2026 French Student Protests

Since mid‑September 2026 a nationwide wave of lycée student protests has swept France, originating in Créteil after earlier school blockades in French Guiana. Students, joined by teachers, parents and unions, have blockaded schools, occupied campuses and staged demonstrations to denounce chronic teacher shortages, oversized classes, dilapidated buildings, overloaded timetables and failures of the Parcoursup university admissions system - problems exacerbated by extreme heat in classrooms during the 2026 heatwaves. The mobilisation surged into a national day of action on 6 October, with unions and the government giving turnout estimates of roughly 450,000 and 250,000 respectively, and a patchwork of political groups and labour organisations supporting or joining the movement.

The protests have at times turned violent, involving vandalism, arson, looting and clashes with police. Thousands have been arrested - Interior Ministry figures cited about 2,400 arrests while other reports put the total higher - and hundreds of demonstrators, educators and security personnel have been injured; at least one police officer was killed and a demonstrator died. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN human rights office, criticised what they called disproportionate policing and serious injuries to children; the government rejected those charges, describing many actions as riots and accusing the far left of instrumentalising unrest. The unrest has produced smaller solidarity or copycat actions in Belgium, Italy, Greece and Albania.