It started with a fair complaint: Let’s be straight about the beginning. Since September 18, French high-school students have been protesting leaking classrooms, teacher shortages and the rising cost of living. These are real problems, and the state has been slow to fix them. When a teenager lost a hand in Saint-Étienne during the protests, that was a real failure of policing too. Anyone who dismisses the whole movement as a mob is not telling the truth. more