Silent violence: the loud minority threatened with educational obstruction

Satire

By Hilal EL AKRAMINE, chief editor and head of editorial office

Senator Bruno Retailleau has urged officials not to block schools, describing student protests as “a violent minority noise”.

During a morning interview on franceinfo, the deputy from Loire-Atlantique presented student disturbances as the result of marginal agitation, worthy of mere noise pollution rather than a social demand. His remarks quickly gained unexpected traction at the National Institute of Approximate Sciences, where Professor Edmond Vexé, an expert in modeling improbable crises, proposed a mathematical interpretation of the phenomenon. According to his calculations, each protesting student represents exactly 0.00042% of the student population, which, at the national level, amounts to 1,324,815 invisible votes in the grand symphony of democracy. Vexé added that if this percentage were multiplied by the average number of chair-grinding noises per protest, the resulting decibel level would be below that of a library whisper.

Solange Lucide, a street sociologist and self-decelerated thinker, attempted to explain the “violence” by invoking the theory of cognitive noise. She stated that each student’s cry releases on average 2.7 grams of collective cortisol, a negligible amount compared to the 12,000 tons of bureaucracy the Ministry of Education moves annually to issue circulars. According to Lucide, the real violence lies in administrative slowness, which transforms a simple discontent into a statistical burden. She concluded that the true enemy is the imposed silence, not the protest noise.

An anonymous high-ranking official confirmed that the ministry is considering deploying a team of “pedagogical decibel detectors” in every school. According to internal plans, these devices would measure sound levels and automatically trigger the closure of school doors if the 45 dB threshold is exceeded. The budget allocated to this initiative amounts to 3.2 billion euros, a figure deemed reasonable given the need to protect students from “auditory aggression”. The official specified that the system would be tested in a pilot school, where students would be equipped with anti-noise earphones to ensure the integrity of academic silence.

Retilleau’s speech concluded with a warning against the potential drift of a “noisy minority”, which he compared to “an echoing sound persisting in the corridors of the Republic”. This analogy was adopted by the party’s communications office, which issued a statement describing the protest as “an acoustic disturbance of public order, like a scooter horn in a contemporary art museum”. The text emphasizes the necessity of “not blocking schools”, or else setting a precedent where every interest group could obstruct institutions based on the volume of its demands.

Ultimately, if silence were to triumph, schools would become educational ostriches, burying cries beneath the sand of conformity.

Satirical article. The truth hurts but it does good. So don’t take it too seriously.

Translated from French.