Since 21 September 2026, a series of demonstrations and blockades by lycée students began in the Créteil academy and have since spread across France. Students cited missing teachers, classes of 32 to 35 pupils, long timetables, run-down buildings, and stress linked to the application website Parcoursup, as well as temperatures reaching up to in classrooms during the 2026 European heatwaves. By 1 October, parts of the movement included arson, attacks on staff, and clashes with police. The Interior Ministry said 1,949 people were arrested that day.
Background Study conditions and government budget The protests came at the start of the school year and at the same time as a public-sector strike over the government's budget plans.
The conditions at issue were not new. For example, at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Marseille, students pointed to unfilled teaching posts, no deputy head, no director of vocational and technological training, no school nurse, and no staff to support pupils with disabilities. A pupil told CNN that the toilets in the prefabs had no water, that there were cockroaches and rats in the school, and that teachers were not replaced when they left.
Another told franceinfo that some rooms had too few tables, and that teachers had explained their own discontent before the pupils decided to join them. Ryad Rani, president of the secondary-students' union (USL), later cited a pupil who had gone seven months without a French teacher in a year with a French exam, and classes of 32 to 36 students. Pupils elsewhere told ICI of classes of 35.
The Créteil rectorat told Agence France-Presse that demands still varied by school: teachers not replaced, class size, heavy timetables, shortages of education assistants, nurses, social workers and managers, incidents between pupils and teachers left without follow-up, and deficient undergraduate admissions web portal "Parcoursup". franceinfo summarised what it was hearing from pupils as more resources, smaller classes, buildings in better condition, enough teachers and staff, and less stress from Parcoursup.
Previous protests In autumn 1990, lycée students, many from working-class Paris suburbs, protested over safety, cleanliness, staffing and materials. The protests reached on the order of 100,000 people in Paris and about 150,000 nationwide. Education minister Lionel Jospin answered with an emergency plan and an increase in the education budget.
In early 2005, lycée students and their teachers mobilised against reforms to the education system made by François Fillon, and in particular against a reform of the baccalauréat that they believed would lead to greater inequalities in the value of diplomas from different schools. Between 15,000 and 40,000 students took part in the protests. Fillon backed down and announced a government amendment removing changes to the baccalauréat from the bill.
In spring 2018, opposition to the ORE law and to the new Parcoursup platform was carried mainly by university occupations. Lycée blockades were scattered. In the autumn, lycée students mobilised again, against Parcoursup and against Jean-Michel Blanquer's baccalauréat reform. On 11 December, hundreds of establishments were blocked or badly disrupted. Le Monde diplomatique later wrote that this map could not be explained only by the knock-on effect of the Yellow vests protests, then at their height, but that the Yellow Vest movement was part of the context. Parcoursup was kept, with some adjustments, and the baccalauréat reform went ahead.
Emergence of the protests The mobilisation began on 21 September at the Lycée Antoine-de-Saint-Exupéry in Créteil. The day after a teachers' strike on 17 September against lack of resources and staff, pupils there organised a protest. Pupils said they felt neglected by the Ministry of National Education and cited lack of resources and staff, overcrowded classes, and rooms short of tables. An academic source and the USL later presented that mobilisation as the start of the national movement.
Contemporaneous reports, including Le Monde and a 24 September account by actu.fr, dated the spreading movement to Monday 21 September at the same lycée, where several teaching posts were unfilled. The Créteil rectorate said on 24 September that demands still varied by school.
Through 25 September the spread stayed local. Actu.fr, citing the Créteil academy, said about 10 lycées were affected by 24 September, mainly in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, and described a copycat effect on social networks. That morning, pupils tried to block the entrance of the Lycée Auguste-Blanqui in Saint-Ouen until late morning. An academy spokesperson told AFP there had been a gathering and material damage but no injuries. Police dispersed the crowd without incident.
On 25 September the Créteil rectorate said the movement was gaining momentum and counted "a good dozen" lycées blocked, above all in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne. It said some mobilisations had produced crowds and material damage. The Versailles rectorate reported disruption at three of 62 lycées in Essonne and mobilisations at five of 65 in Hauts-de-Seine. Le Monde later wrote that about 60 Paris-region lycées were disrupted on 24 and 25 September, that about 12 percent of the 468 public lycées saw attempted blockades, and that around 10 were actually blocked. Rani told AFP that it had started at Saint-Exupéry and "spread very quickly," and cited shortages of education assistants, nurses and social workers.
Demands and organisation
The USL's national call, for 29 September, named four grievances: lack of teachers and staff, "dilapidated lycées," overloaded timetables and classes, and the stress caused by Parcoursup. Rani said classes sometimes held 32 to 35 pupils and asked protesters to remain peaceful. The union later called a second day on 1 October, an "act two," and a further day of action on 6 October. On RTL on 30 September, Rani said dialogue bodies run by the ministry had been "abandoned," and that it was for the minister to take the first step. Following their meeting with Education Minister Édouard Geffray on 2 October, student union leaders voiced their dissatisfaction with the government's response and called for the mobilisation to continue. The USL announced further demonstrations for 6 October, with several trade-union confederations, including the CGT, announcing that they would join the action.
Timeline 28–30 September On 28 September, Lecornu said escalation would be "irresponsible" and wrote that fireworks, fires, and violence near high schools endangered pupils, staff, and police. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 164 people had been arrested that day, 180 schools were affected, and 12 security officers, 12 students, and three staff were injured. In Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, Val-d'Oise, a 14-year-old boy suffered a double fracture of the jaw and broken teeth.
On 29 September the Education Ministry said about 400 of roughly 3,700 lycées were disrupted. Nuñez told BFM TV that 440 people had been detained, most of them minors. CNN published photographs of police firing tear gas at the Lycée César-Baggio in Lille. In Saint-Denis, La France Insoumise (LFI) mayor Bally Bagayoko stood with pupils outside the Lycée Paul-Éluard. On BFM on 29 September he said that violence could, at a given moment, be legitimate. On 30 September Paris police prefect Patrice Faure referred him to the Bobigny prosecutor, under article 40 of the French code of criminal procedure, for suspected provocation to commit an offence. On 1 October Bagayoko told franceinfo that he stood by the remarks and called for de-escalation. Jean-Luc Mélenchon wrote that the pupils were harmless, that the crackdown had a racist undertone, and that LFI activists should "step in" between pupils and police.
On 30 September Nuñez said 625 people were detained, 83 police and gendarmes were wounded, and 356 schools were affected. He described projectiles, attempted arson, and what he called urban violence. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 119 pupils and staff had been injured since the protests began. In Tours, a young person was hospitalised with head injuries.
1 October On 1 October university students joined the blockades. The Union étudiante reported about 30 campus blockades, including Paris Cité, Sorbonne University, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Lyon, and Rennes. franceinfo added Sciences Po Rennes, Rennes 1, and the Université de Bretagne-Occidentale, and said students at Paul-Valéry in Montpellier and at Aix-Marseille University were mobilised. Police counts that morning were lower than the evening total: 340 actions and 169 blockades by mid-morning, according to franceinfo. The evening Interior Ministry figure was 1,027 lycées affected, 222 blockaded, and 1,949 arrests. The Guardian reported nearly 3,000 lycée students detained since the start, including the Thursday figure.
Lecornu held an interministerial crisis meeting and told ministers to cancel travel. His office said the violence made it nearly impossible to keep schools open safely, and that intelligence services described the movement as "an operation organised by LFI and its proxies on the far left." LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard said the government was "sinking into conspiracism" and called the mobilisation spontaneous.
Geffray ordered remote classes where damage or blockades made buildings unsafe, and said a little more than 400 establishments would be closed on 2 October. That evening the Interior Ministry said prefects had banned demonstrations outside the closed lycées. Paris police prefect Patrice Faure banned gatherings at 13 closed Paris schools.
2 October
About 400 of France's roughly 3,700 lycées were closed on the orders of the prefects, with many switching to distance learning. Every prefect banned gatherings outside lycées closed that day. In Paris, prefect of police Patrice Faure banned gatherings around 13 named closed lycées.
By midday the Ministry of National Education said 564 establishments "have been or are the subject of actions or disruptions since the start of the day". The Île-de-France region said 55 lycées were "the scene of violence, clashes and damage". Mobilisation was widely described as lower than on 1 October, but fires, mortar fire and clashes continued.
On BFM TV that morning, Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 1,207 lycées had been disrupted or blockaded on Thursday, that more than 100 had suffered "severe damage" since the start of the week, and that 65 education staff had been injured, including 40 headteachers. He said a staff flat in a Lyon lycée had been ransacked by people from outside the school, repeated that the movement had been "taken hostage by ultra-violent groups", and told parents that "in the street, children are in danger". From 09:00 he met education unions, the Union syndicale lycéenne, parents' groups and elected members of the Conseil national de la vie lycéenne. Services at Matignon described the mobilisation as a "manoeuvre organised by La France Insoumise and its ultra-left proxies"; LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard accused Matignon of "sinking into conspiracy thinking". After the meeting, SNES-FSU general secretary Sophie Vénétitay said there were still "no guarantees" and called a strike for the following Tuesday in support of the lycée demands. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin told prosecutors to seek parental civil liability so families would pay for damage caused by their children.