There are some staples of high school blockades. The trash cans we pile up at six in the morning to block the entrance. The chants, always the same after twenty years and despite name changes—“The youth say ‘screw the National Front’!” ” And, since the revolt began in late September, the presence of Spider-Man. While other heroes have been spotted—such as Batman or the Green Ninja from Lego Ninjago—it’s Spider-Man, whether depicted by his mask or his full costume, who steals the show.

In Menton and Montreuil, Batman and Spider-Man joined forces to support high school students. In Drancy, Spider-Man denounced state-sponsored Islamophobia and poor learning conditions. In Metz, two avatars of the hero took part in an “aura battle.” And during “Act III” on October 6, many of them gathered at the head of the march.

The multiverse has taught us that an infinite number of versions of the same hero can coexist. Thus, in response to Tom Holland’s version—who, in his latest film, collaborates with the police and mass surveillance—high school students are championing a Spider-Man who fights against police violence and the mainstream media that legitimizes it. The Mathieu Valets and Bérénice Levets of all stripes—quick to lament the destruction of public property—are, in fact, reminiscent of J. Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man’s tyrannical boss who brands him as public enemy No. 1. And they could easily adopt his signature line about the hero—“danger or threat?”—to describe the high school students. Yet social media shows us something entirely different: the violence comes from the police, from the state, waging war against rebellious youth—youth who reject the future offered by those in power.

Peter Parker, too, knows what it’s like to have no clear future ahead of him. That’s what has made him so popular: he shares the everyday experiences of young people—not only the struggles of romance and friendship, but also the hassles of paying rent and the difficult balance between work and school. He can only be “the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” because he lives just like his neighbors. This is another difference from Tom Holland’s version, who doesn’t even need to work. By reclaiming this character, high school students are thus reconnecting more with the other version of the superhero on the big screen—Miles Morales, a Brooklyn native of Puerto Rican descent and a member of Gen Z—but also with his origins in the comics.

The character, created in 1962, quickly teamed up with other, more overtly political heroes, such as the X-Men and Black Panther, who helped build a mass counterculture. Like pop music of the same era, comic books—even as they had become an industry—served as a refuge and a role model for hundreds of thousands of oppressed people—young people, those in precarious situations, LGBT individuals, people of color—who were already rising up against war and the lack of a future. It was this anger, built up throughout the 1960s, that erupted in May ’68—the event most frequently invoked by the current movement.

And, as Marcuse said of the events of May, “the rebels bring back to life the desperate and cynical laughter of the jesters: it is to unmask the actions of the serious people on whom everything depends” [1]. Indeed, young people are responding to police terror with courage but also with a cathartic defiance. Social media is filled with videos of mobilized young people defying the police, ridiculing their heavily armed presence at roadblocks, and mocking the morbid absurdity of the ultra-violent doctrine of crushing protest through repressive forces. And this is their last point in common with Spider-Man: the superhero is known for his sense of humor, his sarcasm in the face of relentless enemies, and his unwavering optimism. Like him, the high school students—who are enduring a level of repression unprecedented in the Fifth Republic—refuse to give in.

Here, they’re staging an “aura battle” and are joined by their principal. There, a student mimics Michael Jackson’s dance moves in front of the police. Everywhere, they’re making ironic comments about “the end of the contemporary era” on October 17, and mocking “undercover” cops with the phrase “bismillah, it’s darkness,” which has become, in a way, the movement’s meta-motto. Michael Jackson—him again—is even quoted on signs—“all I want to say is that they don’t care about us”—where he appears alongside Rimbaud, a revolutionary poet if ever there was one—“one isn’t serious when one is seventeen.”

“We’re not serious”: One of the greatest strengths of the high school student movement is undoubtedly its refusal to accept the “sense of seriousness” that the government seeks to impose. The government needs disciplined students so it can send them to military service. But they refuse to toe the line, and their anger is spreading like a shockwave across the entire country, breaking down sociological barriers and becoming a driving force behind the broader protest movement. College students have already joined them, and workers—unlike union leaders, who are calling for a boycott of October 17—are just waiting to join the outcry against widespread poverty.

It is for all these reasons that Spider-Man’s mask—which has already been reimagined and reinterpreted by numerous artists in support of the movement—has become a symbol of it, alongside the One Piece flag and the music from a short film by Cyprien. Because it is a mask that anyone can wear—one that embodies nonchalance and courage in the face of adversity. And the great power of this revolt brings with it, for all of us, responsibilities to match.


[1] Herbert Marcuse, *Toward Liberation*, 1969.