High school students turn France into flames and chaos, hundreds arrested! Violent protests shake the country

More than 400 people, most of them children, were arrested in France on Tuesday after teenagers across the country blocked their schools in protest against class sizes, teacher shortages and long timetables.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFM TV: “440 people were arrested across the national territory. We do not yet have the final number, but I have been told that two-thirds were taken into police custody.”

The Education Ministry said 400 schools were affected by Tuesday’s protests or disruptions, out of about 3,700 across the country.

The demonstrations began in Paris last week and have since escalated and spread across France. On Tuesday, high school students in Lille, in northern France, set fire to rubbish bins and threw bottles, paving stones and other objects at police. Officers responded with tear gas after protesters vandalised bus stops and advertising billboards.

“Nothing justifies showing up at institutions to demonstrate, masked, with your face covered, carrying projectiles and waiting for law enforcement to intervene just to chase them,” Nunez said, adding that Tuesday’s clashes saw seven incidents of hydrochloric acid being thrown at officers. A total of 48 police officers were injured during clashes across the country.

There were also confrontations between children and police in Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes, in western France, and in Marseille, in the south. At the Lamartine lycée, in northern Paris, students waved banners complaining that they had packed timetables. One of them read: “8:00-18:00. More lesson hours than sleep.”

In the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, mayor Bally Bagayoko joined a protest by hundreds of students at Lycée Paul-Eluard.

Leading the students in a rendition of the national anthem, he described the protests as “completely legitimate” and complained that low-income areas received fewer resources than higher-income ones.

When a crowd formed, police carrying riot shields beat students with batons, Agence France-Presse reported.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said earlier that an escalation of the demonstrations would be “irresponsible”. He posted on X: “Fireworks, fires, violence near high schools: nothing justifies endangering students, staff or police.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, responded to ministers’ instructions to police, posting on X on Monday: “High school students who protest are harmless. The Lecornu government has ordered a crackdown. This brutality is irresponsible and has a clear racist undertone. Hands off our young people. Elected officials and France Unbowed activists, intervene wherever you can.”

Lecornu, responding on X, called Mélenchon’s intervention an “irresponsible escalation”. “The duty of an elected official of the republic is to protect young people and call for calm. Exploiting their anger for party purposes is wrong,” he wrote.

He added that Mélenchon’s accusation of racism was “an insult”.

The protests came as French unions went on strike against the government’s budget plans, which include public spending cuts of 54 million euros. Many public sector workers stopped work on Tuesday, including about 40% of primary school teachers.

Ryad Rani, president of the Union Syndicale Lycéenne (the high school students’ union), had called for a total blockade of France’s high schools as a parallel action, but urged protesters to “remain peaceful”. He said the union was protesting at a “general lack of resources, overcrowded classes with sometimes 32-35 pupils, and a lack of teachers and staff”.

He said that a circular sent by the Interior and Education ministries to police, telling them to maintain public order outside high schools “with a proportionate use of force”, was an “absolute scandal”.

“We are talking about pupils aged 15-18, and the government’s only response is automatic and institutionalised repression. It is unacceptable. High school students are taking action to demand fairer and more equal conditions, and they are facing the BAC [anti-crime brigade] and the CRS [riot police],” Rani said.

He added that some teachers and school staff had stood in front of students to protect them from police. “These are the images you should show,” Rani told BFM TV.

Caroline Chevé, general secretary of the main teachers’ union, the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU – Unitary Federation of Trade Unions), who joined protesters on a march in central Paris on Tuesday, said she understood the students’ frustration. “They are facing the same challenges as us. They are in overcrowded classes. Sometimes they do not have enough teachers because of staff shortages. They see the same reality as us, and they are angry,” Chevé said.