[Correspondence] Prioritising the future of youth is an urgent political choice

AI Summary

The correspondence supports French students protesting educational inequality and urges health professionals and policymakers to back youth priorities. It links unequal education to disparities in employment, income, living conditions, and ultimately health.

Health professionals and policy makers should fully support the students currently protesting in France.1 Apart from the regrettable outbursts of violence happening during protests, this movement reflects the anger of youth at decades of successive policies, both at national and global levels, which have progressively widened educational inequalities. These educational inequalities have led to a cascade of further inequalities: access to employment and type of employment (manual or office-based); level of income—in the past 20 years, the Gini index in France increased from 0·27 to 0·30;2 living conditions and the environment (quality of food, water, noise, air, etc); and, eventually, health inequities.