Update: France's Students Are Back in the Street, Ceilings Still Leak, Teenagers Still Marching: The Student Revolt Enters Its Next Phase

The Outsider's take

The Outsider, 8 October 2026

After three weeks of blockades, more than 6,000 arrests and ten police-watchdog investigations, the government has finally offered the lycéens a seat at the table. It has not yet offered them a repaired ceiling.

French students renewed their blockades on Thursday, hours before their first formal talks with the government. Education Minister Édouard Geffray invited three lycéen organisations to the ministry at 3pm: Union Syndicale Lycéenne, Renouveau Lycéen and Lycéens! Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste was also expected to attend.

The movement is slightly smaller, but not gone

The ministry expected 224 schools and universities fully closed and 151 partially disrupted on Thursday. That is about 30% fewer than forecast at the same point on Wednesday. It is also well below Tuesday's "Act III", when the ministry counted 891 disrupted establishments. The interior ministry put the turnout that day at 256,000 nationwide, while organisers claimed 450,000.

In Paris, Pantheon-Assas University cancelled its morning classes. Le Figaro reported several hundred students sitting on the road outside, blocking traffic, and chanting "Macron, you're screwed, even Assas is in the street." Lyon 2 closed three campuses. In Angers, firefighters put out burning bins outside blockaded schools. Unions including Snes-FSU, CGT, FO and Sud backed a day of strikes, and students called a rally at Place de la Bastille at 3pm.

What the students are asking for

The demands haven't changed since our last report, and they are specific. The students want every absent teacher replaced, smaller classes, and school buildings that are safe to sit in. They also want an end to selection through Parcoursup, and 250,000 additional university places. The student unions say they have costed their proposals. Union Syndicale Lycéenne president Ryad Rani wants a meeting with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu next week.

Lecornu has promised the first measures by the end of October. The government's spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, pointed to €64 billion allocated to national education next year. An online consultation platform, Agora, is open until 23 October, and about 1,700 people had taken part by Tuesday midday. The students have already told the government what is wrong. A form is not what they asked for.

The cost of the response

The numbers on the other side of the ledger are heavy. Matignon says that since the movement began, 215 students, 85 education staff and 715 police and gendarmes have been injured. More than 6,000 people have been arrested, the vast majority of them minors. The government now calls the protests riots and condemns "urban violence", and the violence is real. Nobody serious defends arson or attacks on staff.

But the police watchdog, the IGPN, has opened ten investigations into police conduct, and some of the cases are grave:

1. In Lens, a 15-year-old lost a hand when a grenade exploded outside his school. The IGPN is investigating whether he picked it up or it went off near him. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the case "devastating".

2. In the Val-d'Oise, a 14-year-old lost the use of an eye, with injuries "compatible" with a LBD (rubber-ball launcher) shot.

3. In Metz, prosecutors opened an investigation into the circumstances of a schoolgirl's arrest after a video of it circulated.

These inquiries will establish the facts, and we should wait for them. But a country that has produced ten investigations into its own policing of teenagers has a problem that is bigger than the blockades.

The politics

Government sources blame La France Insoumise, and Donald Trump blamed immigration, claiming "mass migration out of control". The students' grievances are classrooms, class sizes and a university admissions platform, not borders. The students themselves say the damage is done by “outsiders”, not by pupils.

What to watch

1. Thursday's talks. If they produce dated, costed commitments on teacher replacement and school repairs, the blockades could fade. If they produce only a consultation, Rani has already said what comes next: a meeting with the Prime Minister, and more pressure.

2. The IGPN findings on Lens and the Val-d'Oise.

3. The end-of-October deadline. In 2006, the CPE protests forced the government to back down. In 2016 and 2018, students were injured and the laws passed anyway. This government has to decide which of those precedents it wants to follow.