France is today seeing one of its largest student movements in years. Protests have erupted in opposition to Emmanuel Macron’s measures to introduce academic selection for university places. Twenty-five campuses have been occupied or blockaded across the country, and students have also joined with striking rail, post, and health workers in dispute with the government. Yet while Macron is mounting one of the most radical changes to French higher education in decades, the movement faces real difficulties in blocking his reforms.

The French establishment has learned the lesson of its British and American counterparts: turning education into a marketplace takes a long march, not a sprint. The government is following the British authorities’ strategy of passing piecemeal reforms which are then difficult to reverse. If French students don’t stop this process soon, the ultimate direction of travel is a British or American-style system based on extortionate fees and long-term debt.

Yet if Macron’s method is to introduce competition, the aim is to change the student’s soul. Injecting market logic into education is meant to neutralize a key opponent: a student body conscious of its rights. More than in most countries, the French establishment fears that student movements can crystallize a wider social discontent.