French Student Riots Show What Radical Ideology Could Bring to American Schools

Clear Facts

• Over 5,000 people have been arrested in France during school protests, with roughly 85% being minors, hundreds of schools closed, and over 20 buildings vandalized or burned.
• American K-12 schools in multiple districts now teach ethnic studies courses that present Western culture, capitalism, and traditional values as inherently oppressive systems.
• Teacher unions including the Chicago Teachers Union and American Federation of Teachers have organized student walkouts and declared May Day a day for promoting far-left activism in public schools.

Left-wing actors and street radicals are using education systems across the West to foment a far-left political revolution, and France is the latest manifestation of these efforts.

Since protests began in France, over 5,000 individuals have been arrested or detained — roughly 85% of those reportedly being minors; hundreds of schools have closed; over 20 academic buildings have been vandalized or subjected to fires equating to millions of euros in damage; and hundreds have been injured, including a few people set on fire.

While French students, media, and left-wing politicians claim the protests highlight legitimate concerns over poor school conditions and inadequate educational funding, it is far more likely a useful front for a far-left political coup d’état.

As the late David Horowitz posited, the issue is never the issue; the issue is the revolution.

What is happening in France needs to be understood by American parents and school officials as a warning of what could manifest here.

In fact, the same oppressor versus oppressed ideology that is driving the French student protests and incidents of violence has infiltrated school districts throughout the United States.

Alarmingly, many K-12 classrooms have already normalized reframing and distorting the values and history of Western culture to serve the cause.

Injected into K-12 curricula and lessons across the country, this framework proclaims that capitalism and Western culture are “exploitative” and lead to white supremacy and slavery.

Ideas such as critical race theory, decolonization, intersectionality, critical consciousness, white privilege, and whiteness are presented to American students as both the truth and as necessary to liberate themselves and others from the clutches of the West’s oppressive system.

However, this radical programming does not end with the academic study of the ideology; it also demands evangelism and activism to dismantle the structures that uphold Western culture.

Courses like ethnic studies, which is deceptively sold as the study of culture and history, is a far-left political activist training program that moves students through an ideological conditioning process that culminates with street activism to “disrupt systems of power and oppression.”

In other words, the education system is being used as a tool to create young far-left activists who will flock from their classrooms in protest over the latest issue.

For example, last spring students from hundreds of schools across the country walked out of classrooms and off campuses to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions.

In April, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) bullied Chicago Public Schools (CPS) into making May 1, or May Day, a “city-wide civics” day of action.

The day’s events included busing students as young as kindergarten to a mass protest for left-wing causes.

At its national conference in July, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) passed a resolution declaring May 1 a “Day of Civic Action and Defense of Public Education” and demanding that its members use the socialist holiday to promote far-left causes to their students and community.

What parents, community members, and school officials need to recognize is that the same ideology that is motivating French students to flood the streets in protest is also being taught in American K-12 classrooms.

Violence is a feature, not a bug, of this radical orthodoxy, and it should be viewed as a dress rehearsal for what is bound to come to the United States.

Families need to demand an end to the education system being used as a youth activist training pipeline in service to a radical agenda and left-wing “political revolution” before American streets reflect the tragic scenes coming out of France.

Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.