COERs • France
French Students Are Writing CORTIS Lyrics on Their Protest Signs
A piece of cardboard, a pack of Bic pens, and a CORTIS lyric. France, October 2026.
You open X expecting the usual, and instead there is a photo of a cardboard sign on the floor of a French school, drawn in marker next to somebody’s pencil case, and it says that’s GREEN GREEN on one side and that’s RED RED on the other. Kids you will never meet, in a country CORTIS have not toured, using their song to say what they think of their school system.
I have been running this site for months and nothing has made me sit down like this did.
The short answer
High school students across France have been blockading their schools since late September over the education budget, class sizes and Parcoursup. Somewhere in the middle of it, someone turned RED RED and GREEN GREEN into a way of marking what is broken and what is not, and now the format is on signs taped to fences in different cities.
What the signs actually say
“Blocus, that’s green green”
The one at the top of this page is the cleanest version of the joke. Blocus is the blockade itself, so: doing the blockade, that’s green green. And then “8h–18h + 4h de trou”, which is being stuck at school from eight in the morning to six at night with four empty hours in the middle of it, that’s red red.
Anyone who has ever had a timetable with holes in it understands that sign instantly.
L’Éducation Nationale: that’s red red. Faire blocus: green green. The French state school system, and doing something about it.
“Parcoursup, that’s red red”
This is the one that got shared the most, and it is the sharpest. Parcoursup is the platform French students have to go through to get into university, and it is probably the single most hated piece of software in the country. On the sign it is red red. Next to it, in green: “nous écouter”. Listening to us.
They wrote #Cortis on it. In pen. On a protest sign. Taped to a fence.
And the sign above it: “Pas mal éduqués, juste mal écoutés.” Not badly educated, just badly listened to. The small print says #adultes de demain, tomorrow’s adults.
What is actually happening in France
The short version, because the signs make more sense with it
Blockades started around 21 September 2026 in the suburbs north and south east of Paris, and spread. By early October they had reached a large share of the country’s lycées, with blockades at universities too.
What they are angry about is not abstract. It is class sizes and staffing. One student told AFP there were thirty four of them in a class and the teachers were overworked. The 2027 draft budget for the education ministry raises spending but also removes around 1,500 teaching posts, and a plan to start charging enrolment fees for some vocational and prep courses was dropped after the protests started.
It has turned rough in places, with clashes and arrests, and the government has argued the protests were infiltrated. The education minister has invited three student unions in for talks, and the prime minister said the first measures would come by the end of October.
On the numbers
Arrest and school counts vary a lot between outlets and change by the day, so this is deliberately vague about figures rather than confident about ones that might be wrong. For the current state of it, go to Le Monde, AFP or France 24. This is a CORTIS fan site, not a news desk.
Why this lyric, of all lyrics
It is a format, and formats travel
Most lyrics do not work on a protest sign. This one does, because it is already a verdict. Red red and green green are not words you have to explain to anyone, in any language. You name a thing and you mark it. The system: red. Us: green.
It also does not need you to speak Korean, or English, or to have heard the song. A French sixteen year old with a marker can pick it up in one go. That is why it has spread from one school to another instead of staying a single photo.
And there is something quietly funny about a group whose whole thing is colouring outside the lines ending up on a wall outside a school nobody is allowed into.
Outside one of the blockades.
French students using CORTIS’s RED RED and GREEN GREEN on their protest signs.
— hoonierad (@hoonierad)
What a COER said about it, better than I can
Cortis utilizado como inspiración y lucha en una generación que pide cambio e igualdad, no todo se ha perdido, espero que sepan que sus canciones se están utilizando de manera correcta.
— cortissblue (@cortissblue)
In English: CORTIS used as inspiration and as a fight, by a generation asking for change and for equality. Not everything is lost. I hope they know their songs are being used the right way.
That is the whole thing. Five teenagers made a song about refusing to fit in the box, and other teenagers on the other side of the world picked it up and used it to ask for smaller classes and to be listened to. Nobody at a label planned that. You cannot plan that.
Martin, James, Juhoon, Seonghyeon, Keonho. Teenagers themselves, for what it is worth.
I hope they see it
They are in Los Angeles right now, making the third album, working until the sun comes up. Probably not scrolling French student TikTok.
But if this ever gets in front of them: somebody in France took the thing you made in a studio and wrote it on a piece of cardboard with a borrowed marker, because it was the clearest way they could think of to say what was wrong. There are worse things to do with a song.
Frequently asked questions
Why are French students using CORTIS lyrics on protest signs?
Because the RED RED and GREEN GREEN format works as a verdict. Students write the thing they are angry about in red and the thing they want in green, which needs no translation and fits on a piece of cardboard.
What are French students protesting about?
The education budget, class sizes, staffing and Parcoursup, the university admissions platform. Blockades of secondary schools began around 21 September 2026 and spread across the country.
What does “blocus” mean?
It is the blockade itself: students physically blocking the entrance to their school so nobody can get in, which is the standard form of protest in French lycées.
What is Parcoursup?
The national platform French students have to use to apply for higher education. It is widely disliked, and on these signs it is the thing written in red.
Have CORTIS said anything about it?
Not as of 12 October 2026. This is COERs and French students, not the group or the company.
Where this comes from
The photos and clips come from French students and from COERs sharing them on X and TikTok. The context on the protests is from international reporting in early October 2026. Nothing here is a statement from CORTIS or from BIGHIT MUSIC.
More: what CORTIS actually stands for and where they are right now.
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