Hedvig Sävenryd, Utrikeskorrespondent
Toulouse is a city with the mantra, la ville en rose, with pink brick houses the city expands along the river Garonne. It is France’s fourth biggest city, and is home to many students. Since coming here, I have witnessed and partaken in the numerous manifestations and student strikes that have taken place. The French love a good old-fashioned ‘grève’, strike/blockade. Throughout my semester, the University of Jean Jaurès has been closed down at least once every week, due to genocide in Gaza, due to the high living costs, due to the lack of funds in the university’s budget and much more. The students active in the Marxist organisation “Point-lève” put chairs and tables at every entrance to the university, and the 32,000 students at Jean Jaurès are expected to march with them into the city.
French politics has had a chaotic fall, with many attempts to create a government, many falling budgets and a big state debt. The prime minister, as of right now, Sébastien Lecornu, is sitting on a very loose chair, with a minority government containing a mixed variety of bourgeois. The main goal is to ‘surpass the political chaos’. However, each time a budget is being discussed, a national ‘grève’ is launched. On the streets in Toulouse, I sang “this is the real democracy” together with French leftists opposing the cuts of public welfare, instead of taxing the rich. My favorite chanson is:
”On est là! On est là! Même si Macron le veut pas, nous on est là ! Pour l’honneur des travailleurs et pour un monde meilleur, même si Macron le veut pas, nous on est là !”.
(We are here! We are here! Even if Macron doesn’t want it, we are here! To honour the workers and for a better world, even if Macron doesn’t want it, we are here!)
In a burning world, in our own created capitalist inferno, it is clear that the French do have something that we lack in Sweden: a never-ending burning hope of actually having the power. Sebastian Lecornu is the fourth prime minister in less than 4 years, shaking in his boots, because he knows that the people will not accept a budget that doesn’t suit them.
from Dackekuriren Vol 3/25: Dackes’s Inferno, originally published 2025-11-28