Big change: mass protests of high school students are taking place in France
Large-scale protests by French high school students, which began in Ile-de-France and spread to other regions of the country, are gaining momentum and becoming more violent. As a result of the actions, many people were injured or arrested. The work of more than three hundred educational institutions has been destabilized. What forces students to take to the streets and for what reason French schools face a shortage of resources is in the Izvestia article.
Protests of high school students in France: the reasons
Large-scale protests are taking place in France. They began last week in the Ile-de-France metropolitan area and subsequently spread to other parts of the country. Schoolchildren block educational institutions as a sign of disagreement with the social policy of the current authorities.
According to Le Monde, 440 people were arrested during the nationwide protests of high school students. In addition, more than 70 protesters were injured during the riots at the demonstrations. Strikes and lockdowns disrupted the work of 338 institutions across the country.
"At least 10 employees of the Ministry of Education and several students were injured. There is no excuse for such violence. <...> We are clearly dealing with urban violence that is trying to sideline what was originally a classic high school movement and violently disrupt the process of school democracy," said Edouard Geffre, the country's Minister of National Education.
The current protests did not arise out of thin air. The French education system has been criticized by the country's citizens for quite some time. Although the government is nominally trying to increase the corresponding expenditures, this is still not enough to get rid of the feeling of a chronic shortage of resources. The problem is especially noticeable where schools should perform not only an educational but also a social function, in the disadvantaged suburbs of large cities.
First of all, we are talking about the difference in the level of education in schools in different parts of the country, the condition of buildings and the congestion of the system. However, today schoolchildren and students perceive the shortage of teachers especially acutely. This factor, in particular, has become one of the reasons pushing students to protest.
Experts say that the shortage of personnel in educational institutions is largely caused by insufficient wages. In recent years, the country's authorities have nominally increased teachers' salaries and increased budgets. Total spending on education increased from 180.1 billion euros in 2022 to 199.2 billion euros in 2025, which is about 6.7% of the country's GDP. But at the same time, in real terms, the increase for the same year in 2025 was practically zero: +0.1% after adjusting for prices. They also tried to increase the number of teachers in the country by almost 5,900 rates, but this did not solve the problem: 45% of French schools report a shortage of specialists (10 years ago it was 17%).
— If we look at the statistics, then before the start of the 2024/25 academic year, about 3 thousand bids remained unfilled in French schools — 0.4% of the total number. However, this figure is partly deceptive, as France is largely closing the holes with the help of "contract teachers," whose share has grown from 5% in 2018 to 7% in 2025. At the same time, salary is one of the factors influencing the attractiveness of the profession and the system's ability to retain teachers. For example, at the beginning of a career, a French teacher receives only 2% less than his colleagues from other countries, and by the middle of his career the gap reaches about 18%," explains Alexandra Zhidkova, senior researcher at the Institute of Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
For high school students, the problem of teacher shortage has very specific consequences. A lesson missed due to the absence of a teacher is not an abstract figure from a statistical report, but hours that disappear from the curriculum and are not always compensated. This is especially acute in the final grades, when every topic is related to exam preparation and university admission.
This issue is gaining additional weight due to the selection system through the national Parcoursup platform. It is through her that French graduates apply to universities, preparatory classes and engineering schools. Moreover, competition remains high in many areas. In 2025, 93% of new graduates received at least one enrollment offer, one percentage point less than a year earlier. Against this background, the reduction of real-time study time becomes especially sensitive for schoolchildren: the fewer opportunities there are to acquire the necessary knowledge, the greater the importance of each lesson during the preparation for admission.
— There is a less obvious side to this situation — the emotional cost of a constant training race. About 110 people took part in a recent survey conducted by students of one of the French lyceums themselves. About 40% of the girls surveyed said that the stress associated with school had already affected their health, and almost a third sought help from a psychologist or other specialist (among boys, only 7%). Of course, the results of such a study cannot be automatically distributed to all French schoolchildren: the sample is small and not representative of the country. But the very fact that teenagers are starting to talk about school workload through the prism of physical and psychological well—being shows how sensitive this topic has become," the editorial's interlocutor emphasizes.
Therefore, the current protests of high school students should not be considered solely as a reaction to specific budget decisions or a shortage of teachers. Beyond the demands of schoolchildren, there is a broader question about the quality of education and what opportunities the system really provides to teenagers on the threshold of adulthood. For a graduate, a lost lesson is a lost opportunity to prepare for an exam, improve grades, or be able to compete for a desired university place.
At the same time, the general background for the French education system is complicated by the fact that recently various international studies have recorded a deterioration in the results of French schoolchildren in a number of key indicators, in particular in mathematics and reading. This directly indicates the weakening of the educational system.
Consequences for France
Recent events in France show what the accumulation of problems in the educational system can lead to if they are ignored for a long time. When existing difficulties cannot be resolved, discontent can spread beyond educational institutions and become part of a broader social conflict.
For the French authorities, this means the need to work not only with the immediate manifestations of the protests, but also with their possible causes. This includes financing, educational infrastructure, the shortage of teaching staff and the working conditions of teachers. Without addressing these issues, individual episodes of discontent can recur and become a source of additional social tension.
— I think that the issue of education reform will be the focus of the work of the new president, whoever he may be. But there are a number of interrelated issues that need to be addressed here: financing, increasing the workload in important subjects such as mathematics, integrating students from migrant families, and developing depressed neighborhoods where troubled schools are located. This requires a comprehensive approach, and half—measures will no longer help," says Pavel Timofeev, Head of the Regional Problems and Conflicts Sector at the IMEMO RAS.
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