On September 21, students at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, near Paris, went out to demonstrate against the shortage of teachers and the school's operational problems, without knowing that their mobilization would quickly spread throughout France. These are the keys to the crisis in Education that has unleashed violence in the streets.
The reasons
The students complained about the lack of teachers and teaching hours, the classes overcrowded with students in damaged buildings and with little computing material and equipment. The French State has problems filling certain teaching positions due to the precarious conditions in which they have to work, since they are poorly paid, and the difficult working conditions in some areas. Contractual teachers also complain about the problems they always have at the beginning of the course in receiving their salary because there is no money. For this reason, part of the teaching staff has also joined the protests.
But behind the demands about teachers and materials there is also a denunciation of inequality between the territories. The poorest areas, generally with a large population resulting from migration, such as Seine-Saint-Denis, have worse conditions than public institutions found in richer neighborhoods. The students of these centers thus denounce conditions that are different from those of other French students. In high schools on the Paris outskirts, some students talk about classes with up to 35 students and a lack of teachers and materials.
The cost of living
The demonstrations have started now because the Government is preparing the 2027 budget. The 54,000 million euros that the Executive plans to cut have spread fear among the education sector, which anticipates that there will be cuts in this sector.
Although it is the minors in the institutes who have started the protests, the unrest also extends to the university students. Many students study outside their hometown because they have to rent an apartment. The most modest households receive rental aid, but the Government is considering canceling this aid in order to save in the 2027 budgets.
The increase in the cost of living in France in recent years has pushed many young people to an extreme situation. In 2025, a survey by Union Étudiante indicated that 48% of students had at some point given up on food for economic reasons. Additionally, costs linked to public university schooling have increased by 25% since 2020.
What began in an institute in Créteil became a national mobilization on September 29, when students joined the strike of civil servants and public workers, who were also demonstrating against the precarious situation of the civil service and the possible cuts by the Government.
Social networks
The call to demonstrate was amplified thanks to social networks, such as TikTok or Snapchat, which spread messages calling for mobilization. The rectorates also pointed out the dissemination of the calls through these platforms.
Some blockades went from school protests to clashes with the police, which further increased tension and unrest, leading to several schools being set on fire and causing numerous students to be injured or arrested by the police. Still, most of the actions were peaceful.
According to the Minister of National Education, Edouard Geffray, after speaking with the directors of the institutes, it was seen that many of the protesters who took violent actions were not the students of these centers, and he has called on parents not to let their children block the schools to protect them from violence.
Political escalation
Given the escalation, Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced on his social networks that the Government of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu had called for repression against the students. The leader of La Francia Insumisa (LFI) considered the Government's actions atrocious and irresponsible and called for continuing to block the institutes. The Government, for its part, has accused LFI of instrumentalizing the protests.
Likewise, the mayor of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, generated great controversy by participating in one of the blocked schools. In a video that went viral you can see the mayor of LFI, Bally Bagayoko, moving burning garbage away so that it does not burn down the school entrance, but the far right accused him of causing the same fire in the institutes. Other elected members of LFI have joined the blockades of institutes, which has led the Macronist government and the extreme right to claim that LFI incited these demonstrations.
