Hundreds of French schools closed after student protests over education conditions turned violent. About 2,000 people have been arrested.
More than 400 French high schools remained closed Friday as student protests over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and deteriorating school buildings spread nationwide and escalated into violent clashes with police, French Education Minister Edouard Geffray said. Roughly 2,000 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in the Paris region last week, according to authorities.
The protests, which started as student-led demonstrations demanding the hiring of substitute teachers and improved learning conditions, have grown increasingly volatile in recent days. Student protesters set fires at several high schools, including at least two on Thursday, while teachers were inadvertently splashed with petrol during a protest in Marseille, officials said. More than 100 schools have sustained severe damage, and France’s Interior Ministry said 1,027 of the country’s roughly 3,700 high schools were affected by protests or disruptions on Thursday alone, including 222 that were blockaded. Riot police clashed with students in Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Lille, Strasbourg and Rennes, with French CRS riot units making mass arrests at several demonstration sites. A government official described the unrest as having shifted from student demonstrations into a broader public-order disturbance, attributing the violence to what officials called an active, violent minority within the protests.
Geffray met Friday with representatives of teachers’ unions, parent associations and student groups in an effort to address the underlying grievances, while cautioning parents against allowing their children to participate in the demonstrations given the escalating violence. Some members of the hard-left La France Insoumise party have publicly backed the student protests, prompting government officials to suggest the party had encouraged the unrest, a characterization LFI has rejected, saying it has consistently called for non-violent demonstration. The protests come as French President Emmanuel Macron’s government works to finalize a 2027 national budget that includes significant spending adjustments, adding a broader fiscal backdrop to the education-focused unrest. Two student unions have called for the protests to continue into next week.
This report is based on information from Reuters, Al Jazeera, France 24 and CNBC.