Students protesting rats and falling debris in their schools became footage at Trump's midterm rallies; one Saturday's arrest count was filed at 135, then nearly 1,000.

…(cont) It was preceded in death by the schools themselves. Morning Star counted around 400 of them closed on 2 October. The same paper reported on 8 October that students had dragged rubbish bins into position outside the Helene Boucher Lycee in north-eastern Paris the previous morning, erecting barricades before police moved in with tear gas, and that police had made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when the protests began. The arrested were most of them under 18.

For a while the cause outgrew the schools without losing its name. Common Dreams reported on 8 October that students had led more than 250,000 people in protests demanding education funding, with Clémence Guetté, a deputy of the French National Assembly, saying "we are going to sweep away the old world." On 17 October the same outlet counted demonstrations in 140 cities over inequality, the cost of living and school conditions. A protester identified as Agnes told Agence France-Presse: "For years we've had climate, economy, and equality problems, but the government is not doing anything about it."

The replacement cause was already in print. On 10 October the New York Post ran a column arguing the protests were "really about a growing radical Muslim population that wants to get rid of democracy."

On 18 October the Washington Examiner reported President Trump urging France to secure its borders to "people with hatred in their hearts," and posting "France is burning!" on Truth Social, with police arresting approximately 1,800 people.

The arrest count is the one mourner that kept changing its story. CBS News had more than 1,800 on 19 October, after masked groups set fires and attacked city halls. On 24 October Fox News reported Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez saying 135 people were arrested with 70,000 police deployed; the same day, the same outlet reported the same minister saying nearly 1,000, with the same 70,000. CBS, filing on 25 October, had more than 1,000 and demonstrations that were largely peaceful, with clashes Saturday evening.

The networks' own pictures were the problem and also the evidence. Fox News reported on 19 October that the BBC had called the protests "mostly peaceful" as its own footage showed burning cars, looted shops and nearly 1,000 officers injured nationwide. On 24 October Fox ran the story again under the heading BROADCAST BIAS. On that same Saturday NBC News reported more than 100,000 people marching in Paris over school funding and soaring living costs, police firing tear gas and water cannons near the end.

CBS News reported on 20 October that French officials had implemented local curfews Monday and said an "ultra-left movement" was behind the violence and vandalism. On 21 October Le Monde reported that the US president and his inner circle repeatedly used the violence of October 17 to denounce immigration and Muslims, warning that a Democratic victory in the midterm elections on November 3 would expose the United States to the same dangers. The same day, the Washington Examiner reported that Macron, speaking to the press in Doha, called the comments "stupid" and "unacceptable" and said there was no evidence of foreign actors instigating the protests.

The Hill reported on 24 October that his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, told CNN's Abby Phillip the midterm picture was "It's ugly." The deceased got one last mention that week in a Washington Examiner opinion piece, which wondered whether the only way the French could get more pens, pencils and the rest was to riot. A penny-ante eulogy, but it did name the thing.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that before 3 November you find out what your own district spends on its school buildings, and who is telling you the children asking for it are something else.