It‘s really terrible what‘s happening in France with all the school kids rioting. Protesting injustices isn't the issue, that should happen, but the tricky thing is that in this case the fact that they are tearing up the schools is literally making things worse for themselves. If the school system is already at breaking point, and by all accounts, with 45 kids in classes, it certainly sounds like it is, the last thing you want to do is make the situation even worse.
An interesting side note about language, I was looking up the translation of "self-defeating" in french. they have "contre-productif", but in my mind it lacks the "self" part, which is very important to get across the idea that you are hurting yourself. While they also have "auto-destructif", with "auto" from the Greek "autos", which means self, and I do remember it being used in this context, it‘s a strange one where I feel like somehow the modern use is somehow very linked to automatic, and so it‘s been sort of hijacked. To expresss this well you have to use a turn of phrase, like to shoot yourself in the foot ("Se tirer une balle dans le pied"), or to cut the branch you are sitting on ("Scier la branche sur laquelle on est assis").
Anyway while there will be some in the UK that will enjoy some sort of schadenfreude by seeing the french hurting themselves, it‘s a cautionary tale, because especially in a wider economic decline that we are in, and have been for years, this could very easily happen in the UK. It occurred to me that it might be worth getting ahead of this in some way. For universities you could make it into an excuse to have a cheeky pint with fellow students from another city, make it into a day trip, to forge connections, because if you ever do need to protest, you absolutely need it to be peaceful. And to do it right, you have to do it properly, tell authorities in advance, have a safe route etc, because there are those who will try to take it over because if it does lead to riots, they will benefit from you being in an even worse position later. This is the reality we live in, and that is only going to get worse the more along the decline road we get.
I'm not sure how you could extend this to schools, pints are no good for that, but it would be worth having some sort of forum, that doesn't in itself cause problems, because if we ever do get to that stage, where protests are needed, and they can be very powerful, it‘s perhaps the most important thing that it‘s Gandhi style sit downs rather than destroy the school and the neighborhood.
And of course while that's an important thing, equally important is to stop this infernal decline, something which the backs of napkins throughout history can attest to, is also very well suited to such forums.