The key facts
- The slogan «Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres» originates from a Snapchat screenshot that appeared in early October 2026
- Schoolchildren believe the messages were written by police posing as teenagers, but this has not been proven
- The protests began on 18 September in Créteil and grew into a nationwide movement; on 2 October about 400 schools were blockaded
An absurd slogan that became a symbol of protest
The phrase «Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres» has become the unofficial slogan of French schoolchildren's protests within a few weeks: it is written on placards outside blockaded schools, it features in parody videos that have garnered tens of thousands of views, and Greta Thunberg repeated it. Literally it means «In the name of God — it is darkness» and is meaningless — and that is its essence. «Bismillah» in Arabic means «in the name of God», and in youth slang is close to «let's go»; «c'est les ténèbres» is slang for a catastrophic situation. Schoolchildren say the phrase caught on precisely because it mocks someone's failed attempt to imitate their way of speaking.
Origin of the phrase
The slogan is taken from a screenshot of a Snapchat conversation that began circulating in early October, when schoolchildren were using the app to organise school blockades. In the message, a user named «Mamadou» asked to be added to a group: «Hi, in the name of God, it is darkness. When the blockade, wallah, bro?» The message was accompanied by an Algerian flag emoji. Other screenshots showed similar accounts asking where blockades would take place and who was selling firecrackers and smoke bombs. The clumsy mixture of Arabic words, street slang and national flags convinced many schoolchildren that the messages were written by police posing as teenagers in order to infiltrate closed groups of protesters.
Police involvement has not been proven
This claim has not been confirmed: neither the police nor the French interior ministry has commented on the screenshots, and no one has independently established who was behind the accounts. Some internet users claimed to have traced the accounts to locations near police stations, but these claims have not been verified. Some of the circulating screenshots may themselves be a hoax or a parody.
Context of the protests
The movement began on 18 September in Créteil, south-east of Paris, and quickly spread across the country. It is based on a broad set of schoolchildren's grievances: long school days, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated school buildings and a shortage of teachers. Many believe these problems hit working-class suburbs and minority communities hardest. On 2 October alone, blockades closed about 400 schools. The schoolchildren's protests flowed into nationwide demonstrations over the cost of living on 17 October, which ended in some of the most serious riots and looting in France in recent years.
Spread beyond France
According to the Italian agency ANSA, Greta Thunberg used the slogan on 13 October during a visit to striking schoolchildren in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris. On 9 October the phrase appeared on placards at a trade-union-organised demonstration in Brussels against the Belgian government's budget cuts — there it was used as a gesture of solidarity with French schoolchildren, not as a reference to the allegations of police infiltration. ANSA also reported that the phrase was heard at student demonstrations in Bologna on 15 October and again in Milan over the weekend of 17–18 October, when protests on the Duomo square also turned into looting; pupils of a French school in Berlin were photographed with a banner bearing the slogan.
