French Student Protests: Record Detentions and Infrastructure Failures
Nearly 8,000 people have been detained since September, with 85% being minors, as schools across France face severe overcrowding and maintenance crises.
By Isaac Medina ·
By October 14, 7,950 individuals had been placed in police custody since student protests began in September. A further 2,700 people were taken into custody following demonstrations on October 17, and police made another 1,000 arrests on October 25. According to the source, 85 percent of those detained were minors.
The scale of enforcement has led to the mobilization of tens of thousands of police officers. President Emmanuel Macron deployed 70,000 officers and pledged to ban protests. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu urged political rivals to choose sides, framing the conflict as a choice between the Republic, which he equated with the police, and rioters with a violent agenda.
Students report severe physical injuries from police actions. Fourteen-year-old Eden suffered a fractured jaw and lost teeth after being hit by a tear gas grenade. Sixteen-year-old Mael lost sight in one eye from a suspected rubber bullet impact. Fifteen-year-old Evan had a hand blown off by a stun grenade.
Protests are driven by deteriorating conditions in schools across the country. In Acoua on Mayotte, Cite du Nord secondary school was blockaded on August 31. The facility, built for 900 pupils, holds 2,300 students in cramped classrooms with poor ventilation, water supply failures, and unsanitary toilets.
Similar issues have plagued schools in Parisian suburbs since 2024. At Blaise-Cendrars secondary school in Sevran, staff and pupils reported water leaks, mold, unusable toilets, and shortages of furniture. In Pantin, windows at Marcelin-Berthelot secondary school no longer open, a problem exacerbated by heatwaves that reach 40C. At Politzer secondary school in Bagnolet, water tested in June was found unsafe to drink in late September.
The education ministry reported that 20.2 million teaching hours were not delivered in state secondary schools during the 2024-25 academic year, excluding Mayotte. This accounts for almost one in ten scheduled hours. Fifteen million of these lost hours resulted from absent teachers who were not replaced. Economist Lucas Chancel noted that government spending per student has declined by 20 percent since 2017.
Poverty rates in France are the highest since the 1990s, with 9.8 million people living under the official poverty line. Oxfam data indicates that 53 French billionaires own as much wealth as nearly half of the population. Macron met with 20 students on Friday and promised to reform the university entrance platform, but did not address their key demands regarding infrastructure and funding.
