France detains 440 as student protests over class sizes escalate into violent clashes

On Tuesday, police detained 440 people across France—most of them teenagers—as student-led blockades of schools spiraled into street confrontations. The demonstrations, which had begun in Paris the previous week, had by then spread to cities nationwide: Lille in the north, Bordeaux and Rennes and Nantes in the west, Marseille in the south. What started as a coordinated action against overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages became a collision between young people and riot police, with officers deploying teargas and batons, and some protesters throwing projectiles, setting fires, and in at least seven instances, hurling hydrochloric acid at police. Forty-eight officers were injured across the country.

The students' grievances were concrete and specific. Classrooms held 32 to 35 pupils in some cases. Timetables stretched from 8 in the morning until 6 at night—more hours of lessons than sleep, as one placard at a Paris lycée put it. Teachers were in short supply. The education ministry confirmed that 400 schools out of roughly 3,700 nationwide experienced disruptions or protests that day. The blockades coincided with broader public sector strikes over the government's budget plans, which included €54 million in education spending cuts; about 40 percent of primary school teachers stopped work on Tuesday.

In Lille, high school students set fire to dustbins and threw bottles and paving stones at police, who responded with teargas after protesters damaged bus shelters and advertising boards. In Paris's Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, the local mayor, Bally Bagayoko, joined hundreds of students at the Lycée Paul-Éluard, leading them in the national anthem and calling their protest "completely legitimate." He pointed out that low-income areas received fewer resources than wealthier ones. When crowds gathered, police in riot gear struck students with batons, according to reporting from Agence France-Presse.

The government's response was swift and dismissive. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu posted on social media that escalating the demonstrations would be "irresponsible," warning that "fireworks, fires, violence near high schools" endangered students, staff, and police. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told television that two-thirds of those detained had been taken into police custody, and he rejected any suggestion that the police response was excessive. "There is nothing that justifies showing up at institutions to demonstrate, masked, with your face disguised, carrying projectiles, and waiting for the intervention of law enforcement just to go after them," he said.

The political left seized on the police tactics as evidence of state overreach. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, posted that the high school students were "harmless" and accused the government of ordering a "crackdown" with "a clear racist undertone." Lecornu fired back, calling Mélenchon's intervention an "irresponsible escalation" and an attempt to exploit young people's anger for partisan gain. He called the racism accusation "an insult."

Student union leaders framed the police response as institutionalized repression. Ryad Rani, president of the Union Syndicale Lycéene, had called for a total blockade of France's high schools but explicitly urged protesters to remain peaceful. He condemned a circular sent by the interior and education ministries to police, instructing them to maintain order "with a proportionate use of force," as an "absolute scandal." "We're talking about pupils of 15-18 years old and the government's only response is automatic and institutionalised repression," he said. He noted that some teachers and school staff had positioned themselves in front of students to shield them from police.

Caroline Chevé, secretary general of the main teachers' union, marched with protesters in central Paris and acknowledged the legitimacy of their frustration. "They're facing the same challenges as we are," she said. "They're in overcrowded classrooms. Sometimes they don't have enough teachers because of staffing shortages. They see the same reality as we do, and they're angry." The protests revealed a fracture in French education policy: students and teachers aligned against a government pursuing austerity measures while the country's schools struggled with capacity and staffing. The question now is whether the government will address the underlying conditions or whether the cycle of blockades and police intervention will continue.