French high school students have been blocking schools since September. Government promises 3,000 teachers, petition demands ban on LBDs

French high school students have been blocking schools since mid-September, and the movement sparked by the teachers' strike in Créteil has not stopped after four weeks: on Monday, October 12, the Ministry of Education reported at least eight injured school staff members, while also reporting 96% of facilities open. Libération ↗ Attention has shifted from classrooms to the police: around 6,000 people have been arrested nationwide, and a 15-year-old boy in Lens lost a hand during a police intervention, though the circumstances remain disputed to this day. The National ↗ The government is promising three thousand substitute teachers, Emmanuel Macron is calling for "calm and order," and a petition against police "maiming weapons" has surpassed 100,000 signatures.

From the Créteil strike to "Black Tuesday"

According to the German weekly Die Zeit, whose text was translated by Courrier International, it all began at the Saint-Exupéry lycée in Créteil near Paris. Teachers there went on strike for more staff, because two weeks into the school year positions remained unfilled, and within a few days students joined in and blocked the school. Courrier International (Die Zeit) ↗ The National places the beginning of the protests around September 17. The National ↗

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened an interministerial crisis unit on October 1. According to Euronews, the government described the blockades as an operation orchestrated by LFI and its far-left satellites; Marine Le Pen accused LFI of deliberately stoking the movement, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon shot back that she was spreading fear. Euronews ↗ The students themselves cite different causes: overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated buildings, long days, and Parcoursup, the university admissions system. These were precisely the grievances published by the government from the Agora platform, which Geffray proposed as a dialogue channel with high schoolers. BFM TV ↗

On "Black Tuesday," October 6, according to Minister Laurent Nuñez, 200,000 people marched, and student unions claim that more than half of high schools were blocked or closed. The National ↗

What Zeit says: justified anger, or blind violence?

Die Zeit frames the question as a dispute over responsibility. By Tuesday, October 6, according to the outlet, nearly 900 schools were fully or partially closed, dozens damaged or set on fire, at least 215 students, more than 80 teachers, and over 700 police officers injured. Courrier International (Die Zeit) ↗ The German text explains to readers that, unlike their German counterparts, French teachers are allowed to strike, and that class cancellations due to unfilled positions are a chronic problem, not a one-off crisis.

The figures vary depending on what is being counted. On the same day, ITV reported nearly 2,000 schools blocked or closed and 5,000 arrests over the preceding week. ITV News ↗

Police, Lens, and the petition

On Monday, October 5, a 15-year-old high school student lost a hand in front of a school in Lens. Prosecutors say the grenade was used in accordance with prescribed procedure, but the boy denies picking up the grenade, and his lawyer denies his involvement in any violence. BFM TV ↗ The origin of the injury is therefore disputed, which is why we present it conditionally. On October 6, France 24 published a one-minute report on it, whose headline refers to a police grenade.



Read also: France suspends use of grenades at student protests

On Wednesday, Nuñez suspended the use of stun grenades "for the high school movement," while still insisting that police should have the full range of weapons available, provided they use them within legal limits. The National ↗ The police watchdog IGPN has been conducting 24 investigations since the start of the movement, eight of them in Paris. BFM TV ↗ Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau stated that between September 29 and October 8, 273 people were held in police custody in Paris, 188 of them minors, mostly aged 15 to 16, and almost all previously unknown to the justice system. BFM TV ↗

The petition by Raphaël Pradeau of Attac, filed on October 5, demands a ban on "maiming weapons" including the LBD 40, explosive grenades, and tasers, as well as a ban on techniques carrying an increased risk of asphyxiation. It currently has more than 100,000 signatures and would need 500,000 from at least 30 departments to prompt a debate in the National Assembly. BFM TV ↗

The government, Macron, and "Hunger Games"

Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon says the deployment of 3,000 substitute teachers has begun. BFM TV ↗ According to her, the government is "not closing the door" on increasing the education budget. BFM TV ↗ On Monday, Macron said that youth mobilization should take place "in calm and in order." BFM TV ↗

Meanwhile, students are adopting symbols from the sci-fi series The Hunger Games: the slogan that if they burn, the government burns with them, and the song The Hanging Tree. 20 Minutes points out the ironic coincidence that actors from the series' sixth film were gathering at the Musée Rodin during Paris Fashion Week, just a few streets away from the clashes between students and police. 20 Minutes ↗

Shooting in Aubagne unrelated to the movement

On Monday in Aubagne, France, a 14-year-old student shot a school principal and a teacher with a hunting rifle. According to BFM TV, the shooting has nothing to do with the school movement, and the school was not among those blockaded. BFM TV ↗ Our report on the case can be found here: Two educators injured in school shooting in Aubagne

Limitations of this coverage

We accessed Zeit's reporting through Courrier International's translation, whose full text is behind a paywall, so we only read the freely available portion. Figures on arrests, injuries, and closed schools come from different days and different sources (ministry, prosecution, unions, agencies), so they cannot be added together without reservation. There are two versions of what caused the injury in Lens, and neither has yet been independently confirmed. Most of our material is French and German; we obtained the voices of the students themselves only secondhand. Slovak and Czech media have so far devoted only a few wire reports to the movement (SITA, October 6 and 12), while the Aubagne shooting received dozens of headlines.

What hotinfo is monitoring

Illustrative photo: demonstration by high school students in Paris on October 6, 2026. Photo by FreCha, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.