France will fully or partially close between 400 and 500 secondary schools on Monday, October 5, as a wave of student protests that began in the Paris suburbs escalates into one of the country's most serious school crises in years.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray announced the precautionary closures on Sunday, October 4, saying lessons would be "totally or partially suspended" at 400 to 500 high schools because "security conditions have not been fulfilled." Geffray said 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the unrest began and 78 education staff had been injured — "something we have never seen before." He claimed staff were "deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system." The closures follow a chaotic Friday, October 2, when at least 400 of France's 3,700 high schools — roughly one in ten — shut down and another 560 faced protests or disruptions. Geffray said the government aims for a "partial, progressive return to lessons."
The movement erupted in mid-September in the Parisian suburbs, including the high-poverty Seine-Saint-Denis department, then spread to Paris itself and on to Marseille, Strasbourg, Tours, Lille, Nantes, Toulouse, Nice and Lyon. Students are protesting overcrowded classrooms, chronic teacher shortages, crumbling buildings and years of underinvestment. Reuters reported that at Lycée Le Corbusier in Aubervilliers, classes in maths, humanities, English and sport have been canceled since the start of the school year for lack of teachers. Parent representatives and the CGT union say two-thirds of high schools in Seine-Saint-Denis joined the protests, and a union survey found two-thirds of the department's schools have unfilled teacher positions. The flashpoint was the government's 2027 budget unveiled Thursday: education spending would rise by only 1.7% to €65.53 billion (excluding teacher pensions) — below inflation, effectively a real-terms cut.
Geffray called the movement "legitimate at the outset." But after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's office held a crisis meeting on Thursday, a source close to the premier told Reuters the demonstrations had "morphed from a protest movement to urban violence." Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said the movement had been hijacked by "outsiders," while Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said troublemakers were moving from school to school to incite violence. President Emmanuel Macron said he understood young people's anxiety but that "nothing justifies violence." In concessions, Geffray promised an action plan to replace absent teachers starting next week — prioritizing students facing exams — opened a website collecting student proposals, and the government dropped a budget proposal for enrollment fees on certain post-high-school courses. Student organizations responded that they still see no "concrete measures."
Reuters reported that around 5,000 people have been arrested nationwide since Monday, about 85% of them minors — mostly high school students. More than 600 police officers have been injured, along with at least 170 students and 78 education staff (Euronews put the staff figure at 65, including 40 school principals). Incidents include a 59-year-old teacher doused in petrol and attacked in the southern town of La Ciotat on Friday, with police detaining a 16-year-old suspect on Sunday; a fire at Nelson Mandela high school in Nantes, brought under control with no injuries; and a 15-year-old arrested after a woman suffered severe facial burns in an attack with a makeshift flamethrower. Rights groups accuse police of heavy-handed tactics against minors — batons, tear gas, flash-ball guns — while the Interior Ministry defends the use of non-lethal weapons as proportionate and says several injury cases are under investigation.
Student organizations have called for a national demonstration on Tuesday, October 6, citing a lack of "concrete measures" from the government, and a coalition of education unions has backed the call, including by striking. With the 2027 presidential election about seven months away and opinion polls showing Macron and his centre-right government deeply unpopular, the school cuts have become a new political flashpoint. How Paris handles a protest movement lit by teenagers will be a defining test of the government's crisis management.