Hundreds of French schools closed as students maintain protest pressure

Nearly 500 highschools across France were closed or partially closed on Monday as students continued their demonstrations over poor learning conditions, ahead of a day of wider protests scheduled for Tuesday. Issued on: 05/10/2026 - 12:13 3 min Reading time France high school students protested or disrupted lessons at 413 of the country's 3,700 secondary schools on Monday, the education ministry said, down from the number of schools affected last week. The ministry, which had reported 564 schools were affected at around midday on Friday last week, said the drop was due to "sustained dialogue with high school students". The shutdown comes after France's Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu sent a list of suggestions to several of his top ministers aimed at solving the stand-off. In his letter, Lecornu called for the priority handling of long-term absences and unfilled positions. He also proposed using artificial intelligence to create school timetables. The review outlining the costs of the measures and when they can be implemented will be presented to the government before the end of the month, said Lecornu. "This dialogue must lead to visible changes in secondary schools," he added. "At the same time, we will not give in to violence. We will support pupils and staff who have been attacked, as well as injured police officers and gendarmes." He called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country's often-dilapidated school buildings. Students block the entrance of the high school Arago as they protest against under-resourced schools in Paris, Friday, 2 October 2026 © Aurelien Morissard / AP Photo As students call for 'act three', can France's school protests keep momentum? The government is also hoping to pass through parliament a bill to make those who are responsible for damaging public property pay for repairs themselves, instead of drawing from taxpayer money. At least 600 officers have been injured in the skirmishes that have broken out across France since a protest on 17 September over lack of staff and poor conditions at a high school in Creteil, just outside Paris. The government says 78 teachers have been injured and police have arrested 5,000 people - the vast majority of whom are under 18. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said 24 schools had been set on fire or ransacked. Protesters have also accused the police of using disproportionate force, and internal investigations have been opened into at least three instances of alleged police brutality. Violence from outside schools Yvon Manac’h, the principal of Clémence-Royer High School in Fonsorbes near Toulouse, told French broadcaster Franceinfo: "Extreme violence in some schools is often linked to factors outside the school, and not to our students.” Manac'h, who also serves as academic secretary for the principals' union SNPDEN, added: "It’s not all a question of budget; it’s time to consider the effects of the latest high-school reform. If timetables are so complicated, it’s a direct consequence of this reform, which has turned into a real bureaucratic nightmare.” A broad coalition of national education trade unions has called for participation in Tuesday’s protests. The CGT has promised to stand "side by side" with secondary school pupils and has called on striking energy sector workers to join them. French pupils fall to record low in global education survey Manuel Bompard, a coordinator for hard-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), said on Sunday that the party deplored the violence. He added that the government should not be reducing the student movement to violent incidents. "If there were even more of us and if all adults took to the streets to show solidarity with the secondary school pupils, the mobilisation would go more smoothly and perhaps we would also be taken more seriously in this mobilisation," said Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis, during a rally organised in his town to the north of Paris. The Communist presidential candidate, Fabien Roussel has urged teachers, workers and activists to support the secondary school pupils. "The secondary school pupils aren’t going to back down, and the university students even less so," said Leila Nehari, a student taking part in a rally in Saint-Denis on Sunday. "It’s really going to be a week of blockades, blockades, blockades, blockades." Several university student unions, as well as France's largest federation of parents' associations for public schools and at least six trade unions in the education sector, say they will join the demonstrations on 6 October.