French CRS riot police run past garbage bins and object set on fire amid clashes with protesters during a demonstration by high school and university students, supported by teachers’ union and school parents, in Paris as part of a nationwide day of protests and blockades, voicing anger over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings, which students blame on years of underinvestment, France, on October 6, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday (October 5, 2026) because of a wave of student protests that has shaken the country, the Education Minister said.

Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” in some “400-500” high schools as the security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday (October 4, 2026), adding that 24 schools had been “burned or ransacked” since the start of the movement.

He described the closures as chiefly a security precaution ahead of large-scale protests that the leaders of the movement have called for Tuesday (October 6, 2026).

The teenagers at French high schools, known as lycees, say that their studies are being ruined by high teacher absence rates, overlong school days and dilapidated facilities, as well as other grievances.

mr. Geffray said the number of schools affected on Monday would be comparable to the figure from Friday but vowed there would be a “partial, progressive return to lessons”.

More than a third of the 468 schools in the wider Ile-de-France region surrounding the capital will be shut on Monday as a result of the protests, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing president of the region, told broadcaster Franceinfo.

The movement began at a Paris school on September 17 but grew last week into nationwide protests marked in places by outbursts of violence involving teenagers and security forces, which have used tear gas and truncheons against the students.

“There are activists — particularly from the far-left — who have infiltrated the high school student movement, hijacked it from the students themselves, and engaged in extreme violence,” Mr. Geffray claimed.

“Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students,” he said, adding that 78 education staff members had been wounded — “something we have never seen before”.

‘Deliberately targeted’

“They were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system,” Mr. Geffray said.

Organisers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, citing a lack of “concrete measures” from the government.

In a bid to address the protesters’ concerns, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term absences and unfilled posts.

He also called a meeting for Tuesday (October 6, 2026) with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country’s often-dilapidated school buildings.

Over 5,000 people, 85 percent of them minors, have been arrested since the start of the movement.

Critics have accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics against children.

A 16-year-old was detained on Sunday (October 4, 2026) over the assault of a teacher in the southern town of La Ciotat. The teacher, 59, was struck and doused with gasoline on the sidelines of a high school student protest on Friday (October 2, 2026).

A video circulating on social media appears to show an individual dressed entirely in black with a masked face splashing liquid onto the teacher, who then clutches his face while a tree burns nearby.

A group of youths were last week filmed beating and kicking a policeman on the ground in Belfort in eastern France in images that caused an outcry among officials.

Two youths, Bulgarian nationals aged 15 and 17, have been arrested and investigated for suspected aggravated violence, the prosecutor said.

One of the youths, whom the policeman had tried to arrest before being beaten, has now filed his own attempted murder complaint, his lawyer said.

The France branch of Amnesty last week slammed “disproportionate police violence” in tackling the demonstrations and said students must be allowed to express their grievances.

“Authorities must allow young people to exercise these rights without fear of being hit by tear gas grenades or batons, or being arbitrarily taken into police custody,” said Amnesty France president Anne Savinel-Barras.

But Interior Minister Laurent Nunez stated that security forces “are not cracking down on young people” but rather “protecting” school and university students wishing to “peacefully voice their demands”.

Published – October 05, 2026 02:44 am IST

French high school students block the access to the Lycee Paul Eluard high school as they protest to demand the hiring of substitute teachers, increased resources and better learning conditions, in Saint-Denis, near Paris, France, on September 30, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Paris:

Thousands marched in Paris and cities across France on Saturday to protest against the far-right National Rally (RN) ahead of upcoming elections to the French parliament.

Following the RN’s surge in last Sunday’s European elections, police said 350,000 people were expected to march and 21,000 officers had been mobilised after labour unions, student groups and rights groups called for rallies to oppose the anti-immigration, eurosceptic party.

At least 150 marches were expected in cities including Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon and Lille.

In Paris, where police said 75,000 people turned out, a march set off at 1200 GMT from Place de La Republique, in the east, going through the Bastille square to Nation.

According to the CGT union, cited by BFM TV, 250,000 marched in Paris and 640,000 in total across the country. Police said they had arrested seven people in Paris. The police said there had been 217,000 demonstrators across France.

Speaking at Place de La Republique, hard-left CGT union leader Sophie Binet told reporters: “We are marching because we are extremely worried that (the RN’s head) Jordan Bardella could become the next Prime Minister … We want to prevent this disaster.”

Carol-Ann Juste, a 22 year-old student taking part in the Paris march, said it was the first time she had taken part in a protest. She said she was “worried because people believe the lies of this party that has a truly racist heritage,” a reference to the National Front, a forerunner to the RN, whose leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was fined for remarks seen as anti-Semitic or xenophobic.

Juste said she wanted to “fight to preserve a country of human rights, freedom, and tolerance”.

NEXT GOVERNMENT

On the same march, Cecilia Lormeau, a 34-year old teacher who said she plans to vote for the Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing parties, said: “It is important to show we are mobilised and that the RN is not the majority of the people.”

President Emmanuel Macron called a snap legislative election, to be held in two rounds on June 30 and July 7, after his centrist alliance was trounced by the RN in last Sunday’s European Parliament ballot.

A first series of opinion polls have projected that the RN could win the election and be in a position to form the next government.

An OpinionWay-Vae Solis poll conducted for Les Echos and Radio Classique published on Saturday forecast RN would lead in the first round of the parliamentary election with 33% of the votes, ahead of the Popular Front on 25%.

Macron’s centrist camp was on 20%.

At least two polls have put the left not far behind the RN and ahead of Macron’s group.

In Tours, western France, where hundreds of protesters were taking part in a march, a banner read: “For liberties, for rights, for a social and democratic republic, against far-right ideas and against racism”.

Several banners read: “young people hate the FN (the RN’s former name), while a pensioner carried a banner that read: “Old people also hate the RN”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)