€1 meals, free psychotherapy, but students join protests

The wave of youth protests now sweeping across France has eclipsed measures the government has taken to help improve the lives of students in higher education.

Results of the measures vary. One-euro meals for all is faltering for lack of resources, whereas the 12 free psychotherapy sessions a year and other mental health services for students are functioning well, according to Thomas Ducados, student life policy officer at France Universités, the association of rectors and directors of other higher education institutions.

“We warned the government that extending €1 meals from grant-holders and other precarious students to everyone last May would probably create massive bottlenecks,” he told University World News.

The upshot is demand has increased 48%, against a projected 12%, and is continuing to rise. The student restaurants are too small, the catering staff is stressed, overworked equipment breaks down, food runs out, and queues last 30 to 40 minutes.

The draft 2027 government budget slates another 600 restaurant staff, and €93 million (US$103.95 million) to add to the €50 million for this year. “But that won’t solve the problem of space,” he said.

“Such changes cannot be implemented in a couple of months,” he added. Apart from that, the scheme is not equitable. “Not all students need heavily subsidised meals.”

Mental health initiatives ‘successful’

Mental health initiatives have been more successful, Ducados said. Triggered by lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, about a third of students in France now suffer from stress to a greater or lesser extent. Women and international students are particularly hard hit, he added.

Measures include 12 instead of ten free psychotherapy sessions a year, the two-year-old Higher Education and Research ministry platform CNAE with a dedicated telephone number, on-campus psychologists and a range of helplines and networks for students in distress. Some are set up by universities, others by associations, Ducados said.

Manon Moret, general secretary of the students’ union UNEF, is less enthusiastic about mental health support. “Some students say they have to wait two months for an appointment with a psychotherapist,” she told UWN.

Practitioners hesitated to sign up at the start, partly because the payments system was complicated, but they are now increasing in number, Ducados added.

Enrolment tax’s positive impact

A tax on student enrolments (set at €105 for 2026), except for grant-holders, refugees and other resource-stricken students, has been positive since it was introduced in 2019. The funds are channelled exclusively into campus life, including sports facilities and culture.

Ducados recognises that such initiatives only touch the surface of the overall problems that have led to the present outburst of anger and frustration, even though the proportion of students living below the poverty line has not risen from 30%.

Other outstanding issues include reform to the grant system, which was promised in 2023 and has gone nowhere so far. “The government has clearly not chosen young people in its 2027 budget,” said Ducados.

Deepening housing crisis

A major issue is the worsening decades-old housing crisis, with rents now averaging 55% of students’ resources. The last government under Prime Minister François Bayrou, a former education minister, launched a scheme to build 70,000 units between 2025 and 2030, often on land provided by campuses.

This seems to be on track, but will it be “enough?” Ducados asks. On the negative side, the government has proposed cutting housing benefits next year, which will hurt students badly, Ducados said.

On 5 October, the radical L’Union Etudiante launched a joint secondary school/higher education student list of 10 demands and had garnered nearly 67,400 signatures to its petition on change.org by midday on Thursday.

The ten include urgent renovation of premises, an increase in affordable student housing, revised timetables, an extra 250,000 places in higher education, higher grants and housing allowances and guaranteed €1 meals for all.

They also call for an end to selective enrolment on the online Parcoursup and My Master systems, to differentiated tuition fees for non-European students, and to police violence against protestors.

Faculty and other university personnel back the demands “without any ambiguity whatsoever”, Emmanuel de Lescure, general secretary of the union SNESUP-FSU, told UWN in a telephone interview.

“The government should listen to the protestors and take concrete measures,” he added.

These include a substantial increase in the higher education and research budget to pay for extra teaching and other posts, since there are 30,000 more students this year than last,” he said. This is an estimation, as are the ministry’s figures of 25,000. “We will know the exact figure in January,” he added.

The draft research budget for 2027 earmarks an extra €500 million for higher education and research, whereas in reality it will drop by €1.011 billion because the reserves will rise from 4% of the total to 6.57%, de Lescure.

De Lescure dismisses the argument that the stratospheric level of the French public deficit and debt – among the highest in the European Union – means the government has no room for manoeuvre.

“There is money available – it is a question of choice,” he said. He describes as waste the annual €8 billion corporate research tax credit (CIR) and the bulk of the €24 billion spent on apprenticeship subsidies that went to the private sector in 2024.

HE students join protests

Meanwhile, the protests continue. Higher education students joined the secondary school pupils’ movement last Thursday, when they blocked at least part of 30 universities. Since then, other campuses have been blocked or shut down to avert violence and offer courses online.

By 9am on Thursday, a Union Etudiante spokesperson told UWN, 60 universities were partially or totally blocked in the latest round of protests and more were expected to follow in the hours to come.

Despite government attempts to appease popular anger over education, energy prices and buying power, the social unrest is poised to spread further with the threatened return of the yellow vests on 17 October.