October 2 Demonstration: Students and Activists Recount Their Politicization

Perrine, Sarah, and Baptiste don't know each other. They're students in their twenties, and they've recently become activists. On Thursday, September 25, during the student organizations' day of mobilization against austerity at Place de la Sorbonne in Paris, they marched side by side in a procession of motivated and politicized young people. Today, the three are preparing their new event.

On Thursday, October 2, student unions and political organizations – including UNEF, the Student Union, the Jeunes Insoumis, Le Poing levée and the revolutionary NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party) – will take to the streets, as they did on Wednesday, September 10 and Thursday, September 18, in support of the day of protest announced by the inter-union. The Student Union counted 80,000 young people on the streets on September 10, and 110,000 on September 18.

For Sarah (who has changed her first name), the daughter of computer engineers, originally from Paris and an activist in the youth movement of the far-left political organization Révolution permanente-Poing levée at Paris Cité University for a year, where she is in her second year of psychology, the seeds of revolt were sown in middle and high school. The trigger? Readings on the program, "which addressed colonization, fascism, censorship, like 1984, by George Orwell, or The Grapes of Wrath, by [John] Steinbeck."

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