Nearly 5,000 Arrested in France as Unions Back Students in Nationwide School Protests

Nearly 5,000 people, most of them minors, have been detained across France since Monday as student protests over poor school conditions escalated into widespread violence, with trade unions now throwing their weight behind the movement.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced on Friday that 1,747 arrests were made nationwide that day alone, bringing the total since Monday to over 5,000. More than 600 police officers have been injured in the clashes, according to national police spokesperson Agathe Foucault .

The protests began last week in the Paris region over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, crumbling buildings and overheated facilities during this year’s heatwaves. They have since spread to cities including Lille, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Rennes.

The unrest has drawn in university students and public sector workers. Trade unions, including the CGT, have called for nationwide demonstrations against Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s proposed €54 billion in budget savings, which include freezing public sector salaries for a fourth consecutive year.

“The anger is immense. I warn the government — it must address the demands and revise the draft budget, which is dangerous for the country,” said Sophie Binet, head of the hardline CGT union.

French authorities have accused the hard-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests, a claim the party dismisses as “conspiratorial thinking.” Prime Minister Lecornu condemned any escalation at high schools as “irresponsible”.

Paris police chief Patrice Faure said in an open letter that the movement has “escaped the control” of its initiators. “It is time to return to peaceful forms of action,” he wrote, urging parents to keep their children away from what he described as the influence of “professional agitators”.

Education Minister Édouard Geffray acknowledged that some student grievances are “legitimate” but stressed that “violence is not legitimate.” He reported that 76 people, including students and staff, have been injured since the protests began.

Videos from the protests show masked youths setting fire to rubbish bins, hurling projectiles at police and erecting barricades outside schools. In Marseille, a school principal and his deputy were splashed with petrol. In Nantes, firefighters extinguished a blaze at a high school entrance.

A 17-year-old student outside a Strasbourg school described the conditions driving the anger: “There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius in summer it’s unbearable. The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources”.

With France’s presidential election seven months away, the crisis has become a political flashpoint. Opinion polls show far-right leader Marine Le Pen as the frontrunner, while President Emmanuel Macron’s approval ratings remain deeply negative.