On Thursday, students from 1,027 of France’s 3,700 secondary schools staged violent blockades that turned into arson and assaults across cities from Marseille to Strasbourg.
Police and gendarmes logged 1,949 arrests, while 305 officers sustained injuries, the Interior Ministry announced, citing a surge of "unbridled violence" that threatened public safety.
The Interior Ministry blamed the radical left, citing intelligence reports that claimed the protests were orchestrated by France Unbowed (LFI), a claim the party’s leader Jean‑Luc Mélenchon dismissed as conspiratorial.
Teachers and principals faced assaults: a Marseille deputy principal was splashed with petrol, a Nantes fireman had to extinguish a high‑school entrance blaze, and a journalist at a Brussels‑border school was attacked.
The government has ordered a review of the educational system’s funding and teacher shortages, and will convene a meeting of law‑enforcement agencies next Monday to formulate stricter crowd‑control tactics.