What began as a protest at a school near Paris has grown into a nationwide movement, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets.
Poor school conditions, teacher shortages and tensions with police have fuelled the unrest, while political groups have joined the debate.
The protests began on September 17 at a high school in Créteil near Paris, where teachers and students raised concerns about staff shortages, inadequate support for students with disabilities and the poor condition of school buildings.
The movement subsequently spread across the country, fuelled by social media and growing frustration among students, who say their schools are failing to provide basic conditions for learning.
According to the government, 6,877 people have been arrested since the protests began, 86 percent of them under the age of 18.
On Thursday, around 71,000 people demonstrated nationwide, including some 24,000 in Paris, according to figures cited in reports on the unrest.
Police used tear gas to disperse groups that attacked officers with paving stones and homemade fireworks.
In Bordeaux, protesters ransacked a high school, while in Marseille a deputy headteacher was beaten. However, the protests have not all been violent, with many school blockades taking place peacefully.
France’s government has made its first significant concession to high-school students protesting against conditions in the country’s secondary education system, promising to deploy 3,000 additional supply teachers in the coming days.
Staff shortages at the heart of the dispute
The immediate cause of the protests is a shortage of teachers and the resulting loss of teaching hours.
The problem is particularly acute in disadvantaged suburbs, where schools often face difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, while buildings and facilities are in poor condition.
Amanda Dziubińska, a France expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), a Warsaw-based think tank, said students in France recognised their own experiences in the problems highlighted by the original protest in Créteil.
She said schools were increasingly demanding more from students without providing them with the basic conditions needed to study. The sense that education is failing to offer equal opportunities has been especially strong in poorer neighbourhoods.
France is also facing a broader crisis in the teaching profession. Teachers are poorly paid relative to the demands of their work, face heavy workloads and are becoming harder to recruit. The shortage makes it increasingly difficult to replace absent staff.
The government has also announced plans to cut around 1,500 teaching posts as part of wider budget savings. At the same time, pressure on public finances has limited its room for manoeuvre.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray said new software being introduced by the education ministry would help direct 3,000 supply teachers to around 500 high schools with the greatest staffing needs.
The government also plans to make additional funding available under an existing scheme that pays teachers for overtime.
Geffray said students’ concerns would be considered in discussions on the 2027 budget. However, the announcement does not include a major new investment programme.
Student representatives have reacted cautiously.
Nathanaël Combary, who represents the more moderate Lycée Renewal union, said students wanted to see concrete results rather than announcements alone.
Sabrine Kharbach of the Student Union, which is close to the radical-left France Unbowed party, said the protests would continue unless the government put EUR 10 billion on the table.
From school blockades to street clashes
The rapid spread of the demonstrations reflects more than dissatisfaction with school conditions.
Social media helped students in different parts of France recognise similar problems in their own schools and organise collective action.
Trade unions subsequently joined the movement, while university students also took part.
The protests have drawn comparisons with the Yellow Vest movement of 2018 and 2019, which forced the government to abandon a planned increase in fuel taxes after weeks of demonstrations and riots.
Dziubińska said the two movements shared several characteristics, including a lack of central leadership, mobilisation through social media and a widespread feeling that political elites were ignoring ordinary people. She also pointed to the role of police responses in escalating tensions.
The involvement of groups seeking clashes with police further complicated the protests.
Some of those involved are not students at the schools being blockaded, making it difficult to distinguish between peaceful demonstrations and acts of violence.
Konrad Gębski, a third-year management student at the Paris School of Business, said the movement had moved away from its original demands.
He described growing tensions between left-wing groups organising blockades and right-wing student activists attempting to remove them.
Gębski said some participants had attacked police with petrol bombs and other projectiles, turning a protest over understandable grievances into disorder.
Political tensions add to unrest
The protests have increasingly become a focus of political competition ahead of France’s presidential election in April.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical-left France Unbowed party, has openly encouraged participation in the demonstrations.
He praised Thursday’s protest in Paris, saying on social media that students had “retaken the Bastille.”
Dziubińska said France Unbowed could benefit politically from the movement because Mélenchon has long sought to mobilise young people and residents of the suburbs.
The party’s involvement has also prompted accusations that it is fuelling the unrest.
The government and the right have, in turn, criticised the radical left, shifting some of the debate away from school funding and staffing shortages towards public order and political extremism.
Marine Le Pen, a leading figure in the right-wing National Rally party, has condemned the violence and supported the police response.
She said those responsible for damaging schools, as well as the parents of offenders who are minors, should pay for the damage.
The competing responses illustrate the growing political divide surrounding the protests. Both the radical left and the right are seeking to shape public debate as the presidential campaign approaches.
The unrest is unfolding against a wider backdrop of social discontent, including anger over rising fuel prices and tensions in the farming sector.
A revived Yellow Vest movement has also called for demonstrations on October 17.
What happens next?
The government hopes that the arrival of the autumn school holidays, which run from October 17 to November 2, will help reduce tensions.
Dziubińska expects the protests to gradually lose momentum as the holidays approach, but she doubts the government will offer a comprehensive solution to the problems facing schools. Any further concessions, she said, are likely to be limited or introduced gradually.
The movement has nevertheless forced the government to acknowledge the shortage of substitute teachers and the difficulties faced by schools with the greatest needs. Whether the promised additional staff will be enough to satisfy students remains uncertain.
The dispute is also likely to remain part of the political debate in the run-up to the presidential election, particularly as France struggles to reconcile demands for better public services with pressure to rein in public spending.
(pg/gs)