France: Tear Gas, Mass Arrests As Classes Halted over Student Protests
By Staff, Agencies
France saw one of its largest waves of student protest in decades on Tuesday, October 6, as pupils, teachers and parents marched in cities across the country and police fired tear gas in clashes with demonstrators. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu responded by suspending high school classes for the rest of the week.
The protests spread to Marseille, Nantes, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Lyon, Rennes and Paris, with marchers denouncing the state of schools and government policy. In some cities, protesters set fires in the streets and threw projectiles. Paris police said clashes broke out after about 300 people tried to engage security forces, while protests elsewhere in the capital were peaceful.
Three shopfronts were damaged.
Tuesday’s marches followed the injury of a 15-year-old in the northern town of Lens on Monday, which sharpened anger over the police response. La Voix du Nord reported that he lost his hand and part of his forearm after picking up a police grenade.
A police union source told AFP it appeared to be a sting-ball grenade fired by riot police that exploded in his hand. Prosecutors say investigators have not yet established whether he picked up the device or it landed on him. They have referred the case to the police inspectorate, which is handling six investigations into serious injuries during the protests.
Amnesty International France has criticized what it called disproportionate police force against minors, citing reports of students hit with batons, tear gas and rubber-bullet fire.
Lecornu told lawmakers that at least 215 teenagers and 85 school staff have been injured, “the heaviest toll in decades” for the school system. His office said more than 700 police officers have also been hurt. The Interior Ministry says 6,100 people have been arrested since the protests began, the vast majority of them minors. The Justice Ministry says more than 1,800 are being prosecuted, including 1,483 minors, without specifying the charges. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said on Sunday that 24 schools had been burned or ransacked.
Rights groups, students and parents underlined that the authorities are using excessive force against minors. The government claims "outside groups" have taken over the movement and that parts of it have turned violent.
The High School Students Union said between 1,800 and nearly 2,000 high schools were blockaded or closed on Tuesday. On Monday, the Education Ministry counted more than 400 of France's 3,700 lycées fully or partly closed. Some local education authorities moved lessons online.
Lecornu announced that lessons will be suspended Wednesday through Friday so that each school can hold consultations with students, a period he called “internal democracy.”
“Burning down a high school does not improve the state of high school buildings,” he said. He rejected descriptions of "police violence" as implying political orders to repress students, claiming that the accusations are false.
The protests began in late September in the suburbs around Paris and spread across the country. Students cite understaffing, large classes, dilapidated buildings with leaks and rats, and school days that run from 8 am to 6 pm. Education Ministry data shows nearly 10% of teaching hours went untaught in public secondary schools in 2024-25, about 7.5% because no substitute could be found. A recent graduate in Strasbourg described a wide gap between the elite and ordinary students.
Lecornu has ordered ministers to address the main demands: ensuring absent teachers are replaced, reviewing the school day, and lengthening lunch breaks.
