High schools across France have closed, thousands of teenagers have been arrested, and hundreds of people have suffered injuries as unrest over conditions in the lycée system has spread and erupted into violence in recent days. Roughly 3,000 people have been arrested since the protests began nearly two weeks ago outside of Paris, with nearly 2,000 being detained on Thursday alone, the French interior ministry announced. As demonstrations have at times escalated into violent clashes, 170 students and 65 school staff members have been injured, according to education minister Édouard Geffray.
Nearly 400 police officers have also reportedly suffered injuries. And the protests showed no signs of abating on Friday, when roughly 900 demonstrations took place around France, according to police. More than 500 French schools remained closed as students set fires, blockaded schools, and clashed with riot police around the country.
Read More: Why French Protesters Are More Successful Than American Demonstrators Geffray met with education unions, student organizations, and parent associations on Friday morning in an attempt to temper the protests through dialogue. Their difficulties call for concrete responses, both in their schools and at the national level,” Geffray wrote on X. Here’s what you should know about the ongoing protests.
The protests have been driven by anger over a variety of issues impacting French high schools. A main complaint among demonstrators is the shortage of teachers and support staff in the country’s schools. The education ministry found that during the 2024-2025 school year, nearly 10% of teaching hours went untaught in public secondary schools.
About 7.5% of those lost hours were due to a failure to find substitutes. "Today our school is paralyzed due to a lack of resources, teachers, and not enough desks,” one student told the French outlet Agence France Presse (AFP). "We are 35 per class, we don’t have enough chairs in classrooms,” a 15-year-old student told in the Paris suburb of Pantin as demonstrators clashed with police deploying tear gas in an effort to quell the protest.
With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” a 17-year-old said while speaking to at a protest in Strasbourg in the northeast of France. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.” Read More: What Is the Youth-Led ‘Cockroach Movement’ Staging Mass Protests in India?
Extract — continue reading at the source.
