France reports 589 disrupted establishments as student protests continue

How have school disruptions changed?

Education Minister Édouard Geffray reported 589 establishments disrupted on Monday, Oct. 5, down from 735 on Friday, Oct. 2, Le Monde reported. The lower count points to fewer reported disruptions, not an end to the protests or a return to regular classes everywhere.

Separately, authorities expected between 400 and 500 high schools to suspend classes fully or partly on Monday for safety reasons, Reuters reported. That estimate does not mean every school was blocked by protesters or that all 589 disrupted establishments closed. The figures measure separate consequences of the demonstrations.

For students who did not join a blockade, a closure can still mean losing access to in-person instruction. The available reports did not establish which schools reopened after Monday or when affected students would return to regular classroom schedules.

On Tuesday morning, a regional report listed planned demonstrations in multiple French cities and said some schools would remain closed. It did not provide confirmed final figures for attendance or school disruptions, leaving the scale of the day’s action unknown in the available reporting.

What are students asking the government to change?

The campaign began in Créteil, near Paris, on Sept. 17, when students joined teachers calling for more staff and resources. Reported student demands include less crowded classrooms and better-maintained school buildings.

Students have also raised concerns about absent teachers, aging or poorly equipped buildings, heat and shortages of support staff. Those complaints center on the conditions in which students learn, not only on the disruption caused by the protests.

Some students are also worried about Parcoursup, France’s university application platform. Their concerns span school facilities, staffing and the pressure of applying to university, rather than a single narrowly defined demand.

In a post on X, Geffray wrote, “High school students must be listened to. Their difficulties call for concrete responses, both in their schools and at the national level,” TIME reported. He has also urged parents to keep children away from blockades because of safety risks, while the government opened a platform for student proposals.

The proposal platform gives students a channel to submit ideas, but does not establish whether those suggestions will shape policy.

Parents’ views on protest participation vary, Euronews reported. Mustafa Ozcelik, vice-president of the FCPE parents’ federation, said, “We support calls for our children to study in better conditions.” Teachers’ union leader Jean-Rémi Girard warned against turning the movement into a political instrument and said staffing and infrastructure problems predate it.

What do the clashes and injury reports show?

The protests have included school blockades, fires and clashes with police, the AFP reported in a story carried by Courthouse News Service. Euronews reported that many demonstrations were peaceful and that violence occurred on the margins of the broader movement; incidents involving violence do not establish that all protesters were violent.

Injury totals reported Monday differ. Geffray said 190 students had been injured, while the prime minister’s office told Le Monde that 215 students and 85 education staff had been injured. The two accounts do not explain the difference between the student totals.

The Interior Ministry separately reported 715 injured police officers and gendarmes. The report did not detail the severity or causes of those injuries, so the figure alone does not establish what happened in individual confrontations.

A 15-year-old was severely injured near a school in Lens on Monday by what Euronews identified as a police grenade. Prosecutors had not established whether the teenager picked it up or whether it was thrown at him, and an investigation was underway.

France’s Human Rights League criticized police interventions and called for de-escalation and changes to policing practices, Le Monde reported. Stanislas Gaudon, a national secretary for the Alliance Police Nationale, said police force should be assessed for proportionality and legitimacy, and defended its use when officers face attacks or dangerous projectiles, Euronews reported.

The consequences extend beyond demonstrators and police. Injuries to students and education staff, interrupted lessons and threats to school access affect families and school communities; injuries to officers and clashes also raise public-safety concerns. Investigations and more detailed accounts will be needed to clarify particular incidents. The available injury totals do not settle those questions.

What has the government promised, and what remains undecided?

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu set out five areas for government work: preventing class cancellations, improving facilities with regional authorities, reorganizing school days, making Parcoursup more transparent and responding to student concerns. He said decisions were expected before the end of October, EFE reported.

Those areas are a plan for further work, not reforms already put in place. The announcement does not specify which measures will be adopted, what they will cost or how student proposals will affect the decisions.

The government has also pursued legal action over violence connected to the movement. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin directed prosecutors to seek rapid responses and, where possible, pursue civil liability from parents of minors involved, according to the Justice Ministry.

The ministry said 5,060 people had been placed in police custody since the start of the violence, 87% of them minors. It reported that 1,802 people faced prosecution and 14 had been placed in pretrial detention; these are custody and court-proceeding figures, not convictions.

The next concrete step identified by the government is a set of decisions before October ends. Whether those decisions address students’ concerns about staffing, facilities and university applications—and when students at affected schools will regain regular in-person access—remains unresolved.