France's school protests are about more than broken classrooms

As dustbins burn and students chant "everyone hates the police" in the French city of Lille, one teenager explains why he and his friends have taken to the streets.

"There aren't even enough chairs. We have to go and find some at the start of every lesson," the 16-year-old, who did not want to give his name, says of his school.

"We've got 50 minutes to eat at lunchtime but there are 2,000 of us that need to get through the canteen."

He is one of hundreds of thousands of students who have protested across France since the end of last month over staff shortages and dilapidated facilities in the country's lycées, secondary schools attended by 15 to 18-year-olds.

Despite the government's apparent attempts to make concessions, the students show no sign of backing down.

"They have armies, they have the police, they have the powers," says Massicella, 18, as she marches through Lille. "But we have the mass population."

The protests, which have turned violent, have become a focal point in France's polarised politics, with all sides accusing the other of escalating tensions. As a presidential election approaches, politicians on both the hard right and hard left have sought to capitalise on the unrest and on what many see as the government's inability to resolve the crisis.

The protests - ignited at the Lycée Antoine-de-Saint-Exupéry in the deprived Paris suburb of Créteil - have struck a chord across the country.

Videos of rats scuttling through corridors in other lycées soon hit social media, providing striking symbols of the discontent. Other videos on TikTok and Instagram showed broken toilets, holes in walls and mouldy ceilings across the country. Students have complained of unbearable heat in the summer and freezing classrooms in the winter.

The anger has also focused on long school hours, chronic staff shortages, overcrowded classes and a deeply unpopular university admissions system.

The problem for the French government - which became clearer as we spoke to dozens of pupils this week - is that even if a tiny minority of schools have a problem with rodents, a very large number of pupils believe their own education is failing them.

On Tuesday, the government said 250,000 people marched, most of them young. The trade unions said it was more like half a million.

But it is not just students taking to the streets - their teachers are joining them.

Secondary school teacher Marine Monins, who joined the demonstrations in Lille, shows us a laminated timetable which she says illustrates the problem.

It has become normal for pupils to start at 8am and finish as late as 6pm, but the days are punctuated by hours-long gaps because of bad planning and staff shortages.

When lessons do go ahead, the classes are typically packed with 35 pupils (by comparison, the average secondary school class in England has fewer than 23 pupils).

"It's now impossible to give every child the attention they deserve," Monins explains.

On Thursday, the French government made its first sign of ceding ground to protesters, with a promise of 3,000 extra supply teachers in the coming days.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has said by the end of October there will be a plan unveiled to respond to the crisis. Ministers have said they could look again at resources for schools within next year's squeezed budget.

But this has been met with a collective shrug at barricaded school gates across the country.

"It goes beyond having decent toilets in schools," lycée student Alcidor says in Paris, under the statue of Marianne at Place de la République, a place synonymous with protest.

"It's strong anger from the youth in France that doesn't feel represented, that feels abandoned, that feels unheard and is scared of what's coming in the future."

The unrest has resulted in widespread arrests and injuries.

So far, almost 7,000 people have been detained during the disorder with more than 85% being children, according to the interior ministry.

More than 700 police officers have been injured in the past three weeks.

But rights groups and unions accuse the police of resorting to heavy-handed tactics against minors, including the use of batons, tear gas and non-lethal flash-ball guns. At least 200 pupils have been injured, along with dozens of teachers.

A 15-year-old boy's hand was blown off during a confrontation between police and demonstrators in the northern city of Lens.

Reports of how the teenager sustained the injury differ. A police union source cited by the AFP news agency said the boy appeared to have picked up a sting-ball grenade fired by riot police, which then exploded in his hand. However, a witness told local media that the teenager did not pick up the grenade.

A teacher at the boy's school, Bastien Riez, who is also a union rep, believes that current police tactics could irrevocably damage the relationship with France's youth.

"For many, this is their first experience of democracy and protest, and they are met with police and a sham of social dialogue and democracy. I fear that many young people will stop believing in this so-called democracy altogether."

Police have since been banned from using stun grenades at school protests.

But Parisian pupil Kaspar, 15, speaks of his fear when coming face-to-face with police in full riot gear. He says he and his friends have been protesting peacefully, but strangers were hijacking their protests.

"These people are coming just to shoot fireworks at police officers and they run. This is not the message we want to send to the world."

Police chiefs say violence, directed by agitators who have no link to the schools, is making their job incredibly hard.

Michel Chaballier, deputy secretary-general of the National Police Commissioners' Union (SCPN), says he fears the "political climate has been radicalised", and it was more and more difficult to have a calm, constructive public debate ahead of the national vote next spring.

"Police officers find themselves caught in the middle of this social tension, which is sometimes fuelled by irresponsible politicians," he says. "That's a shame, because I think this country deserves better."

The protests have become another bruising battleground in France's culture wars, with leaders of the hard left and right seeking to capitalise.

More than three-quarters of under-30s in France interviewed for an Ipsos survey conducted for Aix-Marseille University this week said they were worried about the state of their country.

But many people have a more profound and wider concern about just how dramatically the middle ground in France is eroding, leaving a chasm in the political landscape.

The education crisis is symptomatic of this but also threatens to act as an accelerant.

Most polling suggests more and more French citizens are looking to political extremes for answers to their problems – whether they are linked to education, the economy, identity or immigration.

Marine Le Pen of the hard right National Rally is the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential race.

Next, neck and neck, are Édouard Philippe and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Philippe was a prime minister in President Emmanuel Macron's first term and has since founded a centre-right party called Horizons.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran hard-left politician and founder of France Unbowed (LFI), has been a prominent older face among the students at rallies over the past three weeks.

Opponents have accused him of provoking and profiting from the unrest, while he counters that only his party truly represents the French youth.

He claims the current movement that has emerged from the schools protest is the most potent since 1968, when huge demonstrations almost brought down the government of President Charles de Gaulle. At its height, 10 million workers were on the streets before fresh elections led to the revolt fizzling out, but not before carving an indelible memory in French social history.

Despite being born more than four decades later, an exasperated generation of French teenagers are looking to the past for inspiration.

"I personally want to reproduce 1968!" Massicella declares in Lille, as she nears the end of the protest march.

Le Pen has stayed away from the protests and her most notable interventions have come in condemning the damage to schools, which is said to run into the millions of euros.

She has also suggested that parents of children who have committed the vandalism should pay for repairs.

The principle of casseur-payeur – those who break have to pay – has been an impassioned topic that has dominated French media this week.

The problem for President Macron is that there is no quick fix.

This is not a scenario where there is an unpopular piece of legislation that can be withdrawn in a hasty reverse ferret the prime minister is tasked with performing. That was the case with the gilets jaunes – the relentless protest in high vis jackets over a fuel tax rise nearly a decade ago.

Wholesale reform of the education system would cost billions – in new classrooms, new facilities, new teachers – and take years to achieve.

And changes that may seem more easily done – such as a reduction of the length of the school day – would be hugely problematic to implement logistically.

What is more, any proposals which appease the students and end the current protests would have to be agreed at a time when France's finances are in a mess.

The cost of servicing the national debt each year has now exceeded the core state education budget. Under the 2027 draft budget, there will be a 1.7% rise in education spending - but this is an under-inflation increase.

Le Pen has vowed to cut public spending even further if she enters the Élysée Palace.

She is banking that her promises to cut debt, curb migration and restrict certain benefits to French citizens will eclipse any criticism over her position on the protesting pupils.

For her, discipline, a traditional curriculum and pride in France's history should be the defining features of every classroom.

But many students are showing little sign of backing down from another French tradition.

"In France, we have this tradition and history of revolting," says Alcidor in Paris.

"That's the way we gained our rights and the way we will always gain them. That's our spirit."

As the rain came outside the Lycée Voltaire central in Paris this week, the reality of having been up early once again to block the main gate started to kick in and the energy of the crowd dipped.

But not for long.

A huge cheer erupted as a senior teacher unlocked the hulking front door and poked her head out into the street.

"The canteen is still open."

The hunger for better schools among France's youth and better days for everyone else will not be so easily sated.