French PM warns against protest escalation as student unrest spreads nationwide

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has warned that escalating the country's ongoing wave of student protests would be irresponsible, following the arrest of 164 people on Monday amid days of unrest at high schools nationwide.

The protests began last week in the Île-de-France region around Paris, with students blockading schools over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and other systemic issues in the education system. The movement has since spread to other parts of the country, including Marseille, the Lille area in the north, and Sedan in the north-east, along with several schools in the southern regions of Alpes-Maritimes and Var.

Writing on social media platform X, Lecornu said nothing could justify fireworks, fires or violence near schools that put students, staff or police officers at risk. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reported that 12 security personnel, 12 students and three school staff were injured on Monday, with 180 schools affected. He gave no further details on those arrested.

The Union Syndicale Lycéenne, a group representing high school students, defended the protests as a legitimate response to conditions including staff shortages, deteriorating school buildings and stress linked to the Parcoursup university admissions platform. The union urged students to continue blockading schools on Tuesday to defend their rights against budget austerity. That same day, unions representing teachers, hospital workers and civil servants called for a separate walkout over pay and working conditions.

Lecornu acknowledged that problems facing high schools need to be addressed, but insisted violence must be unequivocally condemned. He also accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the movement to expand, a claim its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon rejected, accusing the government instead of ordering a crackdown on what he called harmless students. Nuñez, however, described the unrest as resembling urban violence rather than a typical protest movement, citing masked individuals equipped with fireworks and projectiles targeting security forces. One reported incident involved a police officer firing a crowd-control grenade launcher round that injured a student, an incident now under investigation.