France is in the top 20% of the world in terms of resources and probably around the middle of the OECD.
When I went to school we had classes of 35 students. Often in the heat with no air conditioning. And we didn't go riot, burn city halls, loot stores etc. We didn't mask up and go throw rocks at the police either.
Whatever is going on in France, thinking about it as "students protesting for better schools" doesn't feel correct at all. You see organized groups of masked protesters attacking the police, looting etc. Are there a lot of people who think they're out there for some supposed good cause? Sure.
The incumbent is always a villain, every policy failure is an evil plot, the system is irreparably corrupt, no commonly accepted knowledge is trustworthy, etc.
And we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant redditors clash by night.
Just so you have a clear image of what is going on, you have pseudo student demonstrating asking for better infrastructure that are burning down their schools. Even brand new support modern schools...
Also: whole schools went to the demonstrations. Pupils and teachers (because they don't like to work in marode buildings either). And we cannot claim that all the pupils and all of the teachers of a school are communist.
But yes, the communist party in France has about 43000 members. But we nation has 66.7 million people. So we shouldn't give this few radicals more influence than they deserve. If anything, the populist right is way more influential and numerous.
Somehow in France the demonstrations have a way higher likelihood to get violent than e.g. in Germany. Just think of the yellow vest demonstrations. Also, the french police is known to be violent, too. Perhaps they don't follow the de-escalation strategies the german police often (not always!) follow? In France, demonstrators lost a hand, teeth, an eye due to police force. That's certainly not as bad as the 9220 people killed by US police in 2024. But for Europe, it's a quite stark expression of government violence.
We must also understand that the majority of journalists are like the Demonstrators from the Harry Potter universe. They life of emotions. Often they artificially create them. I mean, why show a picture of 20000 people just holding up posters --- in a language you won't often be able to read --- if I can show a picture of 4 people torching down a car?
The 20th century called, they want their hammer and sickle back.