A French mayor has drawn criticism after footage showed him laughing and dancing alongside demonstrators outside a school as unrest continues to spread across the country.
The protests and school blockades began last week and intensified on Tuesday, when they coincided with a wider public-sector strike. The unrest has become a major political flashpoint at a particularly sensitive time for France.
Hundreds of people have been arrested in clashes involving young protesters, while authorities say dozens of people have been injured.
Bally Bagayoko, the left-wing mayor of a Paris suburb, is now facing condemnation after being filmed interacting with students taking part in the demonstrations.
The video appears to show Bagayoko, mayor of a suburb in Seine-Saint-Denis, smiling and dancing outside a school that had been blocked by protesters as the crowd encouraged him.
Flames can be seen burning near the school gates in the background of the footage.
Members of the hard-left France Unbowed party have also taken part in the protests. Bagayoko has been quoted as saying that violence can, in some circumstances, be justified.
Mayor Bally Bagayoko was recorded dancing alongside protesters outside a school
Bagayoko joined the demonstrations as flames burned around him
A firefighter approaches an object that had caught fire
The firefighter was engulfed in flames while trying to extinguish the burning object
Other politicians and public officials have condemned what they describe as inflammatory rhetoric from the party, saying it has helped intensify student anger.
The mayor’s appearance came after separate footage showed a firefighter being engulfed in flames during violent student protests over teacher shortages.
Social media video from demonstrations in Bordeaux showed a burning object lying in the street.
When a firefighter moved toward the object to put it out, the flames suddenly climbed up his leg and set his clothing alight.
The government is due to present France’s 2027 budget on Thursday. The plan is expected to include spending reductions intended to relieve mounting pressure on public finances.
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In Saint-Denis, a large suburb north of Paris, students gathered outside their school gates beside a fire as police watched. Television footage from Lyon and Lille also showed protesters throwing objects toward police lines.
“There are cockroaches and rats everywhere in the school,” Fadila, a 17-year-old student, told Reuters. She said classroom temperatures could fluctuate from extremely hot to below freezing, depending on the weather.
“We cannot work in conditions like that,” she said.
The OECD global policy forum says France’s education spending remained mid-range compared with other member countries and rose between 2015 and 2022. However, education’s share of the national budget fell slightly over that period.
A student puts trashes into a fire as protesting students carry out blockading action near place de la Nation, in Paris, on October 2, 2026
Firefighters work to extinguish flames rising from burning barricades erected by high school students during nationwide education protests Nancy, France on October 2, 2026
French masked high school students react in a street amid clashes near the Lycee Deodat-de-Severac high school
Policemen stand guard during a protest against under-resourced schools, in Paris, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026
France’s Education Minister Edouard Geffray told RTL radio that 76 people had been injured, both students and staff, since the demonstrations began. He did not specify who the personnel were or the severity of the injuries.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster BFM that some 440 people were detained over the high school protests on Tuesday alone, most of them minors. Nunez said there were seven incidents in which people threw hydrochloric acid at law enforcement officers.
The government has criticised violence that has broken out at some of the demonstrations but said that difficulties in high schools should be acknowledged and addressed.
‘High schools are meant to be open and to share knowledge. They are not meant to be blockaded or to have trash cans set on fire,’ French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Madrid.
Gamze, a 17-year-old student in Saint-Denis, said students in the historically working-class suburb were treated unfairly compared with students elsewhere.
‘It’s always us… who are suffering when, in Paris or in the countryside, they’re not in such a situation,’ she told Reuters.
On Friday, a French protester was arrested after threatening to burn down the Elysee Palace in Paris.
