Europeupdated 1h ago3 min read
Hundreds Of Thousands Protest In France Over Staff Shortages, Crowded Classrooms, Run-Down Buildings
“Riot police deploy tear gas and water cannons in Paris”
“What France's student protesters want – and what the government is offering”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Hundreds of thousands of students and supporters protested nationwide against education system problems. Demands include staff shortages, crowded classrooms, and dilapidated school buildings.
France protests over schools
Hundreds of thousands of high school students and their supporters took to the streets in France for another day of demonstrations, protesting staff shortages, crowded classrooms and run-down buildings.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a government response by the end of October, while the protests began in late September with the first protest traced back to Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, a southern Parisian suburb.
Laurent Bessiere, a maths teacher, told France Inter, “We were short a maths teacher, a French teacher, a literature professer, a history teacher and an assistant professor. The school nurse was on sick leave,” as students and teachers gathered to plan a protest for the next morning.
A student told France Inter, “We’re asking for the bare minimum,” as the movement spread to other high schools across the nation.
France Inter at the end of August carried Education Minister Édouard Geffray’s insistence that teacher shortages would be “minimal” and that “all indicators” were that things were on track to be “much better” than in previous years.
Injuries, arrests, police force
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told lawmakers that at least 215 teenagers and 85 school staff members were injured in clashes, calling it “the highest number of victims in decades for the education system.”
Lecornu’s office said more than 700 police officers were also injured, while the Ministry of the Interior said 488 people were arrested and 48 security personnel were injured on Tuesday.
Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent groups on the margins of marches in Paris, Strasbourg, Rennes and Toulouse, among other cities.
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the protests were proof of a migration “out of control” in France, posting on Truth Social, “This has nothing to do with schools, but with Islam trying to take over a country that was once great,”.
Omar Slaouti, a secondary school teacher in Argenteuil, a northwest suburb of Paris, said, “They want to divide young people into good and bad protesters,” and added, “If there had not been burning trash containers, the government would not have backed down or noticed the stakes involved.”
Government response and stakes
Lecornu ordered his ministers to address students’ main demands, including ensuring the substitution of absent teachers and reviewing the length of the school day from 8:00 to 18:00. Lecornu also said the government would study the necessary repairs to aging school buildings and urged ministers to send their initial proposals by the end of October. Mother Emilie Lhomme said at a protest outside Helene Boucher School in Paris that the government’s words were not enough, telling reporters, “All of that is well, but it’s not going to change our children’s daily lives,”.
A union of high school and university students on Monday published a list of 10 “emergency measures” and said the government’s response so far had been “repression,” while high on the list was staff shortages and a large-scale recruitment drive. The protests also intersected with broader political and economic pressures, as the government faced pressure to control public debt amid weak economic growth and struggled with basic tasks such as approving a budget since Emmanuel Macron’s allies lost their majority in a parliamentary vote in 2024.