Stopping odd jobs, isolation, distance learning ... Students have been hit hard by the consequences of the health crisis for several months.
Despite the many solidarity actions of companies, many find themselves in difficulty, whether financially or psychologically.
This Tuesday, several hundred of them demonstrated in France at the call of a dozen trade union and leftist political organizations, to demand an emergency plan to fight against student insecurity.
Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Angers, Toulouse, Marseille and even Lille, processions have been formed in many French cities.
In the capital, a few hundred people found themselves in peace to go from the vicinity of the Ministry of Labor to the vicinity of the Ministry of Higher Education.
On a large banner at the head of the procession we could read: "we will not be the sacrificed generation, we demand a right to the future".
“Students continue to be ignored by the government and when Jean Castex said two days ago that he has largely put the resources on young people, it is unacceptable.
We are specifically asking for an ongoing return to 50% and not to 20%, a framing of our examinations to know how we will be assessed and especially a plan of 1.5 billion euros to fight against this precariousness ”, launched in beginning of the demonstration, the president of UNEF, Mélanie Luce.
A "massacre of online education", according to a teacher
She describes "young people who continue to queue for food distributions, who sleep in their cars because they no longer have housing."
"We therefore need real measures because so far the government has given us only one aid of 150 euros, which therefore corresponds to 12.50 euros per month", she regretted.
At his side, Léon Deffontaines, secretary general of the young communist movement in France, spoke of “thousands of students who live below the poverty line”.
According to him, “one in 6 students had to stop studying because they juggle precariousness and odd jobs”.
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"We are asking for the strengthening of the scholarship system and especially the establishment of a student income for all students to get them out of precariousness on a long-term basis," he added.
In Lyon, around 250 people marched in the middle of the day at the call of the UNEF and several left-wing parties, according to the prefecture.
They were a hundred Place de la Victoire in Bordeaux on the occasion of a "feast of the sacrificed generation".
“There is a lot of psychological distress and dropping out of school at university.
The prospect of getting up and spending the day in front of your computer is no longer possible, ”explained Tristan Marin Barbosa, 19, in the second year of psychology.
Coming to support the students, Martin Zumpe, 51, professor of economics at the University of Bordeaux, observes students "in great distress" on a daily basis and calls for "a 100% full face-to-face return", to fight against "the 'massacre' of online education.