- The movement: Since late September, students across France have protested education underfunding and blockaded many lycées (high schools for 15-18-year-olds). Hundreds of students, teachers and police have been injured, and thousands have been arrested, including an unknown number of outside troublemakers.
- Staff shortages: Students complain of teachers being absent for weeks without replacement. OECD data shows France’s shortages are acute but no worse than elsewhere, and actually milder by some measures, though French teachers are relatively poorly paid.
- Dilapidated facilities: Protesters point to run-down buildings, such as classrooms that were “boiling hot” during recent heat waves. The OECD says France spends more per lycée (high school) student than the EU average.
- Long school days: Some students resent days lasting until 18:00 and getting home by 19:00 with no time to sleep or study. This stems mostly from long lunch breaks and complex timetables, and it has long been a feature of French school life, so it can’t explain the current eruption.
- Other grievances: Some students are also upset about mobile phone bans.
- Parcoursup (France’s national university-placement platform) and higher education: The platform is widely seen as opaque. About 80% of each cohort passes the baccalauréat (the school-leaving exam), creating a scramble for desirable courses. Yet 80-90% secondary completion and competition for places are common across Europe, so this doesn’t fully explain the movement either.
- Unprecedented scale: Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the movement “unprecedented” in the number of schools, pupils and degree of violence. Underfunding and anxiety about the future don’t by themselves account for this.
- Considerable risks: Blockading schools is illegal and draws in police and casseurs (vandals). Pupils have been caught in often heavy-handed crowd control, with about 500 arrests during Tuesday’s unrest. PM Sébastien Lecornu insists forces are not ordered to “confront high-school students.”
- A tradition of street power: In France, power has often resided on the street as much as in elected bodies, and students know it.
- Past student victories:
- 1990: after a rape at a school in Seine-Saint-Denis (an area north of Paris), mass rallies won roughly €1.2bn (in today’s money) for lycées (high schools).
- 1998: 500,000 pupils marched, resulting in almost €1bn for school renovation and 14,000 extra staff.
- 1986 and 1994: protests defeated a university overhaul and a lower youth minimum wage.
- 2006: weeks of blockades forced the withdrawal of a youth hire-and-fire law, even after it had been passed and signed.
- Adult precedent: The 2018-2019 gilets jaunes (yellow vests) uprising led the government to drop a fuel tax rise and approve €10bn in spending.
- Limits of the street: The street doesn’t always win. The 1968 student uprising was ended by an election, though lycéens (high-school students) still inherit a culture in which protesters compete with elected officials to be seen as the people’s legitimate voice.
- Public support: A BFMTV poll finds 72% of French people consider the demands legitimate and 55% support the movement. Teachers, unions and left-wing politicians back the protesters, and another rally is planned for Thursday afternoon.
- A weak government: Macron is an unpopular lame duck, barred from the presidential election in six months. His snap election in June 2024 produced a gridlocked assembly, and Lecornu calls himself the “weakest prime minister” in living memory.
- Financial constraints: With a deficit of 5.4% of GDP, rising borrowing costs and public debt at its highest since the 1940s, Lecornu has little room to spend. Unlike past leaders facing street pressure, he has nothing to give, which may be his one asset in the standoff.
France’s Student Protests: What’s Behind the Unrest
