0:00 After all these years, I've finally made
0:03 it to Paris. What should I visit first?
0:05 Maybe the Lou,
0:08 have a croissant.
0:11 No, I know. I'll go to Versailles.
0:15 Or no, no, no. I could go to the Arctum.
0:18 Wait, what's that? In cities across
0:21 France, similar scenes of chaos have
0:23 unfolded on the fringes of
0:24 demonstrations.
0:32 For those of you living under a rock,
0:33 France has been engulfed in a wave of
0:35 protests. Again, for the last couple of
0:38 months, hundreds of thousands of
0:40 students have hit the [music] streets
0:41 all across the country in protest over
0:43 the deteriorating state of the education
0:46 system. overcrowded classrooms,
0:48 crumbling infrastructure, and
0:49 debilitating schooling hours from 8:00
0:51 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. But what began as
0:55 localized high school protests [music]
0:56 developed into a nationwide movement
0:59 involving people from all walks of life,
1:02 encompassing not only students, but
1:04 teachers, unions, and worst of all,
1:06 political parties. As protests [music]
1:08 spread, the situation on the ground
1:10 gravely escalated. The internet became
1:12 swarm with photos and videos of
1:14 protesters clashing with the police
1:16 shops being looted and historic
1:19 buildings being set on fire. Although a
1:21 picture [music] is set to say a thousand
1:23 words, one question is still left
1:26 unanswered. How did the protests over
1:28 increasing education funding become one
1:31 of the largest episodes of civil unrest
1:34 in the country? How did it become so
1:37 violent? And who's really behind it all?
1:41 Well, we came to Paris to find that
1:44 exact thing out. [music]
1:52 [music]
1:58 [music]
2:05 [music]
2:07 There are three things the French excel
2:10 at. chain smoking cigarettes,
2:12 surrendering wars, and uh protesting. At
2:15 this point, protesting has become a
2:17 national sport in the country alongside
2:19 tennis. Being the birthplace of the
2:21 revolution that shook Europe to its core
2:23 in the 18th century, protesting in
2:25 France is seen as a core of the
2:27 country's identity. Unlike in other
2:29 countries where protesting is seen as a
2:31 destabilizing event, here it's a
2:34 legitimate mechanism of civic
2:36 participation. And in the beginning, the
2:38 student protests were not that different
2:40 from the hundreds of other protests that
2:42 came before it. The first demonstrations
2:44 came on September 17th. For years, many
2:47 schools in the French countryside and
2:49 suburbs [music] remained underfunded.
2:51 Students complained about deteriorating
2:53 buildings, rats and bugs infesting the
2:55 hallways, lack of running water,
2:57 temperatures in classrooms reaching -5 C
3:00 in the winter, and over 40° in the
3:03 summer. Due to a lack of teachers, many
3:05 classrooms were packed [music] up with
3:07 up to 36 students attending a single
3:10 lesson. And to top it all off, school
3:12 days would occupy most of the day,
3:14 lasting from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.
3:16 in the evening, which was particularly
3:18 problematic for students who had long
3:21 commutes. And worst of all, they would
3:22 also have to deal with
3:34 Introduced in 2018, Park Soup is an
3:37 online platform French students use to
3:40 apply for higher education. [music] On
3:42 paper, it's a relatively straightforward
3:45 system. Students submit their
3:46 applications, universities review them,
3:49 and eventually they're told whether or
3:51 not they've been accepted. Simple,
3:53 right? Wrong. For a platform that
3:56 basically decides your entire future,
3:58 it's overly complicated and lacks
4:00 transparency. In 2026 alone, over a
4:03 million students applied through the
4:05 platform with around 130,000 still
4:08 without any [music] university placement
4:11 after the main admission phase. So after
4:13 years of spending your entire day
4:16 stuffed in an overcrowded classroom,
4:18 freezing throughout winter, and sharing
4:20 your quason with the school rat, you
4:23 think that the least you could expect is
4:25 a fair shot at university. But instead,
4:27 your entire future could come down to a
4:30 decision from a glorified university
4:32 matchmaking website. So you could
4:35 imagine that the students were just a
4:37 little bit peeved by this.
4:39 What's been your experience with it?
4:41 What do you how would you describe it as
4:42 a whole thing?
4:43 Um well uh bakup is a system where you
4:48 need to write choices. You need to write
4:50 a cover letter to join a university or a
4:52 school. The problem is there's not
4:53 enough room for everyone. So it's a bit
4:55 of a scam in the way that for example so
4:57 I said you need to write a cover letter
4:58 and it used to be a bit of a joke thing
5:00 when I was a a teenager because you
5:02 could write anything within the cover
5:03 letter and they wouldn't even read it.
5:04 So uh
5:06 really so they don't give a [ __ ]
5:07 They don't give a [ __ ] at all. No no.
5:09 But the final straw that broke the
5:11 camel's back came in September 17th when
5:14 France's prime minister announced
5:16 cutting public spending by an additional
5:19 54 billion. Following his statement,
5:23 thousands of high school students
5:24 organized protests across the nation,
5:27 blockading schools and organizing school
5:29 blockades and peaceful marches via
5:32 social media. Their demands were quite
5:34 simple. more funding for education, more
5:36 teachers, [music]
5:37 smaller classes, reduce inequalities
5:39 among schools, shorter school days, and
5:42 fix the goddamn school buildings, and
5:44 either abolish or reform parkour soup. I
5:48 mean, it was something that everyone
5:50 could get behind. And they did. By
5:53 September 29th, the high schoolers were
5:55 joined by unions and parents alike. But
5:58 soon after, things started to shift. Two
6:01 days later, university students and the
6:03 broader public joined in on the protest
6:05 with over 900 actions and blockades. You
6:08 know, I mean, things were going great,
6:10 but then suddenly several demonstrations
6:13 turned violent.
6:14 What began as one protest in a Paris
6:17 suburb 2 weeks ago has snowballed into a
6:20 national crisis.
6:21 Protesters clashed with the police,
6:23 barricades went up, trash cans were set
6:25 ablaze, as well as a couple of school
6:27 campuses for good measure. In response,
6:30 authorities began deploying riot police
6:32 to disperse the crowds using tear gas
6:35 and riot control grenades. But instead
6:37 of calming things down, [ __ ] really hit
6:40 the fan when one 15year-old student
6:43 picked up a grenade in an effort to
6:45 throw it back when it exploded in his
6:47 hand, blowing it to smitherines. This
6:50 event brought mass scrutiny against the
6:52 police. Demonstrator numbers increased
6:55 as did clashes with the police. On
6:57 October 6th, an estimated over 450,000
7:01 people took to the streets of France. A
7:03 week later, on October 13th, hundreds of
7:05 thousands of others joined in another
7:07 day of nationwide protests. And at this
7:10 point, the movement had grown well
7:12 beyond its original demands. What began
7:15 [music] as a movement for increasing
7:17 education funding mutated into an
7:20 all-encompassing protest against the
7:22 government. high living costs, fuel
7:24 prices, unemployment, and austerity. And
7:28 all of these tensions were just about to
7:31 come to a head. But real quick, being
7:34 here on the ground in France, covering
7:35 the protests means things can change
7:38 quite quickly. I need to be able to
7:40 check what's happening, navigate the
7:41 city, and stay connected while I'm out
7:43 filming. That's why I've partnered with
7:45 UBG, the sponsor of today's video. UBG
7:48 is an app that lets you purchase ESIM
7:49 data plans in over 200 destinations
7:51 worldwide without having to buy a local
7:54 SIM card or swap any existing ones out.
7:56 The process is really simple. You
7:59 download the app, choose your
8:00 destination and data plan, and set
8:03 everything up before leaving. Once you
8:05 arrive, you activate your ESIM in your
8:07 data parameters, and your data plan
8:09 activates automatically. And the best
8:11 part is UBG can save you around 90%
8:14 compared to traditional roaming charges
8:16 from your mobile carrier. There are no
8:19 long-term commitments or surprise
8:21 roaming fees. You can also share your
8:22 connection with other devices without
8:24 any limit. And if you run out of data,
8:26 you can just top up your plan via the
8:28 app, even without Wi-Fi or remaining
8:31 mobile data. You can check whether or
8:33 not your phone supports an ESIM by
8:35 dialing this number. If an EID number
8:37 appears, you're good to go. And if you
8:39 use my code living, you'll get 10% off
8:42 your UBG plan. So, just click the link
8:45 in the description. Thanks to UBG for
8:47 sponsoring this video. Now, let's get
8:49 back to the protest. What was supposed
8:50 to be just another day of demonstrations
8:53 descended into some of the worst unrest
8:55 France had seen in years. An estimated
8:58 550,000
9:00 people took to the streets nationwide
9:03 with over a 100,000 in Paris alone. As
9:07 the day progressed, scenes of peaceful
9:09 demonstrations were increasingly
9:11 overshadowed with scenes of violence as
9:14 parked cars were set on fire and random
9:16 shops and businesses were smashed and
9:18 looted. The violence spanned across the
9:20 entire country and not just Paris. In
9:23 Lyon, for example, a tourist office was
9:26 set on fire. Meanwhile, in Lemoge, its
9:29 19th century town hall that survived
9:31 both world wars went ablaze, images of
9:34 which shocked the world. But worst of
9:37 all, in Paris, an anime shop was looted.
9:42 [music]
9:46 From this point on, the student From
9:49 this point on,
9:52 I love shooting in Paris. It's very fun.
9:54 From this point on, the student protest
9:57 became a divisive issue both
9:59 domestically and online. In the
10:01 beginning of the movement, the vast
10:03 majority of the French public was in
10:05 support of the high school students
10:07 demands. But after October 17th,
10:10 opinions shifted where now just 55% of
10:15 the French public supports the
10:16 protesters despite 72% of them
10:20 considering their demands legitimate.
10:23 And honestly, it's not particularly
10:25 difficult to understand why. Because
10:28 while the original demands of the
10:30 students were relatively
10:31 uncontroversial, the methods being used
10:34 by some of the [music] people
10:35 participating were anything but. After
10:38 all, there's a pretty big discrepancy
10:40 for protesting for more education
10:42 funding and then subsequently setting
10:45 your school on fire. And this raises an
10:48 interesting question. At what point does
10:51 a protest stop being legitimate
10:53 political expression and start becoming
10:56 a problem for the very people it's
10:58 supposed to represent? [music]
11:00 Now, don't get me wrong, protests are
11:03 supposed to be disruptive. I mean,
11:05 that's kind of the whole point of
11:07 holding one in the first place, right?
11:09 But let's take a look at Eastern [music]
11:11 Europe for a second. For most of 2025,
11:14 Serbia has been engulfed in a wave of
11:17 demonstrations. Ever since the end of
11:19 2024 when a train station canopy
11:21 collapsed and killed 16 people in
11:24 Novvisad, hundreds of thousands of
11:26 people participated in these protests on
11:29 practically a weekly basis. In the
11:31 summer of last year, they finally turned
11:33 violent when the police took a harsher
11:35 stance against the protesters. But
11:37 instead of targeting private shops and
11:39 businesses, the Serbian protesters
11:41 instead raided and destroyed the ruling
11:44 political parties offices. In 2013, when
11:47 Ukraine's Euromidan revolution began,
11:50 they too eventually turned violent. But
11:52 the target of the violence weren't mom
11:54 and pop shops nor luxury boutiques, as
11:58 is the case here in France. Ukrainian
12:00 protesters, similarly to the Serbian
12:02 ones, stormed and occupied government
12:04 buildings and institutions. The ruling
12:06 party's offices were destroyed.
12:09 Meanwhile, the presidential [music]
12:10 palace was left unscathed and in a
12:13 typical Eastern European sense of humor
12:15 was converted to a museum dedicated to
12:18 corruption, which is uh pretty amazing
12:20 if you ask me. While violence against
12:22 [music] government buildings and
12:23 political party offices is still well
12:26 violence, at least there's a direct
12:28 connection between the people being
12:29 protested against and the property being
12:32 targeted. But in France, much of the
12:34 destruction was targeted towards people
12:37 who had nothing really to do with the
12:39 government.
12:40 No, but you can see we're just going
12:41 down the street and all sorts of
12:43 businesses were destroyed. That
12:44 beforehand was a tobacco shop. This
12:46 here, I believe, is an optician shop. Uh
12:50 it just goes down. I mean, they really
12:52 weren't picking or choosing what they're
12:54 destroying. And I mean, a lot of these
12:55 businesses weren't, you know, some major
12:58 franchises, but you know, local shops.
13:01 Remember, by this point, protests had
13:03 expanded beyond just education to
13:05 include grievances about inflation,
13:08 unemployment, and the rising cost of
13:11 living. And yet, some of the people
13:13 taking advantage of the unrest were
13:15 destroying local businesses, looting
13:17 shops, and setting ordinary people's
13:20 cars on fire. If you're already [music]
13:22 protesting against the already
13:24 increasingly high cost of living, how
13:26 exactly are you helping by setting some
13:28 random Joe's car on fire? The same can
13:31 be said about damaging schools. The root
13:33 of these protests [music] was the dire
13:35 state of French schools and the lack of
13:37 funding. How exactly are you helping the
13:39 same cause by setting your school on
13:42 fire? The government already has a high
13:44 deficit and record high debt by further
13:47 damaging these schools. These riers are
13:50 just making the situation worse. One
13:52 thing that's that's been sort of an
13:54 oxymoron for me at least is you know
13:57 students they organized the protests and
13:59 then they would uh target their own
14:00 schools like setting it on fire which is
14:03 a bit odd especially when they're asking
14:07 for more funding which at the same time
14:09 oh with the new repairs that's like even
14:11 more money and the government is
14:13 claiming that it's broke and meanwhile
14:15 you know like as someone who grew up in
14:18 Serbia our schools like seeing from
14:20 pictures and whatnot Uh uh they still
14:23 here in France look much much better
14:25 than ours
14:26 even though we also had like also issues
14:27 with heating with rats over there you
14:30 know uh leaks them falling apart but we
14:34 didn't go out and you know tear them
14:36 down when we went out to protest would
14:37 you know have at least theory about like
14:40 why the students would be doing that to
14:42 their own school honestly as you say you
14:44 know I don't really see the point of
14:46 doing so maybe a sense of anarchy and
14:48 opportunity you know as I was saying you
14:49 know something that sounds illegal to do
14:52 and so people would see this as an
14:54 opportunity to do so. But for me, you
14:56 know, it's just
14:58 the idea from one [ __ ] you know, it's
15:00 going to throw maybe a m cocktail on his
15:02 on his school, which is going to of
15:04 course, you know, [ __ ] up the whole
15:06 ideals of um the whole students, you
15:08 know, within the um within the school
15:10 itself. And then second point you were
15:12 saying, it's funny you mentioned uh like
15:14 the state of schools abroad because when
15:16 the protest first started, there was
15:18 like a few videos from Ukrainian people
15:22 being bashed on social medias because
15:24 they were filming themselves saying
15:25 like, "Oh, but schools in France are so
15:27 much better than Ukraine. Why the [ __ ]
15:29 do you guys even protest for?" It's not
15:30 because uh yeah, the conditions are bad
15:32 in France that you have to uh to say
15:36 it's worse somewhere else, you know, so
15:37 you're still doing better than someone
15:38 else, you know? We have to it's a
15:40 continual improvement you know everyone
15:41 should be focusing towards that. So
15:43 absolutely absolutely
15:45 according to preliminary estimates
15:47 insurance losses from the riots could
15:49 reach a staggering 1.2 billion with a
15:53 potential to go even higher if a similar
15:56 level of violence continues. For
15:58 comparison, the yellow vest protests of
16:01 2018 and 2019 reportedly cost insurers
16:04 over €220 million. While riots following
16:08 [music] the police killing of
16:09 17-year-old Nahal in 2023 resulted in
16:13 approximately €793 million in insured
16:17 losses. In just a couple of weeks, the
16:20 student protests have become the most
16:22 expensive [music]
16:23 in France's entire history. For a better
16:26 picture of the harm being done, the
16:27 country's budget for secondary education
16:29 this year was €40 billion. With current
16:33 estimates, the current damages caused by
16:35 the riots would be roughly 3% of the
16:38 allocated budget. A steep increase
16:41 considering the same budget for
16:42 furthering secondary education was only
16:44 planned to increase next year by.5%.
16:48 And although technically many insurance
16:51 companies will split the bill, many of
16:53 those affected are without coverage,
16:57 more than 2,000 businesses were
16:59 reportedly affected by the unrest. From
17:01 major retailers to small independent
17:04 shops, and we've already seen plenty of
17:06 videos from these owners being in
17:08 shambles over what happened to their
17:10 livelihood. But while ordinary citizens
17:12 were left picking up the pieces, there
17:15 was another group of people who stood to
17:17 gain from all of this chaos.
17:19 Politicians. France is heading into a
17:22 presidential election in 2027. And with
17:24 the country increasingly divided over
17:27 protests, political parties [music]
17:28 across the spectrum saw the opportunity
17:31 to turn the unrest to their advantage.
17:34 One of the biggest proponents of the
17:35 protest [music] has been France's
17:37 political left, mainly consisting of
17:39 these parties. [music] But while all of
17:41 them expressed varying degrees of
17:43 support towards the demonstrations, one
17:46 party [music] in particular has been in
17:47 the center of the controversy. In
17:49 French, pronounced like this,
17:51 France,
17:52 or in a normal language, France unbowed,
17:55 led by this guy whose name I'm not even
17:58 going to attempt to pronounce,
18:02 now and then I say his name and then
18:05 Milanch
18:06 isn't exactly a newcomer when it comes
18:08 to French politics. He's been running
18:10 for the presidency since 2012. And with
18:14 another election approaching in 2027,
18:16 he's preparing for his fourth attempt.
18:20 And you know what they say, four times
18:22 the charm. That guy and his party are a
18:24 part of France's radical left,
18:27 advocating for higher taxes for the
18:29 wealthy, increased public spending, and
18:31 a greater role for [music] the state in
18:33 the economy alongside the establishment
18:36 of a sixth French Republic. [music] and
18:38 uh withdrawing from NATO because of why
18:41 the hell not. So naturally, a nationwide
18:44 movement demanding more government
18:46 spending and protesting against
18:48 austerity fits rather nicely in their
18:51 political agenda. And with the
18:53 presidential election approaching, the
18:55 demonstrations also offer France unbowed
18:58 the opportunity to rally younger voters,
19:01 gain publicity, and present themselves
19:03 as a voice of a generation led down by
19:06 Macron's evil centrists. To be fair,
19:09 Macron does kind of suck, but you know,
19:11 that's a story for a whole other video.
19:14 Macron
19:17 video. [laughter]
19:21 But here's the thing. While supporting
19:23 the [music] student protests might win
19:25 you some popularity, you're also
19:28 associating yourself with all [music] of
19:30 this
19:36 [music]
19:40 and France and Bows opposition was quick
19:43 to retort. [music] Prime Minister
19:44 Sebastian
19:46 accused
19:47 of encouraging political unrest for
19:49 electoral purposes, [music] even
19:51 suggesting that the elements of the
19:53 radical left wanted to keep the country
19:55 in chaos until the end of the
19:57 presidential elections. But naturally,
19:59 he denied responsibility [music] for the
20:00 riots because no one's really going to
20:02 say, "Hey, destruction of the city,
20:04 that's cuz of me." Insisting that
20:06 instead the [music] real problem weren't
20:08 the protesters, but a government that
20:10 had repeatedly [music] ignored their
20:12 demands. basically just playing the no
20:15 you card. Meanwhile, the French right
20:17 took a completely different approach by
20:20 just simply uh blaming the immigrants.
20:24 I hate
20:25 Marine Le Pen and
20:26 Jordan,
20:27 leaders of the farright national rally
20:29 blamed Melishon's radical left for
20:31 fueling the chaos while linking the
20:34 riots to criminality in immigrantheavy
20:36 suburbs. God's chosen people, Isra, I
20:40 mean America, has also commented. Both
20:42 Trump and JD Vance slammed Macron's
20:45 government and put the blame on the
20:47 melanin abundance.
20:48 Emmanuel should have closed his borders
20:50 a long time ago. I told him to do it.
20:52 And you know, as you know, Paris is
20:54 going to be a Muslim city very soon.
20:56 Of course, the French authorities
20:57 dismissed these claims as well,
20:59 nonsense. The president retorted that
21:01 the grievances of peaceful protesters
21:03 shouldn't be confused with actions of a
21:05 violent minority. And here's the thing,
21:08 the students really do have legitimate
21:10 [music] grievances. But as the protests
21:12 escalated into violence and
21:14 opportunistic looting, public attention
21:16 shifted from their original demands and
21:19 instead towards the chaos on the streets
21:22 and with politicians from across the
21:24 spectrum using the unrest to push their
21:26 own agendas, what started as a movement
21:28 for the betterment of education became a
21:31 political shitow. But here's what makes
21:33 this situation even more interesting.
21:36 Macron's approval rating has reportedly
21:39 plummeted to just 15%. And with the 2027
21:43 presidential election just 6 months
21:45 away, his time in office is already
21:48 running out. So, if the president is on
21:50 his way out anyway, [music] what exactly
21:52 are the protesters hoping to achieve by
21:55 continuing to pressure his government?
21:58 Well, because at this point, it's no
22:00 longer just about Macron. It's about
22:02 what comes after him. With the election
22:04 approaching, the unrest has become a
22:06 political opportunity for both the
22:08 political far-left and far right. For
22:10 Melanchon and France unbowed, the
22:12 protests [music] offer a chance to
22:14 channel public discontent into support
22:16 for the anti-usterity agenda, presenting
22:19 themselves as an alternative to Macron's
22:21 economic policies. [music] Meanwhile,
22:22 for Le Pen and this guy's National
22:26 Party, the riots provide ammunition for
22:28 their own arguments about immigration,
22:31 crime, and the government's inability to
22:34 maintain order. The far left is
22:36 interested in see these things escalate
22:38 as they vehemently oppose the status
22:40 quo. The far right, on the other hand,
22:42 also has the same interests as they can
22:44 then point towards them and say, "This
22:47 is what happens if you don't vote for
22:49 us." Despite the protests and in large
22:51 part being peaceful, the media has
22:52 focused in large part on broadcasting
22:55 the violence both on French and
22:57 international television for this exact
23:00 reason. Sensationalism. As someone from
23:03 Eastern Europe, the condition of French
23:05 schools feels very familiar. Most of us
23:08 in this part of the world have attended
23:10 school in similar, if not [music] far
23:12 worse, conditions. There's a fire at the
23:15 main entrance as well.
23:18 right here. Well,
23:18 you can see the whole gauge is charred.
23:20 There's like a huge bonfire. I mean, it
23:22 it really is counterproductive, you
23:24 know, like you're fighting for more
23:26 funding for a school and then also
23:28 setting it on fire. Like,
23:30 it does look kind of brutalist with,
23:33 you know, the sign over there. But online,
23:36 the pictures looked quite nice. Nice for
23:40 Eastern European standards at least. I
23:43 wish the students the best, but I think
23:44 they really need to uh denounce the
23:47 people who are doing the rioting and the
23:49 violence here because it's really
23:52 delegitimizing their whole movement and
23:53 everything they're fighting for because
23:55 this really is just not the way. I don't
23:59 want to downplay the grievances of the
24:01 French students. At the end, we all
24:03 should fight for a better tomorrow. But
24:06 what started out as a genuine movement
24:09 for something better has been hijacked
24:11 by bad actors pushing an agenda. It's
24:14 hard to sympathize with someone arguing
24:17 for a better school while at the same
24:19 time burning it down. France spends more
24:21 on education than the average EU
24:24 country. It also allocates significantly
24:26 more money per student than the average
24:29 Eastern European country. I mean, hell,
24:31 most of the world. And yet, despite
24:34 dealing with similar or sometimes even
24:36 worse conditions, students in many of
24:38 these countries aren't responding by
24:40 burning down their schools. Now, that
24:43 doesn't mean that French students should
24:44 just shut up and be grateful about what
24:46 they have. If anything, demanding
24:48 [music] better conditions is how
24:50 societies make progress in the first
24:52 place. But there's a difference between
24:55 demanding change and destroying the very
24:57 thing you're claiming you want to
24:59 improve. And [music] that's what makes
25:01 the violence surrounding these protests
25:03 so counterproductive because every burnt
25:06 car, [music] every looted shop, and
25:09 every vandalized school gives critics a
25:11 reason to dismiss the entire movement
25:14 even when the vast majority of
25:16 demonstrators have nothing to do with
25:17 the destruction. And for the people
25:19 watching from abroad who have
25:21 experienced the same problems with far
25:22 fewer resources, those images make the
25:25 movement considerably harder to
25:27 sympathize [music]
25:28 with. Not because the students demands
25:30 are unreasonable, but because the
25:32 actions of a violent minority have
25:34 increasingly overshadowed them. And
25:37 ultimately, that's perhaps the greatest
25:39 disservice these writers have done to
25:42 the students. They've turned the
25:43 conversation about how to improve
25:45 education into an argument about how to
25:48 restore order while giving both the far
25:51 right and far left perfect ammunition to
25:54 push their own political agenda. If we
25:56 walk peacefully in the streets, the
25:58 government doesn't listen to us. If we
26:00 break stuff, they don't even listen to
26:01 us as well. And it even makes it worse.
26:04 But like what in what ways can we be
26:07 listened by our own government, you
26:08 know, if um being peaceful doesn't work,
26:11 you know? So there's this quote I like
26:13 from Mandela, which is um nonviolent
26:15 passive resistance is effective as long
26:17 as your opposition ad to the same rules
26:19 as you do, but if peaceful protest is
26:21 met with violence, its ficacity is at an
26:23 end.