Quo vadis, sweet France?
You don’t want to ask the question, but it pushes itself forward like an uninvited guest who makes themselves at home, puts their feet on the table and says, “Look.” So we look. Into a school hallway. Into a place that once stood for education and now for escalation.
Where words should suffice, fists are flying.
A teacher who slaps. Students who strike back. Smartphones that capture the scene like birds of prey their prey. And somewhere in between: authority – or what remains of it.
You rub your eyes. Is this still pedagogy or already street theater? Is this a slip or a symptom? The answer is unpleasant: It is both. An isolated case that is not one. A moment that exposes a development.
Earlier – yes, earlier, that dusty word – school was somewhat of a protected space. Today it sometimes resembles a stage where every gesture immediately becomes a public performance. The teacher pulls out the phone to regain control – and loses it completely. The students don’t respond with insight, but with fists. Bravo, Republic. A real spectacle.
And then the familiar play begins.
Outrage here. Relativization there. Some defend the teacher as if the slap was an act of self-defense. Others explain the counter-violence as an understandable reaction. As if violence suddenly becomes dialectical, just because it was filmed.
Honestly: That is unpleasant.
Because what breaks here is more than discipline. It is a tacit contract. The contract that school is a place where conflicts are not resolved with violence. Neither from above nor from below. Neither by teachers nor by students.
When this contract becomes terminable, not much remains.
France, which so likes to portray itself as the guardian of republican values, suddenly faces a banal, almost embarrassing problem: It is no longer possible to enforce in the classroom what is invoked on the grand stages. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – in the hallway of Montpellier, these words sound like they are from another world.
Perhaps the bitter point is that no one is really surprised anymore.
People shrug their shoulders, click on the next video, are somewhat outraged – and go about their business. Thus, the exception becomes the habit. And from the habit, the crisis.
Quo vadis, douce France?
Perhaps to where authority no longer applies, but is negotiated. Where respect is no longer a given but must be demanded – or forced. And where the school no longer protects but reflects what outside has long gotten out of control.
A country in the hallway. A republic on the ground.
And everyone is filming.
Author: Andreas M. B.