Hundreds of French high schools shut down Friday because students protested school conditions so hard the entire thing turned into a riot. Not a metaphorical riot. An actual riot. With violence. Because apparently when French teenagers get mad about their classrooms they don't just complain to the principal like some f*cking peasant.
The protests spread nationwide. Nationwide. These kids coordinated a multi-city uprising over school conditions while American students can't even figure out how to use a semicolon. The French education system must be doing something right if their students possess the organizational skills to launch a countrywide revolt. Then again, they're rioting about the quality of that same education system, so maybe not.
School conditions triggered this. School conditions. Not tuition hikes. Not cafeteria food that tastes like cardboard. School conditions. Which could mean anything from broken desks to overcrowded classrooms to teachers who show up hungover. The French government refused to specify, probably because admitting what actually set off hundreds of high schools would make them look even worse than they already do.
France now faces a crisis involving violent teenagers who've decided property damage beats sitting quietly in homeroom. The government spent decades teaching students about the French Revolution and guillotines and overthrowing authority, then acted surprised when those same students applied the lesson plan. Stunning lack of foresight.
Retail traders are currently scanning French ETFs trying to profit off this chaos, convinced they've spotted a trend before the algos. They haven't. The algos priced in French civil unrest before these kids were born. But sure, go ahead and buy puts on EWQ because some teenagers in Lyon flipped over a desk. I'm sure that'll work out great for your Robinhood account.
Photo by Sébastien Ramage on Unsplash
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