New National Curriculum Replaces Algebra With Police Statistics and Economics With the Cost of Tear Gas
PARIS, FRANCE | France’s government struggles to staff ordinary lessons but can find substantial police resources when students protest the shortage. More than a quarter of a million people rallied nationwide on one Tuesday, according to government figures cited by the Associated Press, and classes were totally or partly suspended at 891 schools that day. Riot police were there for all of it.
The government has therefore found a fresh approach to teaching mathematics.
The new syllabus has one great advantage over the old one. It needs no maths teachers, because every number arrives already counted, already rounded in whichever direction suits the minister, and already announced at a press conference.
French Math Class, Now With Police Counts
Students who complained their schools lacked qualified math teachers can now count the officers standing outside their classrooms. Advanced pupils can estimate the cost of the equipment, security barriers and emergency deployments. The gifted can explain why the same government has trouble keeping the toilet paper stocked.
Fractions are taught using the national budget. Pupils take one whole education ministry, subtract the part spent on forms, subtract the part spent on forms about forms, and look for whatever is left over for a classroom. Most get an answer very close to zero. The ministry marks this correct but asks them to show less working.
Traditional math problems had two trains leaving different cities. The modern French version has two police vans leaving different stations and asks how many demonstrators get detained before lunch.
The answer depends on the weather, the political mood and whether a television camera is nearby.
Bonus marks go to any pupil who can work out how many teachers the same money would have bought. No pupil has yet been given the figure. It appears to be confidential, which makes it the only part of the education budget anybody has ever kept safe.
“It’s very practical,” said a curriculum adviser, who has never taught a class. “Children love word problems with real stakes.”
The adviser added that the new exams would be marked on a curve. It will be the same curve the treasury uses for the deficit, so pupils should expect it to go up.
Pricing the Kit: Teacher Versus Riot Officer
A teacher arrives for work with a marker pen, a lanyard and a laptop that takes eleven minutes to wake up. A riot officer arrives with a helmet, a visor, a shield, a van, a driver for the van and, for reasons of morale, a second van to keep the first one company.
If the ministry has ever priced the two side by side, the figures are in a drawer. Pupils were going to do it themselves, but that was meant to be Thursday’s lesson, and Thursday’s teacher has not been appointed yet.
A teacher who wanted to be reclassified as a public order measure could, in principle, apply. The form exists. It is kept in a school office, and the school is currently shut.
Experiential Learning, Riot-Shield Edition
Students who asked for better working conditions can observe the working conditions of riot police. Those who wanted smaller classes can enjoy being processed individually. Political science majors will learn that governments are more comfortable counting protesters than answering them.
The educational value drops sharply when people get hurt. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez suspended the use of stun grenades after a 15-year-old lost a hand in the northern city of Lens, Reuters reported. AFP said police had opened 18 internal investigations into alleged misconduct, as covered by Arab News. Public order is meant to support sensible policy, not replace it.
The Government’s Usual Solution: A Procedure
France’s centralised administration has deep faith in additional procedures. A school lacks teachers, so you create a task force. The task force lacks funding, so you create a commission. Students protest the commission, so you create a security perimeter.
Eventually the original problem is buried under a beautiful stack of government documents.
The stack now has its own room, a dehumidifier and a part-time archivist. That puts it ahead of plenty of classrooms on heating and well ahead on toilet paper.
Meanwhile taxpayers pay for the school system that disappoints the students and for the security response when the students say so. An accountant would normally be alarmed by that double bill. The accountant has been reassigned to a committee investigating why the treasury keeps running out of money.
His old desk has been handed to a calculator with a single working button. It is marked “security,” and whatever you type in, it says yes.
The fix isn’t complicated. Hire competent teachers. Maintain the buildings. Protect peaceful protest. Prosecute actual violence.
Instead, France risks teaching children a depressing lesson about democracy. An appointment with the state takes six months if you ask politely. If you block a street, you get one right away.
Five Humorous Observations
- France can’t find a math teacher but found 891 schools’ worth of riot gear. That’s not a budget, that’s a mood.
- Two trains leave different cities. Cute. Now it’s two vans, and the question is how many kids by lunch.
- The task force needs funding, so they form a commission. The commission needs a meeting. The meeting needs sandwiches. Sandwiches get funded immediately.
- “Ask politely and wait six months, or block a street and get a meeting by Thursday.” That’s not democracy, that’s an express lane.
- Somewhere there’s an accountant on a committee asking why the money’s gone. He’s the only one in the building who already knows.
Satire based on reported events in France. The curriculum adviser is fictional. The injured teenager and related reporting are real, and we don’t joke about him. The ministry’s arithmetic remains fair game. More political satire and UK satirical news can be counted without the help of a riot van.
Cyndi Himmelstiere is a satirical journalist at Prat.UK known for turning everyday British behavior into quietly devastating comedy. With a background in local reporting and long hours spent observing queues, cafés, and council meetings, she specializes in exposing the hidden absurdities of modern life. Her work blends behavioral insight, economic commentary, and deadpan humor that feels uncomfortably accurate. Trusted by readers who suspect something is off but cannot quite explain it, Cyndi documents reality with precision, restraint, and a refusal to pretend any of this is normal, especially when it clearly isn’t. She is the author of Could Modern Doctors Have Saved History’s Greats?
