France Erupts Again as Students Riot Over Education Reforms

Violent clashes erupted across France on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand education reforms, reportedly forcing the closure of more than half the country’s high schools.

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 been injured in confrontations, according to officials.

Footage from Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg showed protesters clashing with police, setting fires and moving through clouds of tear gas. In Marseille and Nantes, demonstrators carried signs declaring, “The state has killed national education,” Reuters reported.

The Interior Ministry estimated that 256,000 people joined 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 French President Emmanuel Macron was expected to meet key ministers Tuesday evening to discuss 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 unrest is rapidly becoming a major issue in the campaign to choose France’s next president in May, when Emmanuel Macron’s successor will be elected. Far-left presidential contender Jean-Luc Mélenchon has condemned the government’s response as repressive. Critics, meanwhile, say his party, La France Insoumise, or LFI, is exploiting the turmoil for political gain and encouraging violence.

Earlier social media footage appeared to show Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of Seine-Saint-Denis, standing alongside students, smiling and high-fiving pupils after a trash can was set ablaze in the street. 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 accusations, 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 after schools sustained widespread damage and injuries mounted among students, staff and police. The Education Ministry said classes were fully or partly suspended Tuesday at 891 schools. The High School Students Union told Reuters that more than half of France’s high schools had been closed or blockaded.

Students say many schools are in poor condition, with classrooms lacking basic furniture such as desks and chairs. Some become dangerously hot during the summer because they have no air conditioning, while others have reportedly been affected by rat infestations.

They have also raised concerns about staff shortages and punishing workloads. French high school students spend more compulsory hours in class than students in many 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 in the town of Lens on Monday, a 15-year-old reportedly picked up a police dispersal grenade that exploded. Officials said the teenager lost his hand and part of his lower arm.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed French ministers to respond to the students’ demands, Reuters reported. Those requests include repairing aging school buildings, extending lunch breaks and reviewing the current 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school day.

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.”