Demonstrations drawing in pupils, families, and union members have spread through towns and cities nationwide, leading to the temporary closure of hundreds of educational institutions amid calls for greater public investment in schools and universities. Tallies released by the interior ministry put attendance at roughly 86,000 people spread across more than 30 towns and cities, with further crowds anticipated to join demonstrations in Marseille, Nice, Nantes, Lyon, and Paris.
According to the Union Syndicale Lycéenne (USL), one of the bodies coordinating the demonstrations, around 1,800 secondary schools were either blocked by protesters or shut down by the Education Ministry, while the organisation put the proportion of universities affected by blockades at roughly 90 per cent. Authorities put the number of affected schools at 891, with classes either wholly or partly suspended at those sites across the country, according to a government statement.
The USL reported that participation had reached an all-time high, coming at the end of a week in which encounters between students and police had grown increasingly tense. By Friday, figures put the total number of people taken into custody across the week at upwards of 5,000, with at least 215 sustaining injuries; access to more than 30 universities and 600-plus secondary schools had also been restricted.
During a confrontation between pupils and officers in the northern town of Lens, a 15-year-old had a hand severed, with accounts pointing to the deployment of a sting-ball grenade as the cause. Clashes between officers and demonstrators broke out on the streets of Strasbourg, with accounts pointing to firecrackers being directed at police.
In Lyon, protesters and police in protective gear came into conflict at multiple points, with at least one barricade set alight during the unrest. Rubbish containers were set alight in Lille as well. Footage captured in Rennes showed officers deploying water cannon against demonstrators, a number of whom held up umbrellas in an attempt to deflect the spray.
Among those now taking part in the demonstrations are parents, who have joined the broader effort alongside other participants. Family members of student protesters have taken to the streets under a "Parents Present" banner across multiple urban centres.
Among the USL's stated positions: an expansion of higher-education capacity by 150,000 places, an emergency injection of €10 billion (£8.4 billion) directed at school rebuilding, and a broad recruitment drive to bring substantially more teachers into the workforce.
Faced with protesters' grievances, Lecornu tasked ministers with reviewing a set of demands — among them the filling of teacher vacancies, the duration of the ten-hour school day, and whether students should be given more time for their midday meal. Plans to address deteriorating school infrastructure are also on the table, with a ministerial deadline of late October set for delivering outline proposals.
A nationwide consultation with secondary school students was set in motion by Education Minister Édouard Geffray, who described the exercise as a way of accounting for the range of experiences pupils bring to their schooling, and noted that the process was intended to gather student proposals and translate them into practical measures.
A formal advisory from France's National Consultative Commission on Human Rights called on the administration to open broader channels of communication with those taking part in the protests. The body pointed to what it characterised as disproportionate force and procedural breaches, calling for any resulting government response to stay tightly scoped and limited in its reach. Two calls came from the body: one pressing authorities toward de-escalation, the other affirming that children hold the right to voice their perspectives without interference.
Addressing the French parliament, Prime Minister Lecornu put the number of people hurt since the demonstrations began at 1,015, a total spanning 215 students, 85 school staff members, and 715 police officers and military personnel. He contended that the harm inflicted on education workers represented a burden not seen for a generation, and that treating deliberate destruction of school property as a trivial matter was untenable — pointing out that burning down a secondary school does nothing to improve the state of those buildings. Describing the targeting of teachers as working against efforts to address the educator shortage, he also disputed the assertion — which he labelled inaccurate — that authorities had used force against protesters.
