Socialist Students, USA News: A hard-left organisation that participated in demonstrations across French cities has released a guide urging British students to replicate tactics used by protestors during widespread disorder. Socialist Students sent out the advice amid warnings agitators were planning to bring the chaos of the French streets to the UK.
Three representatives of the group were in France during protests ostensibly about education standards and the cost of living, which quickly spiralled into looting, arson and damage to more than 500 businesses. The group’s National Chair, Adam Powell-Davies, said their visit coincided with the French unrest by coincidence, though organisers adjusted their schedule so attendees could join the demonstrations, which he called really inspiring and claimed had been completely peaceful. He accused police of committing the most grotesque and frequent instances of violence, citing two protesters injured by stun grenades.
On Wednesday, Socialist Students published the eight-page manual, which set out detailed instructions for young people across the country to leave their lessons on November 20 as part of a continent-wide strike. Next month’s walkout is being organised under the banner of Youth International Strike, a coalition demanding action on public services, militarisation, and the cost-of-living crisis affecting young people across Europe.
The guide advises pupils to leave their classrooms in small clusters of three or four, a tactic designed to make it harder for staff to intervene. Once a critical mass has left, the manual recommends gathering outside with a megaphone before marching to nearby schools or colleges to recruit more participants. It also advises those concerned about being prevented from leaving to stay away from school altogether, noting that the more students who stay out, the harder it is for anyone to stop the walkout. The organisation has predicted that thousands of students will take part in the action.
Socialist Students is campaigning to scrap tuition fees, expel arms manufacturers from university campuses, set a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all workers and raise taxes on the wealthiest, setting out its overarching objective as building what it describes as a socialist future without war, poverty or climate chaos.
Reacting to the threat of disorder, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp warned that anyone hoping to bring the chaos of the French streets to Britain should know parents want their children in lessons and the public wants order, adding there is no appetite for handing the country over to hard-left agitators. He stated that while there is a place for legitimate protest, riots and looting are unacceptable and those instigating criminality should be arrested.
More than 1,300 people were arrested across France as disorder erupted again. Addressing the riots at a speech in Orleans, National Rally parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen declared that they would turn their back on movements that promote intolerance, taking aim at the radical left party France Unbowed, whose leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon blamed riots on the police.
