Demonstrations and protests against poor school and economic conditions by lycée (high school) students have taken place in France since September 2026. In early October, the protests developed into a nationwide mobilisation involving students, teachers, parents, political organizations and trade unions, with an estimated 550,000–800,000 people participating nationwide. The demonstrations are part of a wider European unrest which includes protests in Belgium, Albania, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Serbia and Germany.
The movement is marked by demonstrations and high school blockades. Explaining the protests, students have cited teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, run-down buildings, and limited public investment in social programs and infrastructure. Students noted stress linked to the university application website Parcoursup and high temperatures in classrooms that reached up to 40 °C (104 °F) during the 2026 European heatwaves. Protesters in France and across Europe complained of high inflation, rents, fuel costs, and unemployment, coupled with social spending cuts.
The initial police response used a variety of forceful crowd-control weapons, resulting in serious injuries, including to children, and violent conflict between police and protestors have led to 6,800 arrests, most of them of minors. The French government has accused the far-left of stirring up the unrest for political gain. Protester leaders have argued the movement is a spontaneous showing of economic grievance.
The police response drew criticism from human rights organisations: Amnesty International denounced a "disproportionate" use of force, Human Rights Watch reported serious injuries to children, and the UN Human Rights Office expressed concern, "[calling] on everyone to ensure that the protests in France remained peaceful and that there is no disproportionate use of force". The government rejected accusations of police repression, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez maintaining that the response had been proportionate in almost all cases and that some protests had turned into riots.
Background
Study conditions and government budget
The protests came at the start of the school year and at the same time as a public-sector strike over the government's budget plans, which include €61 billion in new spending cuts. Students cited unfilled teaching posts, overcrowded classes, long timetables and deteriorating facilities among their grievances. A 17-year-old pupil at the Lycée Paul-Éluard in Saint-Denis described temporary toilets without water, rats and cockroaches in school, and temperatures ranging from −5 °C in winter to 40 °C in summer in temporary classrooms. Another pupil described rooms with too few tables, noting that teachers had explained their own discontent before the pupils decided to join them. Ryad Rani, president of the secondary-students' union Union Syndicale Lycéenne (USL), cited a pupil who had gone seven months without a French teacher in a year with a French exam, and classes of 32 to 36 students. Pupils elsewhere told ICI of classes of 35.
High fuel costs, rents, general inflation, unemployment, and government spending cuts have motivated protestors both in France and across Europe.
The Créteil rectorat told Agence France-Presse that demands still varied by school: teachers not replaced, class size, heavy timetables, shortages of education assistants, nurses, social workers and managers, incidents between pupils and teachers left without follow-up, and deficient undergraduate admissions web portal "Parcoursup". France Info summarised what it was hearing from pupils as more resources, smaller classes, buildings in better condition, enough teachers and staff, and less stress from Parcoursup.
Previous protests
In autumn 1990, lycée students, many from working-class Paris suburbs, protested over safety, cleanliness, staffing and materials. The protests reached on the order of 100,000 people in Paris and about 150,000 nationwide. Education minister Lionel Jospin answered with an emergency plan and an increase in the education budget.
In early 2005, lycée students and their teachers mobilised against reforms to the education system made by François Fillon, and in particular against a reform of the baccalauréat that they believed would lead to greater inequalities in the value of diplomas from different schools. Between 15,000 and 40,000 students took part in the protests. Fillon backed down and announced a government amendment removing changes to the baccalauréat from the bill.
In spring 2018, opposition to the ORE law and to the new Parcoursup platform was carried mainly by university occupations. Lycée blockades were scattered. In the autumn, lycée students mobilised again, against Parcoursup and against Jean-Michel Blanquer's baccalauréat reform. On 11 December, hundreds of establishments were blocked or badly disrupted. Le Monde diplomatique later wrote that this map could not be explained only by the knock-on effect of the yellow vests protests, then at their height, but that the Yellow Vest movement was part of the context. Parcoursup was kept, with some adjustments, and the baccalauréat reform went ahead.
Emergence of the protests
Beginning with September 2026, and the new school year, several issues with the school infrastructure prompted students in French Guiana to block the Felix Éboué high school in Cayenne to denounce poor learning conditions. In Mayotte, parents together with teachers and students have been blocking access to the lycee of the North of Acoua since the end of August, a movement which was "largely ignored" by mass media in metropolitan France.
In metropolitan France, the mobilisation began on 21 September at the Lycée Antoine-de-Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The day after a teachers' strike on 17 September against lack of resources and staff, pupils organised a protest. Pupils said they felt neglected by the Ministry of National Education and cited lack of resources and staff, overcrowded classes, and rooms short of tables.
An academic source and the USL later presented that mobilisation as the start of the national movement.
Contemporaneous reports, including Le Monde and a 24 September account by actu.fr, dated the spreading movement to Monday 21 September at the same lycée, where several teaching posts were unfilled. The Créteil rectorate said on 24 September that demands still varied by school.
Through 25 September the spread stayed local. Actu.fr said about 10 lycées were affected by 24 September, mainly in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, and described a copycat effect on social networks. That morning, pupils tried to block the entrance of the Lycée Auguste-Blanqui in Saint-Ouen until late morning. An academy spokesperson told AFP there had been a gathering and material damage but no injuries. Police dispersed the crowd without incident.
On 25 September the Créteil rectorate said the movement was gaining momentum and counted "a good dozen" lycées blocked, above all in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne. It said some mobilisations had produced crowds and material damage. The Versailles rectorate reported disruption at three of 62 lycées in Essonne and mobilisations at five of 65 in Hauts-de-Seine. Le Monde later wrote that about 60 Paris-region lycées were disrupted on 24 and 25 September, that about 12 percent of the 468 public lycées saw attempted blockades, and that around 10 were actually blocked. Rani told AFP that it had started at Saint-Exupéry and "spread very quickly", and cited shortages of education assistants, nurses and social workers.
Organization
The USL's national call, for 29 September, named four grievances: lack of teachers and staff, "dilapidated lycées", overloaded timetables and classes, and the stress caused by Parcoursup. Rani said classes sometimes held 32 to 35 pupils and asked protesters to remain peaceful. The union later called a second day on 1 October, an "act two", and a further day of action on 6 October. On RTL on 30 September, Rani said dialogue bodies run by the ministry had been "abandoned", and that it was for the minister to take the first step. Following their meeting with Education Minister Édouard Geffray on 2 October, student union leaders voiced their dissatisfaction with the government's response and called for the mobilisation to continue. The USL announced further demonstrations for 6 October, with several trade-union confederations, including the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), announcing that they would join the action. Other supporting trade union confederations included the Workers' Force (FO), National Union of Autonomous Trade Unions (UNSA), French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), Solidaires, French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC), and the Confédération Paysanne. The teachers' unions Unitary Trade Union Federation (FSU) and National Union of Independent Colleges and High Schools (SNALC) called for strikes and supported the protests as well.
Other lycée student unions supporting student mobilization and protests included the National High School Student Movement, the Student Union, and the "Les Lycéens!" union.
Participating and supporting organisations
The Union syndicale lycéenne and Union étudiante called for joint mobilisation by secondary-school and university students on 1 October. Reporting on the demonstrations that day, Le Monde described a heterogeneous movement involving students seeking improved educational conditions as well as people involved in confrontations. It also reported that some participants were not pupils of the schools outside which they gathered.
La France Insoumise (LFI) representatives attended demonstrations. Jean-Luc Mélenchon stated that the party supported nonviolent protest.
Muslim Students of France (French: Étudiants musulmans de France, EMF) also supported the mobilisation. According to Le Point, the association and its local branches circulated calls for action from 5 to 9 October, while its Belfort branch had joined a demonstration alongside secondary-school students on 1 October. The magazine reported that EMF cooperated with RED Jeunes, with which it had co-founded the anti-Islamophobia collective Génération EDR in March 2025.
Timeline
28–30 September
On 28 September, Lecornu said escalation would be "irresponsible" and wrote that fireworks, fires, and violence near high schools endangered pupils, staff, and police. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 164 people had been arrested that day, 180 schools were affected, and 12 security officers, 12 students, and three staff were injured.
On 29 September, the Education Ministry said about 400 of the roughly 3,700 lycées were disrupted. Nuñez told BFM TV that 440 people had been detained, most of them minors. CNN published photographs of police firing tear gas at the Lycée César-Baggio in Lille. In Saint-Denis, La France Insoumise (LFI) mayor Bally Bagayoko stood with pupils outside the Lycée Paul-Éluard. On BFM on 29 September he said that violence could, at a given moment, be legitimate. On 30 September, Paris police prefect Patrice Faure referred him to the Bobigny prosecutor, under article 40 of the French code of criminal procedure, for suspected provocation to commit an offence. On 1 October, Bagayoko told France Info that he stood by the remarks and called for de-escalation. Politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon wrote that the pupils were harmless, that the crackdown had a racist undertone, and that LFI activists should "step in" between pupils and police.
On 30 September, Nuñez said 625 people were detained, 83 police and gendarmes were wounded, and 356 schools were affected. He described projectiles, attempted arson, and what he called urban violence. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 119 pupils and staff had been injured since the protests began. In Tours, a young person was hospitalised with head injuries.
1 October
On 1 October, university students joined the blockades. The Union étudiante reported about 30 campus blockades, including Paris Cité, Sorbonne University, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Lyon, and Rennes. France Info added Sciences Po Rennes, the University of Rennes and the Université de Bretagne-Occidentale, and said students at the University of Montpellier Paul Valéry and Aix-Marseille University were mobilised. Police counts that morning were lower than the evening total: 340 actions and 169 blockades by mid-morning, according to franceinfo. The evening Interior Ministry figure was 1,027 lycées affected, 222 blockaded, and 1,949 arrests. The Guardian reported nearly 3,000 lycée students detained since the start, including the Thursday figure.
Lecornu held an interministerial crisis meeting and told ministers to cancel travel. His office said the violence made it nearly impossible to keep schools open safely, and that intelligence services described the movement as "an operation organised by LFI and its proxies on the far left". LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard said the government was "sinking into conspiracism" and called the mobilisation spontaneous.
Geffray ordered remote classes in areas where damage or blockages made buildings unsafe, and said that slightly over 400 establishments would be closed on 2 October. That evening the Interior Ministry said prefects had banned demonstrations outside the closed lycées. Paris police prefect Patrice Faure banned gatherings at 13 closed Paris schools.
2 October
About 400 of France's roughly 3,700 lycées were closed on the orders of the prefects, with many switching to distance learning. Every prefect banned gatherings outside lycées closed that day. In Paris, the prefect of police, Patrice Faure, banned gatherings around 13 named closed lycées.