French high school students protest education funding shortages across France, sparking clashes with police

High school students across France began blockading schools in mid-September 2026 over teacher shortages, dilapidated buildings, and insufficient education funding. By early October, protests had grown to hundreds of thousands of participants nationwide, with clashes between protesters and riot police leading to over 6,000 arrests, mostly of minors, and hundreds of injuries including a 15-year-old who lost a hand from a police stun grenade. The government suspended stun grenade use on October 7 and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu pledged concrete responses by late October.