What France's student protesters want – and what the government is offering
Staff shortages, rats in the corridors, and a university admissions system that feels like a lottery: As protests sweep France, high school students have drawn up a list of demands to deal with these and other issues. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has promised a government response by the end of October, but whether he can quell the unrest remains to be seen.
Issued on: 07/10/2026 -
FRANCE24
By:
Lara Bullens
Video by:
Morgan AYRE
Cover image: French high school students in Paris hold placards during the biggest day of nationwide protests on October 6, 2026. © Tom Nicholson, Reuters
02:01
Mass protests across France’s high schools roiled the country again on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands joining the biggest day of the movement so far. Demonstrations began in late September, with the first protest traced back to Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, a southern Parisian suburb.
A handful of teachers at Saint-Exupéry went on strike September 17 to lament staff shortages. “We were short a maths teacher, a French teacher, a literature professer, a history teacher and an assistant professor. The school nurse was on sick leave,” Laurent Bessiere, a maths teacher, told French radio station France Inter.
That same evening, students gathered to join the fight and planned a protest for the next morning. Stacking a few bins in front of the school entrance and holding placards, they rose up to make demands alongside their teachers.
“We’re asking for the bare minimum,” a student told France Inter.
Their demands struck a chord with other high schools across the nation, which are suffering from a lack of funding and understaffing.
In response to the protests, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has ordered his ministers to tackle their demands and send in proposals by the end of the month. But finding spare funds to implement educational reforms will be complicated, given heated debates over France’s already strained 2027 budget.
Staff shortages
A union of high school and university students on Monday published a list of 10 “emergency measures” they say could serve as a basis for working with the government, whose response so far has been “repression”, they write.
High on the list is the issue of staff shortages. Students are demanding a large-scale recruitment drive to create additional teaching posts so that each classroom has a person to lead it. They also want to ensure that every establishment has at least one nurse, a psychologist and a career adviser for every 500 students.
More than half of France’s middle and high schools lack at least one teacher, a major trade union representing public school staff found. And 69 percent of schools are short of at least one member of their teaching and support staff. Understaffing means classrooms are overcrowded, regularly packing in 35 students at a time.
The numbers do not reflect the optimism that French Education Minister Édouard Geffray expressed before the September start of the new academic year. Speaking on France Inter at the end of August, he insisted that teacher shortages would be “minimal” and that “all indicators” were that things were on track to be “much better” than in previous years.
To meet the demand for teacher replacements, Lecornu referred to a scheme from 2023 encouraging teachers to cover for the short absences of colleagues in a statement published Sunday. As for long-term absences or unfilled posts, Lecornu said he ordered his ministers to prioritise filling them in every regional education authority.
Run-down buildings
Students have also repeatedly sounded the alarm on the dire state of their school buildings. A wave of viral Instagram videos posted by students resurfaced when the protests began. “I’m a student at the Blaise Cendrars high school in Seine-Saint-Denis (a northern suburb of Paris). Of course, I don’t have a roof over my head when I’m in class,” one student ironically said in a video showcasing the deplorable state of her establishment. Others have reported seeing rats and cockroaches scurrying through school corridors and flooded toilets.
Speaking to French radio ICI on Wednesday, vice president of the Île-de-France region James Chéron rejected the criticism. He said the region’s €6.6 billion, 10-year plan covers almost every public high school and that nearly 400 of its 468 establishments are already new or renovated, with the rest either under works or “being studied”. Chéron added that Seine-Saint-Denis has received the “most investment”.
But students are not convinced. During the successive heatwaves that scorched parts of France this summer, some classrooms reached 38° celsius. Two-thirds of the country’s elementary, middle and high schools have been built before 1970 and cannot withstand rising temperatures brought on by climate change.
The maintenance of school and university buildings is number one on the list of demands published by the student union. They are asking that an “emergency plan” be implemented to renovate dilapidated buildings and adapt them to heatwaves by installing air conditioners or cooling systems. They also want the buildings to be well-insulated to face cold spells. Providing “clean and functional toilets” is a key tenet of the request.
On this point, Lecornu said in his statement that the upkeep of public high school buildings, equipment and canteens is the responsibility of regional councils, but that the state would “support” them. Ministers are tasked with setting a timetable on urgent needs and clarify who is responsible for what.
“Studying in run-down premises is an obstacle to education,” Lecornu acknowledged.
Long hours
Timetables have also come under scrutiny. Students say school days are too long, sometimes running from 8am to 6pm due to gaps in their schedule where they don’t have class. They point to a reform adopted in 2019 that allows high school students to choose specialisation courses in their final years as one of the reasons timetables can be disrupted.
“When I was in high school I would start at 8am and finish at 6pm,” recalled Julie, who is now in university. “My schedule was packed, and I still had extracurricular activities on the side.”
“I wake up at 6am because I live far from my high school. It takes me one hour to get home and then I have a tonne of homework to do. I barely spend time with my family,” one student told France 2 in an interview on Sunday.
Though French students tend to spend fewer days in school than the OECD average, they make up for that with longer school days.
Protesters march during a demonstration by French high school and university students in Marseille on October 6, 2026. © Manon Cruz, Reuters
Lecornu has asked for improvements to timetables and independent study conditions to be reviewed with public school staff, student representatives and even local transport authorities. He encouraged them to use artificial intelligence to refine the software used to build timetables ahead of the next school year.
A citizen’s convention submitted a proposal to the government in November last year on how to reform public school timetables, but the proposal has so far gone unheeded.
Issues with the Parcoursup platform
France’s national online platform for applying to higher education institutions, Parcoursup, is also in the firing line. A bit like UCAS in the UK, final-year high school students use it to apply to university courses and other programmes, receiving offers based on their school records and applications.
Students argue that the system is opaque and seems arbitrary. Each university course ranks applicants with its own local algorithm and criteria, and students say they cannot see how decisions are made or why they were turned down. Many suspect their applications, including cover letters they spend hours writing, are never really read.
“I wrote about a dozen cover letters without using ChatGPT, but I feel like my applications were not even looked at. When I see people accepted onto the course I wanted with lower grades than mine, it seems completely illogical to me,” Ghjulia told FRANCE 24. The 18-year-old was hoping to start medical school but none of her applications were accepted, despite having solid grades.
But students also say Parcoursup entrenches inequality. A February 2026 report concluded that it helps keep sociocultural inequalities in place. One reason is that courses can see which high school an applicant attended, which can disadvantage students from less prestigious schools or poorer areas. The report drew out 51 proposals to address these issues, including dropping cover letters, hiding the applicant’s school and sharing local algorithms.
Cover image: © France 24
02:17
Lecornu is promising to make Parcoursup more transparent. Under his plan, students would be told exactly how courses weigh their grades and specialised subjects, how applicants are ranked, and why they were accepted or rejected. Ministers Édouard Geffray and Philippe Baptiste have until the end of October to propose changes for the 2027 admissions round, which opens in January.
The other demands listed by students include financial help, including guaranteeing that students meals are capped at €1, and ending the police violence that has run rampant during the protests.
02:01
Mass protests across France’s high schools roiled the country again on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands joining the biggest day of the movement so far. Demonstrations began in late September, with the first protest traced back to Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, a southern Parisian suburb.
A handful of teachers at Saint-Exupéry went on strike September 17 to lament staff shortages. “We were short a maths teacher, a French teacher, a literature professer, a history teacher and an assistant professor. The school nurse was on sick leave,” Laurent Bessiere, a maths teacher, told French radio station France Inter.
That same evening, students gathered to join the fight and planned a protest for the next morning. Stacking a few bins in front of the school entrance and holding placards, they rose up to make demands alongside their teachers.
“We’re asking for the bare minimum,” a student told France Inter.
Their demands struck a chord with other high schools across the nation, which are suffering from a lack of funding and understaffing.
In response to the protests, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has ordered his ministers to tackle their demands and send in proposals by the end of the month. But finding spare funds to implement educational reforms will be complicated, given heated debates over France’s already strained 2027 budget.
Staff shortages
A union of high school and university students on Monday published a list of 10 “emergency measures” they say could serve as a basis for working with the government, whose response so far has been “repression”, they write.
High on the list is the issue of staff shortages. Students are demanding a large-scale recruitment drive to create additional teaching posts so that each classroom has a person to lead it. They also want to ensure that every establishment has at least one nurse, a psychologist and a career adviser for every 500 students.
More than half of France’s middle and high schools lack at least one teacher, a major trade union representing public school staff found. And 69 percent of schools are short of at least one member of their teaching and support staff. Understaffing means classrooms are overcrowded, regularly packing in 35 students at a time.
The numbers do not reflect the optimism that French Education Minister Édouard Geffray expressed before the September start of the new academic year. Speaking on France Inter at the end of August, he insisted that teacher shortages would be “minimal” and that “all indicators” were that things were on track to be “much better” than in previous years.
To meet the demand for teacher replacements, Lecornu referred to a scheme from 2023 encouraging teachers to cover for the short absences of colleagues in a statement published Sunday. As for long-term absences or unfilled posts, Lecornu said he ordered his ministers to prioritise filling them in every regional education authority.
Run-down buildings
Students have also repeatedly sounded the alarm on the dire state of their school buildings. A wave of viral Instagram videos posted by students resurfaced when the protests began. “I’m a student at the Blaise Cendrars high school in Seine-Saint-Denis (a northern suburb of Paris). Of course, I don’t have a roof over my head when I’m in class,” one student ironically said in a video showcasing the deplorable state of her establishment. Others have reported seeing rats and cockroaches scurrying through school corridors and flooded toilets.
Speaking to French radio ICI on Wednesday, vice president of the Île-de-France region James Chéron rejected the criticism. He said the region’s €6.6 billion, 10-year plan covers almost every public high school and that nearly 400 of its 468 establishments are already new or renovated, with the rest either under works or “being studied”. Chéron added that Seine-Saint-Denis has received the “most investment”.
But students are not convinced. During the successive heatwaves that scorched parts of France this summer, some classrooms reached 38° celsius. Two-thirds of the country’s elementary, middle and high schools have been built before 1970 and cannot withstand rising temperatures brought on by climate change.
The maintenance of school and university buildings is number one on the list of demands published by the student union. They are asking that an “emergency plan” be implemented to renovate dilapidated buildings and adapt them to heatwaves by installing air conditioners or cooling systems. They also want the buildings to be well-insulated to face cold spells. Providing “clean and functional toilets” is a key tenet of the request.
On this point, Lecornu said in his statement that the upkeep of public high school buildings, equipment and canteens is the responsibility of regional councils, but that the state would “support” them. Ministers are tasked with setting a timetable on urgent needs and clarify who is responsible for what.
“Studying in run-down premises is an obstacle to education,” Lecornu acknowledged.
Long hours
Timetables have also come under scrutiny. Students say school days are too long, sometimes running from 8am to 6pm due to gaps in their schedule where they don’t have class. They point to a reform adopted in 2019 that allows high school students to choose specialisation courses in their final years as one of the reasons timetables can be disrupted.
“When I was in high school I would start at 8am and finish at 6pm,” recalled Julie, who is now in university. “My schedule was packed, and I still had extracurricular activities on the side.”
“I wake up at 6am because I live far from my high school. It takes me one hour to get home and then I have a tonne of homework to do. I barely spend time with my family,” one student told France 2 in an interview on Sunday.
Though French students tend to spend fewer days in school than the OECD average, they make up for that with longer school days.
Lecornu has asked for improvements to timetables and independent study conditions to be reviewed with public school staff, student representatives and even local transport authorities. He encouraged them to use artificial intelligence to refine the software used to build timetables ahead of the next school year.
A citizen’s convention submitted a proposal to the government in November last year on how to reform public school timetables, but the proposal has so far gone unheeded.
Issues with the Parcoursup platform
France’s national online platform for applying to higher education institutions, Parcoursup, is also in the firing line. A bit like UCAS in the UK, final-year high school students use it to apply to university courses and other programmes, receiving offers based on their school records and applications.
Students argue that the system is opaque and seems arbitrary. Each university course ranks applicants with its own local algorithm and criteria, and students say they cannot see how decisions are made or why they were turned down. Many suspect their applications, including cover letters they spend hours writing, are never really read.
“I wrote about a dozen cover letters without using ChatGPT, but I feel like my applications were not even looked at. When I see people accepted onto the course I wanted with lower grades than mine, it seems completely illogical to me,” Ghjulia told FRANCE 24. The 18-year-old was hoping to start medical school but none of her applications were accepted, despite having solid grades.
But students also say Parcoursup entrenches inequality. A February 2026 report concluded that it helps keep sociocultural inequalities in place. One reason is that courses can see which high school an applicant attended, which can disadvantage students from less prestigious schools or poorer areas. The report drew out 51 proposals to address these issues, including dropping cover letters, hiding the applicant’s school and sharing local algorithms.
02:17
Lecornu is promising to make Parcoursup more transparent. Under his plan, students would be told exactly how courses weigh their grades and specialised subjects, how applicants are ranked, and why they were accepted or rejected. Ministers Édouard Geffray and Philippe Baptiste have until the end of October to propose changes for the 2027 admissions round, which opens in January.
The other demands listed by students include financial help, including guaranteeing that students meals are capped at €1, and ending the police violence that has run rampant during the protests.
500 arrested as French police clashes with protesters on third day of national action by high school students
Eyewitnesses say police deployed tear gas to quell unrest and disperse crowds in major cities including the capital, Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Officials figures reflected a nationwide participation exceeding a quarter million students in the protests that have rocked Macron's government.
Police fired tear gas to control crowds in Paris and elsewhere in France on Tuesday as more than a quarter of a million people rallied nationwide to support high school students demanding more education funding, according to government figures.
The protests increased pressure on the administration of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron. As pupils blockaded high schools, large crowds waving flags and placards gathered in Marseille, Strasbourg and other cities.
The demonstrations showed how protests that began at a high school in the Paris region in mid-September have grown into a nationwide movement — the latest of many that have marked Macron’s nearly decade-long tenure.
Official government figures put the number of demonstrators at over a quarter of a million nationwide on this third day of protest and arrests at more than 500.
In Paris 56.000 took to the streets and small groups clashed with riot police at the end of a largely peaceful march.
Students have drawn attention to rundown classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, become sweltering in summer without air conditioning and, in some cases, are infested with rats.
Other common complaints include staff shortages and exhausting workloads. French high school students’ compulsory classroom hours are among the highest in Europe.
Classes suspended in 891 schools
Nearly 500 people were detained Tuesday, the interior ministry said. Classes were suspended “either completely or partially” in roughly 891 out of the 3,700 schools across the country.
The widespread use of arrests, tear gas and riot-control weapons against teenagers is fuelling defiance and angering some parents and teachers. Some student groups called for new protests on Thursday.
More than two weeks of class boycotts and school blockades, and policing that has led to more than 6,500 arrests, mostly of minors, have become a flashpoint in the early days of the presidential election campaign.
These protests are taking place against a backdrop of tension. The Minister for Education, Édouard Geffray, has stated that since the start of the protests, 85 members of teaching staff have been injured, as have 215 pupils and 715 members of the police force.
Questioned in parliament on Tuesday about the protest movement, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu denounced “ultra violence” threatening schools.
Responding to criticism of police tactics, he pledged that any “accidents” would be investigated and described allegations that the police are racist as a “lie".
Lessons were suspended “either completely or partially” in 891 schools out of the 3,700 across the country.
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