PARIS: Dozens of people have been injured in a wave of student demonstrations across France, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Wednesday, as students continued to protest over dilapidated school buildings, inadequate resources and stressful examinations.
Television footage showed lines of police officers in Lyon, while students gathered outside schools in Lille and Saint-Denis, north of Paris. In Lille and Lyon, people set rubbish bins and other materials on fire, while some protesters threw projectiles in Lille.
🇫🇷 Tensions continue to escalate during nationwide student protests in France over the quality of public education.
Recent footage from the demonstrations shows police forcefully detaining a teenage protester in a chokehold. pic.twitter.com/sfhd0oV1Ca
— Daily News 360 (@daily_news360) September 30, 2026
“Since the beginning of these demonstrations, we have had 76 injuries, both among students and personnel,” Geffray told RTL radio.
🇫🇷|France is burning, yet the airwaves are silent.
On September 29, 2026, a nationwide strike erupted across France’s public sector. More than 170 demonstrations swept through 91 departments, stretching from Paris to Marseille and Lille to Toulouse. This was no minor affair.… pic.twitter.com/FbmoUfDbRa
— Aprajita Nafs Nefes 🦋 Ancient Believer (@aprajitanefes) September 29, 2026
Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu condemned protests at high schools on Monday as irresponsible, but acknowledged that the “difficulties of high schools must be heard and addressed”.
France’s police detained more than 400 people as nationwide student protests turned violent, following the blockade of dozens of schools over overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFM TV that 440 people had been detained nationwide. He said 48 police officers had been injured during the unrest, while there were also seven incidents in which hydrochloric acid was thrown at police.
🇫🇷 Teachers are now stepping BETWEEN students and cops in France.
Extraordinary scenes at a high school in Saint-Denis, where staff linked arms as a student protest confronted police.
The unrest didn’t end there, the school was blocked again this morning, with a fire burning at…
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 29, 2026
“There is nothing that justifies showing up at institutions to demonstrate, masked, with your face disguised, carrying projectiles, and waiting for the intervention of law enforcement just to go after them,” he said.
The demonstrations and school blockades, which began last week and coincided with a wider public-sector strike on Tuesday, have emerged as a political flashpoint at a sensitive time for France, Reuters reported.
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Politicians from the France Unbowed party have joined the demonstrations, prompting criticism from officials and politicians outside the party, who accused it of using rhetoric that was fuelling students’ anger. Bally Bagayoko, the France Unbowed mayor at the centre of the controversy, said his remarks had been taken out of context.
According to the OECD, France’s spending on primary and secondary education was around the middle of the range among member countries and increased between 2015 and 2022, although its share of the overall budget declined slightly.
Protesting students say classrooms are overcrowded and schools face a shortage of teachers. The government has described the protests as irresponsible, while acknowledging that problems facing high schools need to be recognised and addressed.
