France Erupts Again as Students Protest Education Reforms

Violence erupted across France on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people joined demonstrations demanding education reforms. The unrest led to reports that more than half of the country’s high schools had closed or been blocked.

France’s Interior Ministry said 6,100 people had been detained since the protests began in September. At least 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have reportedly suffered injuries during clashes.

Footage from Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg showed protesters confronting police, setting fires and moving through clouds of tear gas. In Marseille, Nantes and other cities, demonstrators carried signs including the message, “The state has killed national education,” Reuters reported.

The Interior Ministry estimated that 256,000 people participated in demonstrations across France, including 56,000 in Paris. Organizers put the nationwide figure at 450,000, with 100,000 protesters in the capital, according to France24. Citing a government source, the outlet reported that President Emmanuel Macron planned to meet key ministers Tuesday evening to address the unrest.

“What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.

The demonstrations have rapidly become a central issue in the campaign to succeed Macron next May. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left presidential candidate, condemned the government’s handling of the protests as repressive. His party, La France Insoumise, or LFI, has faced accusations that it is exploiting the unrest for political gain and encouraging violence.

Earlier videos shared on social media appeared to show Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of Seine-Saint-Denis, mingling with students, smiling and high-fiving pupils after a trash can was set ablaze. The president of the Île-de-France region told Radio Monte Carlo that LFI was promoting a “call to action” urging students to “trash your high school,” allegedly through TikTok challenges.

LFI has rejected those allegations, Reuters reported.

“This is a combination of the Islamists, together with the communists, the socialists, the far-left that are joining forces, and this is an outright uprising and insurrection basically is what it is that we are witnessing in France,” Nile Gardiner, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus” on Tuesday. “The stakes are incredibly high for the French people and this is a warning for the United States, as well.”

Authorities began closing schools last week in an effort to ease tensions following extensive damage to school buildings and a growing number of injuries involving students, staff and police. The Education Ministry said classes were fully or partially suspended at 891 schools Tuesday. The High School Students Union told Reuters that more than half of France’s high schools were closed or blockaded.

Students say many schools are operating in deteriorating conditions, with shortages of basic furniture such as desks and chairs. Some classrooms become unbearably hot during the summer because they lack air conditioning, while others have reportedly faced rat infestations.

Demonstrators are also highlighting staff shortages and punishing workloads. French high school students spend more compulsory hours in the classroom than students in most other European countries.

“We want more money for the national educational system so that high schools are renovated,” Roberta, a recent high school graduate in Paris, told Reuters.

During a demonstration Monday in Lens, a 15-year-old picked up a police dispersal grenade that exploded. Officials said the teenager lost a hand and part of his lower arm.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed ministers to respond to the students’ demands, including calls to repair aging school buildings, extend lunch breaks and reconsider the current 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school schedule, Reuters reported.

Felix Barney, a university student, told The Associated Press that the police response was disproportionate.

“It doesn’t have any sense to hit minors,” he said.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Tuesday defended policing methods used against high schoolers, saying the police response has been proportionate in “almost all cases.”