce rather than exacerbating the shortage of staff. It includes shortening the long hours spent in school, as the length of the school day is not indicative of the quality of learning.
Moreover, with the new budget cuts that have precipitated nationwide strike actions, the government has decreased education spending and increased military spending so that it spends as much on both sectors—which pretty much reveals where France’s priorities lie.
With the new budget cuts that have precipitated nationwide strike actions, the government has decreased education spending and increased military spending so that it spends as much on both sectors—which pretty much reveals where France’s priorities lie
The purpose of learning
The desire to learn is a thirst that educational systems purport to address—but in reality, the purpose of learning in the so-called bastions of Western liberalism like France, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is to churn out obedient sons and daughters of empire.
(Pretty much what we accuse countries such as China, Iran, and North Korea of doing, except that ours is lacquered in the shiny veneer of “civilization.”)
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Thank goodness for these lycéens français and the teachers who opened their eyes and taught them to think critically. Chapeaux to them for connecting the dots and understanding how they have been relentlessly propagandized and manipulated by empire.
Oh, and the significance of fashion in their struggle is not lost on them at all. Not for nothing have many of them chosen to wear keffiyehs. If you still don’t know why this revolutionary piece of clothing carries such meaning, maybe it’s time you educated yourself.
