France school protests draw 266,000 as police use tear gas

• The Interior Ministry’s reported count for Tuesday’s demonstrations was 266,000 nationwide, including 56,000 in Paris.
• Student and union organisers claimed 450,000 participants, including 100,000 in Paris.
• Police used tear gas during clashes in Paris and elsewhere; the ministry reported 488 people detained on Tuesday.
• The movement began over teaching vacancies in Créteil and has spread amid complaints about staffing, crowded classes and school buildings.

The demonstrations brought together more than pupils. Teachers, parents, university students and union members joined marches and school blockades across France, turning a dispute over conditions in classrooms into a nationwide protest. The Associated Press reported that the Interior Ministry counted 266,000 participants, while organisers claimed 450,000. Those are competing estimates, not a combined total. ¹²

The movement began on 21 September at a high school in Créteil, outside Paris, where students protested over teaching vacancies. It spread as pupils raised wider complaints: too few staff, crowded classes, difficult schedules and deteriorating school buildings. ³

Most of Tuesday’s march in Paris was peaceful, the Associated Press reported, but small groups clashed with riot police near the end. Police used tear gas in Paris and other cities. Le Monde reporters also described repeated tear-gas use against a separate group in Marseille. ¹²

The Interior Ministry reported 488 people detained during Tuesday’s mobilisation and 43 members of the security forces injured. A separate ministry figure—6,547 people detained since 28 September—covers the wider protest movement, not Tuesday alone. ²

The government’s response now includes time for discussions in schools. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that a half-day would be set aside between Wednesday and Friday for school communities to discuss the protests. Student groups and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) called for further action on Thursday. ⁴²

Footnotes

1. Associated Press, “French riot police fire tear gas as more than 250,000 rally nationwide for school funding”. ↩ ↩²

2. Le Monde, live report on the 6 October demonstrations. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Le Monde, “Why French high schoolers are protesting, and why their movement is already historic”. ↩

4. Le Parisien, report on the next steps after Tuesday’s demonstrations. ↩