Since late September, a high-schooler-led social movement is demanding the right to study in decent and sanitary conditions, some of these demands being as simple as having reasonable class schedules, not dying of heatstroke or hypothermia in poorly insulated classrooms (when there is one to begin with), being less than 40 in said classrooms, not having holes in the ceiling, having chairs capable of standing on their own and even, in some places, demanding… functioning restrooms. Having started in the Parisian working-class neighborhood of Saint-Denis, it has now reached a national scale thanks to the solidarity of many more high schools across France. It is now facing a heavy judicial and police response, as well as contemptuous and patronizing reactions from the bourgeois ruling class and media.
The timing of said movement, as well as the violent response to it, are integral parts of current events. The government, through its projected budget for 2027, has mandated new budgetary restrictions that will once again worsen conditions for the education sector, pauperize the masses and make healthcare more inaccessible than it has ever been. Education in the video games sector being already widely privatized and financially-gated, the degrees often being worth less than their weight in paper outside of a resume, the video games industry will continue to become even less accessible. The government’s proposition is crystal-clear : « High-schooler, shut up and hope that your parents have enough money for private schooling ».
Moreover, this unjust budget is designed to hurt the whole of the working-class. Video game workers often end up unemployed in these times of mismanagement-caused mass layoffs, and the ones who get to keep their « passion jobs » end up needing healthcare to endure the rapidly degrading working conditions. Hence, it is also about our own health and ability to bounce back after studio closures and burnouts. Once more, there will be no blood without a fight.
It is mandatory to mobilize against yet another attempt to impoverish the working class and to negate both democracy and freedom of speech. Doing so requires us to stand with the students leading the charge. The violent response of the bourgeois ruling class, scrambling to accelerate the rise of fascism, must strengthen our solidarity and remind us that not only do we fight to prevent the worst, but above all to bring about the better tomorrows which terrify them.
The Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo is supporting the high school movement and calls upon each and every video game worker to strike and to join the demonstrations and actions on October 6th. We demand a budget that actually improves the lives of workers and students alike, policies that put an end to unfair mass layoffs in the video games industry as well as in every other sector, and an immediate end to the violent repression of social movements, in the streets and in companies.
This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a video game publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company – whatever their position or status and whatever their company’s area of activity (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esports, online content creation, etc.). It also applies to all teachers working in private schools in video game-related courses. As this is a national strike call, no action is necessary to go on strike: just don’t go to work.