Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
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, Education Minister Edouard Geffray announced on Sunday, describing the closures as a security precaution ahead of large-scale demonstrations called for Tuesday by protest leaders. Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” in 400 to 500 high schools, known as lycées, where the security conditions “have not been fulfilled,” Geffray said, adding that 24 schools had been “burnt or ransacked” since the start of the movement. He 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.”
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, who sometimes used tear gas and batons to disperse the students. The teens say their studies are being ruined by high teacher absences, overlong school days, and dilapidated facilities, as well as other grievances. The minister said 78 education staff members had been wounded since the protests began, “something we have never seen before,” and that the damage to school buildings and staff housing would likely cost between 20 and 30 million euros.
Geffray claimed that far-left activists had infiltrated and hijacked the high school student movement, engaging in extreme violence that posed a risk to both staff and 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,” he said. He alleged that education staff had been “deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system.” The accusation follows a statement from the prime minister’s office on Thursday that the movement was sliding towards “urban violence,” describing it as a “manoeuvre organised by La France Insoumise and its ultra-left proxies.” Manuel Bompard, the coordinator of La France Insoumise, rejected the accusation during a televised debate, arguing that the government was responsible for the crisis through ten years of “Macronist policy,” including the elimination of 10,000 teaching posts and a refusal to increase public sector pay. He said the government was trying to “extinguish legitimate demands” by reducing the movement to its excesses, and condemned what he called “absolutely disproportionate interventions by the security forces,” citing cases of students losing an eye to flashball rounds or being strangled during arrests.
The violence has been a recurring feature of the protests. A 16-year-old was detained on Sunday over the assault of a 59-year-old teacher in the southern town of La Ciotat. The teacher was doused with gasoline and struck on the sidelines of a high school student protest on Friday, and 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. In a separate incident, a group of youths was filmed last week beating and kicking a policeman on the ground in Belfort in eastern France, images that caused an outcry among officials. Two Bulgarian nationals aged 15 and 17 have been arrested and investigated for suspected aggravated violence. 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. Over 5,000 people, 85 per cent of them minors, have been arrested since the start of the movement, and critics have accused police of heavy-handed tactics.
Amnesty International’s France branch 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. 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.”
The regional impact of the closures is uneven but widespread. In the Ile-de-France region, 168 schools will remain closed until Tuesday, up from 50 at the end of last week, with the regional authority assuring that lessons will be provided remotely. In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, 133 lycées will be closed, while 34 will shut in Normandy. In Paris, the police prefect wrote to parents directly, urging them to reason with their children, and gatherings have been banned in front of 25 lycées for Monday. Some establishments have already informed parents that they will switch to distance learning until Tuesday, October 6, inclusive, leaving families uncertain about when normal lessons will resume.
Organisers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, citing a lack of “concrete measures” from the government. Several major education unions have called for participation in the actions and, in some cases, for strikes. The students are demanding more staff and funding for schools and better learning conditions. Geffray has acknowledged the grievances but has insisted that the government is taking action, while attributing the escalation to external actors. The coming days will determine whether the protest movement can be brought under control or whether it continues to spread, with schools remaining closed and the government under increasing pressure to respond to the underlying demands.
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