Maisa, a 17-year-old in a deprived Paris suburb who aspires to be an English teacher, joined tens of thousands of other students and their supporters this week in protests that spread across France over dilapidated schools, classroom overcrowding and teacher shortages.
At Lycee Le Corbusier school in Aubervilliers, a suburb north of Paris in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, protesters said schools in poor neighbourhoods such as theirs faced the worst conditions.
“Last year I took the high school French exam without a French teacher, and teachers have a huge impact,” Maisa said.
“These are not conditions to study in.”
As protests raged at more than 1,200 French high schools this week, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets in some cases.
More than 5,000 people were arrested, and some protesters were seriously hurt with eye injuries, broken teeth and blows to the head according to reports. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called it a “climate of unacceptable violence” and called for order.
Amelia, 15, joined Maisa in the crowd outside the school gates and held a sign reading, “Our address should not decide our future”. She said she was demonstrating to demand the same rights as students elsewhere in the country.
Ulysse Rabate, a political scientist at Paris 8 University, said the protests show the way that France's marginalised urban neighbourhoods are increasingly influencing national politics.
“When there is a collapse of the public service, of public education, those who feel it the most, and the most violently, are those at bottom,” he said.
The nationwide demonstrations and blockades, which began last week, have become a political flashpoint at a sensitive moment for the government, which announced a series of deeply unpopular spending cuts in its 2027 budget on Thursday (1 October).
The education budget is set to increase by a below-inflation 1.7 per cent to €65.53 billion ($73.79 billion), excluding teacher pensions.
The education ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that education remained a priority and the below-inflation budget increase was due to population decline.
The protests started in the Parisian suburbs, where poverty levels are high, then spread to Paris itself and other French towns, including Marseille, Strasbourg, Tours and Lille.
At Lycee Le Corbusier, classes including maths, humanities, English and sport have been cancelled since the start of the academic year due to a teacher shortage, according to Karima Kara Ali, an elected parent representative.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, two-thirds of high schools took part in protests on Thursday, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union said. Youth, teachers and parents in four towns complained of unsanitary school conditions and chronic staff shortages including of nurses and social workers.
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