Attacks by the Far Right are on the rise: attacks on students in the cities of Albi, Nancy, and Nanterre; threats to a militant of the student union in Reims; and pillage at the Solidaire étudiants union office in Montpellier. From clashes during student elections and intimidation during mobilizations to hostile campaigns on social media, the Far Right has clearly identified the student movement as an adversary. But what is the Far Right’s agenda for universities, and how can we confront it?

The Far Right Continues to Provoke Universities: A Reaction Is Needed

“They have decided to wage the battle of ideas where it is most difficult, in the last temple of leftism: the universities,” declared far-right member of the European Parliament Marion Maréchal during a conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the right-wing university group La Cocarde. Indeed, the Far Right is increasing its interventions in universities to intimidate mobilized students or to advance its elitist and xenophobic agenda. It seeks to establish a foothold in universities by advocating an ultra-reactionary program that includes increased selection, “national preference” over foreign students, and a fierce opposition to inclusive language and critical research within academia.

The Far Right is waging an ideological and political battle over universities, claiming that foreign students and “woke” people are responsible for austerity and precariousness. This claim is not rejected by government figures or those on the traditional Right. Signs of this convergence include the participation of Patrick Hetzel, former minister of higher education and research under Macron, in the national conference of the increasingly radical right-wing National Interuniversity Union (UNI) last fall, and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau’s congratulations to the Némésis collective, a far-right, supposedly feminist group that seeks to recruit young women in particular, with a platform that blames abuses on migrants and Muslims. Similarly, the fact that far-right groups consistently call on Retailleau to dissolve left-wing organizations, as they recently did with Le Poing Levé, demonstrates the ideological alignment of these sectors with the interior minister.

These developments are not without consequences; the Far Right’s ability to act without restraint and escalate its provocations is a result of successive governments that have paved the way for it by implementing their agenda. While UNI and Cocarde claim to advocate for elite universities, successive laws transforming higher education and research primarily aim to exclude children of working-class parents from university classrooms. All government reforms seek to reinforce social selection in university admissions. Similarly, the Far Right aims to establish “national preference” against foreign students: it was Macron’s government that enacted the cynically named “Welcome to France” reform, which raises registration fees for foreign students. Finally, while the Far Right is built on punitive actions against union activists and attempts to intimidate student organizations, it is Macron’s police who have brutally repressed student mobilizations in solidarity with Palestine, or even struggles against budget cuts.

In a way, the Far Right seeks to radicalize the agenda of a bourgeoisie determined to reverse the gains achieved in universities after May 1968. But ultimately, their interests converge: to create elite universities, closed to children of working-class parents and foreign students, and to intensify the repression of social movements in the universities. Thus, we face the challenge of preparing ourselves to respond to every attack from the Far Right and confront it wherever it arises.

Action Committees against the Far Right

In response to this threat, Le Poing Levé, along with other student organizations, has launched action committees against the Far Right. The objective: provide students, faculty, and university personnel with a tool to combat this harassment. At Bordeaux Montaigne University, while the group La Bastide conducted regular raids on campus, donning hoods, helmets, and gloves, and threatening students, we launched an action committee against the Far Right in collaboration with other organizations and independent students.

Thanks to this initiative, students quickly reacted to new provocations from La Bastide by walking out of their classrooms and organizing mobilizations on campus, which forced the group to flee in haste. At Paris 1, another committee was established that allowed for the rapid arrival of students to push out groups from UNI and La Cocarde that intended to intimidate others during the student elections. These were two defeats for the Far Right, which was compelled to launch a campaign of fake news on social media to play the victim.

In both cases, these preemptively created committees allowed quick decision-making among students and participating organizations, making possible their tactical victories. The committees have enabled mass coordination and response, rather than the individual and disorganized actions of a few, which can facilitate violent attacks by the extreme Right or the police.

These victories on the ground have also resulted in broader political setbacks for the Far Right. At Paris 1, Cocarde’s repeated humiliations were accompanied by an unprecedented decline in its results in student council elections, even leading to its expulsion from the Academic and University Life Commission (CFVU), despite having held a seat since 2020. In Bordeaux, following the Far Right’s intimidation attempts, the anti-austerity movement grew, gathering 2,000 people at a general assembly. This dynamic was fueled in part by the action committee’s experience with self-organization, which led students to recognize the challenge of organizing in their place of study.

Finally, the “anti-fascist villages” held on the Bordeaux, Mirail, and Toulouse campuses brought together hundreds of people. Organized by unions and political and community organizations, these two villages united students, staff, and faculty from the university and beyond. In Bordeaux Montaigne, for example, among other union organizations, the CGT Énergie, the CGT Ariane, and SUD Industrie joined the students’ struggle against the Far Right.

Turning Universities into Trenches in the Confrontation with the Far Right

In universities and beyond, most young people reject the Far Right and its ideas. This is reflected in mobilizations in which young people have taken the lead, such as feminist and anti-racist marches, marches against environmental destruction, and protests against pension reform. This is also evident in the results of the recent legislative elections, where 48 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for the Left. In the elections for the student councils of several universities, the revolutionary Left emerged victorious, as in Mirail, Paris 8, and Paris 3, thus expressing a radical politicization of youth. The same is true at the University of Bordeaux, in the Faculty of Law, Political Science, Economics, and Management, which remains the primary focus of the Far Right in the city.

In recent years, however, the student movement, aware of its strengths and organized in its places of study, has not been a significant factor in the major social mobilizations that have shaken the country. The organization of committees to combat the Far Right allows us to respond to an immediate need: defending ourselves against violent groups that provoke and intimidate students on campus, while also laying the foundation for rebuilding a robust student movement, capable of relying on its own strength and determination.

This type of self-organization reminds students that they can be political actors in their place of study. This awareness and the experience of tactical victories against the Far Right are milestones in creating habits and in developing a tradition of general assemblies, where every student has a role to play in the mobilization, in the elaboration of demands, and in concrete planning. It is a significant challenge for the student movement to reconnect with the tradition of mobilization committees, general assemblies, and coordination committees. This tradition must be established by demonstrating that these frameworks are useful and that they enhance the potential for student mobilization. In the context of mobilizing to support Palestine, and to oppose alliances with companies complicit in genocide, an entire generation of students has begun to experience the subversive potential of organizing.

In the wake of the Palestinian protests, the committees combating the Far Right are seeking to revive student self-organization and self-defense in their schools. Within anti-fascist organizations, alliances with the labor movement have also been forged, marking a first step toward developing lasting ties between the student movement and workers.

Finally, the committees fighting the Far Right offer a political and organizational outlet for the widespread rejection of the Far Right and the politicization of young people. Faced with legitimate concerns about the rise of reactionary ideas, the proposals of the political and union Left fall short. Beyond election periods, young people are provided no framework to express their demands and mobilize. But it is through constructing a massive, self-organized student movement linked to the labor movement that young people will find the strength to confront the Far Right.

In this sense, it is urgent that all political and union organizations dedicate their efforts to building committees to combat the Far Right in all universities across the country, to affirm that the student movement has a crucial role to play in the fight against not only the Far Right and its reactionary ideas, but also the reactionary Macron government, which is facilitating its rise.

Against the elitist and repressive university they wish to impose, let us counterpose a university that is open to the children of workers and to foreign students, and that is under the control of students, teachers, and nonfaculty staff — a place where knowledge is not dictated by the needs of bosses but by those of the majority. Le Poing Levé fights for this perspective, alongside all other forces and organizations that wish to contribute.

Originally published in Révolution Permanente on April 12.

Translated by Blanca Capetillo.