French star Omar Sy has voiced his support for high school student protests sweeping France and decried the authoritarian crackdown which has seen one teenager lose their hand and more than 6,000 youngsters taken into temporary police custody.
The protests have been building since late September, sparked by complaints of staff shortages and dilapidated schools. Social commentators suggest they also point to deeper anxieties over the future direction of the country amid a cost of living crisis and fears over the future of work as AI threatens jobs.
Initially driven by high school pupils, teachers, higher education students and trade unions have since joined the ranks of the protests. A major countrywide mobilisation is due to take place this Saturday with supporters of the “yellow vest” movement also joining and more than half a million people expected to take to the streets.
“The high school students’ movement is a small beacon of light,” Sy said in an interview with French state radio station France Inter on Wednesday.
“It is the future of our country telling a nation that is completely adrift: ‘We have a sense of direction, listen to us. We have a pretty clear idea of where we want to go, because this country will one day be ours’. When I see that there’s no reaction to this, that the immediate reflex is to silence them, lash out at them, or even pit them against each other like children in a fight, I find it pathetic,” he said.
“And I ask myself: where are the adults in charge? What is our role, as adults, as parents? What are we actually doing to our children?,” he continued.
“Instead of jumping straight to reprimanding, punishing, or correcting them, or forcing them to face off against one another, we aren’t listening to them at all. In fact, it’s even worse. We tell them to be quiet, and then we expect them to reach an agreement on their own. We don’t even know what they have to say.”
Sy is currently doing the media rounds in France ahead of the launch on October 23 of the fourth series of Netflix hit series Lupin in which he is the titular star.
The French-born star, who brokeout internationally with his role in 2011 comedy-drama The Intouchables, has been living in the U.S. with his family for the last 14 years but retains strong connections with France where he remains a household name.
Sy was asked whether he still enjoyed living in the U.S. given it was “very different” from when he took up residence there 14 years ago, with the country “hardening considerably.”
“Yes, because today it’s home, but it’s true America has hardened, there’s no question,” he said. “But it’s not just America unfortunately… the whole world has hardened in the same way, with the same intensity.”
“It’s no better when I come back here. I see things as being just as harsh. I see the same violence, the same tensions, the same misguided questions, and, ultimately, the same misguided answers. One can observe the same tendency to retreat, the same xenophobia. In fact, what’s happening here is a global phenomenon.”
Sy is not the only French star voicing support for the high school movement.
Last week, Cannes Best Actor winner Vincent Lindon also revealed his thoughts during an interview on the upcoming feature adaptation of Les Misérables in which he plays Jean Valjean.
“In May 1968, it was a rejection of consumer society,” he told France Inter. “People were fighting against abundance. Today, it is a crisis born of scarcity. These are young people who want chairs to sit on… decent, functional sanitary facilities, and a fair distribution of resources, and therefore opportunities.”
“I have children who went through middle school, high school, and so on, and it is true that this is one of the first times the younger generation is legitimately asserting demands and rights in the face of a state that currently lacks the funds to buy social peace.”