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Most groups behind France's 'student' riots are unions, communists and activists

Only 15 of 50 Groups Behind France’s ‘Student’ Riots Are Student Groups, Fox Investigation Finds

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 11, 2026 · 4 min read
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The street battles that, according to Fox News, have disrupted more than 700 French secondary schools are being sold to the world as a student uprising. A Fox News Digital investigation published Oct. 9 found that students are a minority of the organizations driving it: of the 50 groups Fox identified around the protests, only 15 are student or youth groups. The other 35 are labor unions, communist and socialist organizations, political parties and activists, and the movement’s message is being amplified by a media outlet funded by Shanghai-based tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham.

None of that means French students have no real grievances. They do. But it does mean the story most audiences are being told is badly incomplete.

How it started

The unrest began in late September with blockades at high schools in the Paris suburbs, according to France 24, starting at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil. Students listed real complaints: missing teachers, school days that can run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., run-down school buildings, and the opaque Parcoursup university admissions system.

Within days it turned violent. The Associated Press reported arson, thrown projectiles and blockades, with police making hundreds of arrests and dozens injured. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said staff had been doused with gasoline and a school set on fire. “Violence will not deprive our students of their fundamental right to education,” he wrote. On Oct. 6, France 24 reported, hundreds of thousands of people joined the movement’s biggest day yet. Prime Minister SĂ©bastien Lecornu convened a crisis meeting and ordered ministers to bring him proposals by the end of October.

What Fox found

Asra Nomani, senior editor of investigations at Fox News Digital, built her count from what Fox described as a “digital analysis of scores of news articles, social media posts and public statements.” The breakdown of the 35 non-student groups:

  • 12 labor unions, including the CGT, Force Ouvrière and several teachers’ unions
  • 8 communist or socialist organizations
  • 4 political parties, including Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon’s La France Insoumise and the French Communist Party
  • 5 civil-rights or human-rights groups and 5 groups focused on other issues
  • 1 Palestinian advocacy group, Urgence Palestine

Even among the 15 student and youth groups, Fox reported, several are communist youth movements, and one is a Muslim student association.

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, described the coalition as a meeting of the hard left and Islamists. “The communist Red and the Islamist Greens have nothing in common but a common enemy, the Judeo-Christian, capitalist, free West, led by the U.S.,” he told Fox. “Their goal is to dismantle us.”

The Singham connection

Fox reported that BreakThrough News, a New York-based pro-communist outlet funded by Singham, has been pushing coverage that frames the French strikes as a stand against austerity. Singham is an American-born tech entrepreneur who now lives in Shanghai. According to Fox, his network includes The People’s Forum, which he launched in 2017 with $22.44 million in funding, and CodePink, which has received $1.33 million from him. CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans is Singham’s wife. Fox also named teleSUR and the Party for Socialism and Liberation as part of the network.

Gonzalez put it bluntly. Comparing the French network to the activists who have blocked American bridges and campuses, he said that in the case of BreakThrough News it is “the same sugar daddy — Neville Roy Singham.”

Fox’s reporting documents a propaganda and funding network that is amplifying the protests. It does not show that Singham is directly paying rioters, and that distinction matters. But Singham’s money is already under scrutiny in the United States. The Daily Wire reported in June that a federal grand jury in Manhattan had issued subpoenas in a Justice Department investigation of Singham’s network, which the department confirmed to the outlet. No charges have been announced.

France’s own government blames the far left

The French government has been making a similar argument about domestic actors. In late September, Lecornu denounced what he called an irresponsible escalation by lawmakers from La France Insoumise (LFI) who had called for the blockades to be extended. On Oct. 1, the prime minister’s office condemned what it called “violences urbaines” (urban violence) and a “manoeuvre organisĂ©e par LFI et ses proxys de l’ultra-gauche” (a maneuver organized by LFI and its ultra-left proxies), according to AFP.

On Oct. 6, speaking in the National Assembly, Lecornu accused the party of trying to “souffler sur les braises” (fan the flames) of the revolt and of wanting to throw the country into chaos a few months before next spring’s presidential election, according to Sud Radio. He also called claims of political orders for police repression a “mensonge” (a lie). MĂ©lenchon, a far-left presidential hopeful, has called the government’s response repressive.

Why it matters

Every movement has genuine participants, and French teenagers stuck in crumbling classrooms are among them. But a coalition of unions, communist parties and political activists, backed by a well-funded propaganda outlet, can turn a school protest into something else entirely. When that happens, calling it a “student uprising” is not reporting. It is branding.

The students were the face of France’s riots, but the organizing muscle and the megaphone belong to the hard left.

Sources

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