Nationwide student protests in France have entered a more confrontational phase, with more than 6,600 people arrested, hundreds of students, teachers and police officers injured, and fresh clashes reported between demonstrators and riot police.
The protests, which began in September over deteriorating conditions in French schools, continued on Thursday, October 8, despite government promises to address some of the students’ grievances.
France’s Interior Ministry said about 71,500 people demonstrated across the country on Thursday, including approximately 24,500 in Paris, while police detained more than 500 people during the day’s demonstrations.
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Students barricaded schools in several areas, while police used tear gas and other crowd-control measures to disperse protesters. At one high school in northeastern Paris, students used rubbish bins to block the entrance before riot police moved in.
The demonstrations are being driven primarily by complaints over underfunded schools, teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating school buildings and demanding school schedules.
Students and their supporters are demanding more teachers, better-maintained facilities, smaller classes and increased government investment in public education.
The movement began in the Paris region in mid-September before spreading to schools and cities across France. What initially centred on education has since developed into a wider confrontation involving students, teachers, unions, police and political groups.
According to French authorities, more than 6,600 people have been arrested since late September, with most of those detained being young people, many of them minors. The Education Ministry said 375 schools were fully or partially disrupted on Thursday.
Despite the large number of arrests, the protests have not resulted in a confirmed nationwide death toll. However, the number of injuries has risen sharply, with some involving serious and potentially permanent disabilities.
The French Education Minister, Edouard Geffray, previously reported that about 190 students had been injured by October 5, although the circumstances varied and included injuries caused by accidents and clashes involving protesters.
The Interior Ministry has also reported hundreds of injuries among law-enforcement personnel. Earlier figures cited by French authorities put the number of injured police and other security personnel at around 650, although subsequent reports have indicated that the overall number has continued to rise.
One of the most serious incidents occurred in the northern city of Lens, where a 15-year-old student lost a hand during a police intervention.
Authorities have not yet definitively established whether the teenager picked up a police grenade or whether it struck him directly. France’s Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, nevertheless announced a temporary suspension of the use of the type of stun grenade involved at high-school demonstrations while the circumstances are investigated.
Another teenager, a 14-year-old boy, suffered devastating facial injuries after being struck by a tear-gas grenade during a demonstration near Paris.
According to the Associated Press, the grenade shattered his jaw and damaged or knocked out several teeth. The police officer who fired the grenade was subsequently taken into custody and placed under preliminary charge for violence by a public official causing mutilation or permanent disability.
Authorities have opened 18 investigations into alleged police misconduct during the protests, while the government has defended police intervention in situations where demonstrations have turned violent or involved attacks on officers and property.
The police response has consequently become an issue in its own right.
Student groups, lawyers and rights campaigners have accused authorities of using excessive force against young demonstrators. Government officials, however, argue that officers have had to intervene where protests have involved vandalism, attacks, arson and other violent incidents.
Thursday’s demonstrations were largely peaceful in many locations, but isolated violence continued.
Reuters reported that incidents included an attack on a police station in Bordeaux, vandalism at a school in Saint-Etienne and an assault on a teacher in Toulouse. In Marseille, a teacher at Victor Hugo High School also filed a complaint following an alleged attack.
The government has attempted to respond to the original education grievances.
Education Minister Geffray has promised measures including the recruitment of additional teachers, changes to demanding school timetables and reforms to the university admissions platform Parcoursup.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has also promised concrete and fully funded solutions, but student representatives have indicated that the government’s commitments have so far failed to persuade them to end the demonstrations.
The authorities now face the difficult task of balancing the students’ right to protest with the need to protect pupils, teachers, police officers and public property.
The situation has also generated wider political debate, with political parties and trade unions taking different positions over the demonstrations, the government’s education policies and the conduct of security forces.
For many young protesters, however, the central issue remains their education.
They argue that shortages of teachers, crowded classrooms and deteriorating facilities are directly affecting their ability to learn and prepare for their future.
For the government, the challenge is not only to restore order but also to demonstrate that the underlying complaints can be addressed through concrete measures.
As the protests enter their third week, France faces an increasingly difficult confrontation between demands for improved public education and growing concerns over violence, police intervention and disruption to schools.
With more than 6,600 arrests, hundreds of injuries and no confirmed protest-related death toll reported so far, the unrest has already become one of the country’s most significant youth-led demonstrations in recent years.
The coming days will determine whether the government’s promised reforms can reduce tensions or whether continued school blockades, demonstrations and clashes will further widen the crisis.