Bishop Matthieu Rougé of the Diocese of Nanterre, France, has condemned the “destructive” violence at student-led protests throughout the country and encouraged peaceful dialogue to address students’ struggles and concerns.
Students began holding protests in late September, citing frustrations with education quality and a lack of funding and resources at schools. By early October, numerous protests became violent with arsons, lootings, and confrontations with police, leading to millions of dollars in damage and hundreds of injuries. More than 5,000 people have been arrested.
Rougé, who leads the French bishops’ conference’s Council for Catholic Education, told Vatican News that the violence reflects “the distress experienced by this generation of young people” in an Oct. 3 interview published by the Vatican-run news outlet.
“Violence expresses this distress: setting fire to some high schools, even newly built ones, manifests a destructive form of violence that cannot be condoned,” Rougé said, adding that it expresses “an inner violence among some young people who have not found meaning in their lives.”
The bishop said suffering is linked to the crisis of families, the climate crisis, the economic crisis, the social crisis, and the geopolitical crisis, “and so, consciously or unconsciously, these young people are afraid of the future; they do not see how it can also hold opportunities for them.”
Rougé said young people sometimes do not express this distress, which then “manifests itself through violence.” He said young people may not have “acquired sufficient maturity in language and self-expression to be able to express themselves in another way.”
The demonstrations, he said, are still “a call to be even more attentive to our young people, including in Catholic schools,” in which responsible adults can “help restore a sense of calm, creating spaces for listening and discussion, to accompany these young people.”
Rougé said the Church calls for “peace,” for “a different way for young people to express themselves,” and for “listening to these young people.” He said the public education system should prioritize “enabling young people to build a future for themselves and to receive a rich education that will allow them to move forward in life.”
In the interview, the bishop also noted that Pope Leo XIV addressed young people in France, encouraging them to have “the courage to live out responsibly the mission of building peace.”
“The Holy Father called young people to true freedom, the freedom that Christ gives,” Rougé said. “And to these young people, some of whom also come from social environments that have not been given sufficient recognition, he opened up a sense of purpose for their lives — the path of true freedom.”
Father Christophe Danset, the bishops’ conference’s national delegate for youth ministry, told the Italian Catholic news outlet AgenSIR the violence expressed through these protests paints a very different image than the celebratory gatherings that marked the pope’s visit to the country late last month.
“The beauty of that gathering and the violence of this week are two sides of the same reality of French youth: on the one hand, a genuine thirst, and on the other, a human and spiritual crisis,” he said in an Oct. 2 article.