The School Repairs Come With Cuts Elsewhere

France's government has found €5 billion to respond to anger about public services. Other public spending is advised to check whether its wallet is still there.

Reuters reports that ministers announced education proposals on Monday including a cap of 28 pupils in some classes, billions of euros in loans for building renovations, and a revamp of university admissions. On Tuesday, teachers said the package did not go far enough. Student leaders called it a good first step and said demonstrations would continue.

Both reactions can be true. An improvement does not become worthless because it is insufficient. Nor does the announcement of an improvement obligate everyone waiting for it to put down the sign and write a thank-you note.

The funding explanation deserves its own small ceremony. Budget Minister David Amiel said the measures would cost €5 billion and be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. The government is under pressure from bond markets to reduce debt and has little spare cash.

So the answer to a movement that has broadened around weakening public services is a public-service package funded by reducing other spending. This may involve defensible choices. It may involve painful ones. Reuters does not identify the cuts, which means “elsewhere” is currently doing the work of a rather substantial budget document.

Elsewhere is a wonderful place to find savings. Nobody in Elsewhere has seen the invoice yet.

The distinction matters because the protests began with students objecting to inadequate staffing and resources. The movement has since expanded to include general trade unions and Yellow Vests, with wider complaints about public services and living costs. A government can address a specific school problem while shifting a cost to another service. Whether this package does that, and to whom, depends on details the funding slogan does not supply.

The promised class-size cap is also not universal. It applies to some classes. Sophie Venetitay of the teachers' union SNES-FSU wants broader limits and more hiring to improve learning conditions. A number on a ministerial announcement does not itself produce the additional person needed to teach the next room.

And loans for renovations are not the same thing as grants. A loan can help get work started; it also has to be repaid. Those are not arguments against repairing school buildings. They are reasons to read beyond the word “billions,” which has a remarkable talent for obscuring the rest of a sentence.

At least this package deals with schools. As the earlier effort to turn France's school protests into an immigration argument showed, a missing teacher can apparently be discussed at enormous length without anybody approaching a recruitment form. Class sizes, buildings and admissions are closer to the actual problem.

The government also promises a heavy security presence for Saturday's demonstrations, following earlier nationwide protests that gave way to violence and looting. That history matters. So does the distinction between preventing violence and answering a demand for functioning services. Police deployment is not an additional classroom assistant.

The students' position is not especially difficult to understand: take the useful concessions, ask for the missing pieces, keep demonstrating. Calling something a first step does not mean agreeing that the walk is over.

Before declaring the school repairs paid for, the government could name the spending it plans to cut. It would be nice to know whether the next protest is already included in the price.