Between 400 and 500 secondary schools in France were expected to suspend classes fully or partly on Monday, after pupil protests spread and police intervened with tear gas, rubber bullets, defensive ball launchers and batons. The Ministry of Education said schools would suspend classes where security conditions “are not met”. Pupils are demanding basic resources, while the government’s response is increasingly framed in terms of security.
Classrooms Without Resources
The movement began at Saint-Exupéry secondary school in Créteil, in the Paris suburbs, in support of striking teachers who denounced a lack of staff and resources. Over the following week, it spread across the country. Pupils have cited unsafe and insanitary buildings, overcrowded classes, timetables they say are impossible to manage, staff shortages and teacher absences that aren’t systematically covered. Some also oppose the ban on mobile phones in schools.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray told France 2 and France Inter that “between 400 and 500 suspended classes” had been recorded on Friday. He said there would “probably be just as many on Monday, but with a gradual, partial resumption of classes”. Geffray also said protests had affected 735 schools, with 24 “set on fire or ransacked”, and reported that “78 staff members” from the Ministry of Education had been injured “since the start of the events”.
Geffray met pupil representatives on Friday morning. Afterward, the representatives said they had received no “concrete measures” and called for protests to continue. A third nationwide mobilisation, “act III”, was planned for Tuesday, after protest days on 29 September and 1 October.
The Security Response
The Interior Ministry said the unrest had led to nearly 5,000 arrests since Monday. Demonstrations spread across several major cities. Rubbish bins and other objects were set alight, projectiles were thrown at security forces, and people damaged school buildings and street furniture. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets, defensive ball launchers known as LBDs, and batons to disperse some demonstrators.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez defended the security forces’ actions on Sunday and rejected claims that their response was “disproportionate”. “The police do not repress young people,” he said, but “protect” pupils and students who want to “advance their demands peacefully”. He warned police would intervene “firmly and without delay” to stop “damage, violence [and] abuses” by troublemakers.
Nuñez also rejected claims that security forces were targeting “racialised young people from working-class neighbourhoods”, calling that a “blaming narrative totally disconnected from the real world”. His defence came as teachers’ unions said the government’s response had amounted to security-force intervention. All teachers’ unions said Sunday they would join the pupils’ protest. Their statement said: “Their demands are legitimate, and we support them all the more because they are at the heart of our own mobilisations denouncing the lack of resources for several years now.”
Injuries, Arrests and Repair Costs
The unions said reports of pupils “who have been injured, assaulted and threatened are increasing by the day. This is unacceptable.” In Tours, a young man injured in clashes between pupils and police on Wednesday lost sight in his right eye, the local prosecutor said. In La Ciotat, a 59-year-old teacher was doused in petrol and beaten during a pupil demonstration. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy suspected of carrying out the attack in Marseille on Sunday and took him into custody. In Belfort, a group of young people chased, beat and repeatedly kicked a police officer; police took two people into custody.
Le Parisien reported that the government intended to bring forward the timetable for the “casseurs-payeurs” bill in response to damage around schools and in public spaces. The bill aims to make people who take part in violent gatherings contribute to repair costs, even when they aren’t directly responsible for the damage. The Senate was due to examine it at the end of October. Pupils and teachers want more staff and resources. The proposed measure would extend the state’s power to assign repair costs to people at demonstrations.
The Senate was due to examine the bill at the end of October.