More than 250,000 people joined France’s third national day of student mobilisation, according to the Interior Ministry, while student organisations put the nationwide figure at 450,000. The competing totals nevertheless point to the scale of a movement that has disrupted nearly 900 of the country’s 3,700 high schools and drawn support from university students, teachers and parents.¹

For students, the demonstrations are primarily about daily conditions in schools: absent teachers who are not replaced, overcrowded classrooms and buildings they say are deteriorating. “There are people from the suburbs, people from Paris, pupils from private and public schools, of all religions and backgrounds,” Diane, a Paris student, told AFP. “That unites us because we feel there is a need for change.”¹ In Marseille, 15-year-old Selma expressed the same anxiety more personally: “Today I protest because I am afraid for my future and I want to claim my rights.”²

Parents and unions broadly share those concerns, though they also present their presence as a way to lower the temperature. Emmanuelle Artiguebieille, a parent planning to march in Strasbourg, said young people were right to seek “less crowded classes and decent teaching conditions,” adding that parents should stand beside them “to help reduce tension.”²

The government, by contrast, has focused on the confrontations that have accompanied some demonstrations. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu urged pupils to return to school for an internal democratic discussion and said there could be no tolerance for violence, while accusing the radical left of seeking to destabilise the country ahead of the 2027 presidential election.¹ Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said police operations are conducted with “maximum proportionality.”²

That position is contested by unions and rights groups, which allege disproportionate force. Reports of injuries, including a teenager who lost a hand after a crowd-control grenade explosion, have intensified scrutiny; authorities have opened internal investigations into allegations against officers.² Student organisations have said they will continue mobilising, leaving the dispute centred on whether public-order measures can coexist with a substantive response to education grievances.