Protests sweep France as students, teachers walk out

Demonstrations swept across France on Tuesday as teachers and parents took to the streets with high school pupils on the biggest day of what Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu described as ​the most violent student protest in decades.

University students and even parents have now joined in, with some of the demonstrations degenerating into violence, and the police using tear gas and water cannons to control crowds.

Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent groups on the fringes of marches in Paris, Strasbourg, Rennes and Toulouse, among other cities. The marches drew more than 250,000 people in dozens of cities, the interior ministry said, though organizers said 450,000 had participated.

In one incident in the northern city of Lens, a 15-year-old had his hand blown off in a confrontation between police and demonstrators, as a result of which the police have been told to stop using stun grenades. In another incident near Paris, a police officer has been charged after a 14-year-old suffered a double fracture to his jaw.

Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show that France has the largest class sizes in the European Union, with an average of 25 pupils per teacher in state schools in 2024, compared to 24 in Spain and Germany, 19 in Finland and 18 in Poland. A report last year by the French government also highlighted significant teacher shortages in core curriculum subjects.

The BBC quoted a British parent living in France, called David, as saying he was "shocked over how underfunded the education system is", and that the strikes by teachers and protests by students did not come as a surprise.

Huge pressure

"The pressure on the teaching staff is huge, so I see lots of teachers stressed out, screaming at the kids all day long, and little positive engagement with pupils," he said, adding that teachers were poorly paid and it felt as if the education system had suffered from underinvestment for many years, under several governments.

According to the country's Education Ministry, 86 percent of high schools across France were open on Wednesday morning, but in 528 schools, classes had been either partially or totally suspended, although this was a significantly smaller number than the previous day.

The France 24 news website published pictures from the confrontations, showing students holding up signs with slogans such as "we're skipping our lessons to give you one".

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing La France Insoumise party, said the government had "tear gassed and clubbed (students) to create chaos and violence", but Lecornu rejected this suggestion, saying police were told to behave with proportionality, and only forced into action because of the violence they faced.

"Speaking of 'police violence' to suggest that there would be political instructions for repression is false… the situation is serious enough without needing a cowardly political class fanning the flames to incite violence and orchestrate chaos for electoral gain," he added.

Agencies contributed to this story.

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