School protests in France have escalated into widespread violence, with more than 400 schools closed, almost 2,000 arrests made and hundreds of police officers injured during clashes involving pupils as young as 14.
What began with complaints about overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers and poor facilities spread to cities across the country, as masked youths set fire to rubbish bins, attacked police and threw fireworks and other missiles.
The unrest has forced pupils on to remote lessons in a measure last widely seen during the Covid pandemic. Damage to schools over recent days has been estimated at £850,000.
In Marseille, a head teacher was doused in petrol while attempting to stop arsonists setting fire to his school. A headmaster in Lille was struck in the ear by a firework, while another school employee was hit in the leg.
On Thursday, 305 gendarmes were injured, including an officer who fell while fleeing a masked crowd and was then attacked. Fire engines were vandalised or blocked from reaching blazes, and footage from Bordeaux appeared to show a firefighter engulfed in flames after an aerosol can exploded outside a school.
Police have also faced allegations of excessive force. Videos circulating online appeared to show a teenage girl being held in a chokehold by an officer and a baton round being fired at close range at a masked youth. It has been claimed that the boy suffered a broken jaw and shattered teeth, although prosecutors said he had struck a policewoman beforehand. At least three internal police investigations are under way.
Protesters have separately claimed that a secondary-school pupil lost an eye after being struck by a projectile. The claims have not been independently established in the material available.
Authorities said 284 people were injured during the unrest, including a young demonstrator who apparently mishandled a firework and lost the use of part of his hand. Public transport was suspended in Marseille after drivers were attacked and buses set alight, with Strasbourg and Grenoble taking similar measures.
School protests in France spread beyond the suburbs
The violence has not been confined to poorer districts. In the Paris suburb of Vanves, youths wearing hoods and masks gathered at a roundabout and threw firecrackers at police vehicles, while pupils blockaded the entrance to the prestigious Lycée Henri IV in central Paris.
At the Suger lycée in Saint-Denis, protesters held banners reading: “8am until 6pm is like prison.” A 17-year-old protester, who gave his name as Gilles, said classrooms were dirty, teachers were not always present and government funding was being reduced rather than directed towards the problems.
The complaints initially centred on restrictions on mobile phones, canteen queues and shortages of basic supplies. They then broadened into demands over absent teachers, overcrowded classes, dilapidated buildings and inadequate support for pupils with special educational needs.
Pupils at a school in Saint-Denis complained that classrooms were either too hot or too cold and that rats and cockroaches were present. At another school in nearby Saint-Ouen, a 16-year-old said the demonstrations had initially been peaceful before outsiders arrived and “took the opportunity to run riot”.
Copycat protests were encouraged by posters generated using artificial intelligence and circulated on TikTok and Snapchat. The government has accused the left-wing France Unbowed party of helping to organise the disorder, describing it as an “organised manoeuvre”. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, denied the allegation and said the protests were “self-organised”.
Saint-Denis mayor Bally Bagayoko, who belongs to a coalition involving France Unbowed and the Communist Party, joined one blockade and called the protest “completely legitimate”. He was carried on pupils’ shoulders as they sang the French national anthem.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu ordered ministers to cancel trips away from Paris as the police response intensified. After chairing a crisis meeting, his office said the disturbances had “tipped into urban violence”.
The unrest has added to pressure on Emmanuel Macron as France faces severe budgetary pressures and cuts to public services. Organisers are calling for a national mobilisation next week, while yellow-vest protesters are due to hold a rally later this month against the Government’s cuts.
Eric Ciotti, the right-wing mayor of Nice, has called for parents of violent school protesters to lose their benefits. Meanwhile, students continue to prepare for the baccalaureat, France’s crucial school-leaving examination, with some timetables running from 8am to 6pm.
