France in Revolt: 256,000 March as School Protests Explode

Police fired tear gas and water cannons across France on Tuesday as more than a quarter of a million people took to the streets in support of school pupils demanding more education funding, according to government figures. The nationwide demonstrations, including 56,000 marchers in Paris, marked the biggest day yet of a movement that began with a single school blockade in mid-September and has become one of the most serious challenges to the administration of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron.

Young protesters hold a banner reading ‘Riposte Lycéenne’ — high school resistance — during a demonstration in France.

The marches showed how protests that started at a high school in the Paris region in mid-September have grown into a nationwide movement, the latest in a long line of mass demonstrations that have marked Macron's nearly decade-long presidency. As pupils again blockaded high schools, large crowds waving flags and placards gathered in Marseille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Rennes and other cities, with parents and teachers joining teenagers on the barricades.

A Day of Action Across France

France's Interior Ministry estimated that 256,000 people took part in demonstrations across the country on Tuesday, including 56,000 in Paris, where small groups of protesters clashed with riot officers at a city square at the end of a largely peaceful march, the Associated Press reported. Nearly 500 people were detained over the course of the day.

The scenes were dramatic. In Rennes, western France, riot police used a water cannon as they faced students protesting against under-resourced schools. In Strasbourg, Lyon and Rennes, the protests turned violent at times, with police firing tear gas and protesters lighting fires in the streets and hurling projectiles.

But many of the day's gatherings were peaceful. Parents and other adults positioned themselves on Tuesday between protesters and police keeping watch outside schools. “They are our children. Teachers, parents, federations, we all share the same goal: the protection of children's rights, and it is a legitimate right to demonstrate and to make demands,” said Emilia Sichili Suriam, a member of an association of parents, outside the Hélène Boucher lycée in Paris's 20th district, where protesters tipped over trash cans and bicycles to build a makeshift barricade.

“We need to listen to them,” said Léa Monimart, an adult demonstrator in the northern city of Lille. “They are 17 years old; they are not completely clueless, and they know what they are talking about. It's important to show that there are adults who support them.”

Why Students Are Angry

The pupils' demands are plain and repeated by student groups and news desks from Paris to New York: not enough teachers, classrooms that are too full, buildings in poor shape, and days that run long. French high school students' compulsory classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.

Students have drawn attention to rundown classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, become sweltering in summer without air conditioning and, in some cases, are infested with rats. Other common complaints include chronic staff shortages and exhausting workloads, according to the AP.

Authorities began shutting schools last week to take some steam out of the demonstrations after widespread damage to schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police. Classes were totally or partially suspended on Tuesday at 891 schools out of the country's 3,700, according to the Education Ministry. The High School Students Union put the number of blockaded or closed high schools even higher, at nearly 2,000.

Education Minister Édouard Geffray told France 2 that at least 24 schools had been ransacked or set on fire. Facing accusations that the government was ignoring the protesters, the ministry launched an online portal inviting high school students to anonymously describe the difficulties they face at school and the changes they want to see.

Demonstrators march with a banner demanding an emergency plan for education in the Paris region.

The Police Response

The widespread use of arrests, tear gas and riot-control weapons against teenagers is fuelling defiance and angering some parents and teachers, the AP reported. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the police response had been proportionate in “almost all cases” and that the protests had at times turned into riots, requiring police intervention.

The numbers from both sides are striking. According to the government, more than 6,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, the majority of them under the age of eighteen. The Ministry of Justice announced that more than 1,800 will be prosecuted, including 1,483 minors.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said during parliamentary questioning on Tuesday that at least 215 teenagers had been wounded along with 715 police officers. Education Minister Geffray separately reported that 85 members of teaching staff had been injured since the protests began.

A Teenager Loses His Hand

The most shocking incident of the week came on Monday, when a 15-year-old's hand was blown off during clashes between high-schoolers and police in northern France. A French newspaper, La Voix du Nord, said the teenager lost his hand and part of his arm after he picked up a police grenade during the protest. The government said that around 200 to 250 protesters had thrown objects at the police in that confrontation.

Lecornu denounced what he called “ultra violence” threatening schools. He pledged that any “accidents” would be investigated and described allegations that the police were acting on racist grounds as “a lie”.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who has ordered ministers to address students’ demands by the end of October.

What the Government Is Promising

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the government and school leaders must listen to students' concerns and find solutions. He has ordered ministers to address the students' demands, including replacing underskilled teachers, making lunch breaks longer and changing the length of the school day, and said the government would look into repairing old campuses.

Lecornu demanded that ministers send in their proposals by the end of October, setting a deadline that puts pressure on his own administration to deliver something concrete. Macron is now an outgoing president in the final stretch of nearly a decade in power, and the unrest is landing in the early days of the presidential election campaign, making the response politically charged.

The pressure is not confined to France. Protests have spread across the border into French-speaking Belgium, where pupils and unions are fighting budget cuts and a planned rise in higher-education registration fees, from 835 euros to 1,194 euros for a majority of students.

What This Means

France has a long tradition of student revolts reshaping national politics, and this movement is drawing on the same energy. Demonstrators have voiced a range of grievances centering on a lack of resources and opportunities for students in disadvantaged schools, despite the promise of France's national motto: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”

Suzanne Nijdam, president of the federation of student associations, vowed that demonstrations would continue until authorities address the complaints. “So, we really need to act now, and it's in the government's hands, to see these demands through to the end,” she said. “It's a matter of political priority, a matter of prioritising the youth and the future of our country.”

The government is caught between two fires: conceding too much would be seen as rewarding a movement that has seen school burnings and attacks on police, while a hard line against 15-year-olds is fuelling precisely the defiance it claims to be preventing. With 1,483 minors facing prosecution, the courts will now become the next battlefield.

What Happens Next

Some student groups have called for new protests on Thursday, promising to keep the pressure on after Tuesday's national day of action. Whether Thursday's turnout matches the quarter-million who marched on Tuesday will be the key test of the movement's staying power.

Lecornu's end-of-October deadline for ministerial proposals is the government's attempt to buy time with a promise of action. If the plans for teacher hiring, longer lunch breaks and campus repairs look serious, they could defuse the movement. If they look like delaying tactics, the pupils have already shown they know how to bring the country to a standstill.

Watch the schools count: as long as hundreds of high schools are suspended or blockaded each week, the pressure on the outgoing administration will keep building, and the presidential campaign beginning in the background will make every clash a national story.