France is expected to suspend classes fully or partially at 400 to 500 high schools on Monday, October 5, 2026, as a nationwide student protest movement continues. Education Minister said the closures are a safety measures at schools where conditions are not secure enough. France has about 3,700 high schools.
More than 160 of the affected schools are in the Paris region, about one-third of its high schools, according to regional president Valérie Pécresse .The impact is uneven. One education authority in the Dijon area said none of its high schools would be closed on Monday. Geffray said he hopes classes can resume gradually where possible.
How the protests began
The movement began around september 17,2026 at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, southeast of Paris. Students joined teachers who were protesting staff shortages and poor conditions. It has since spread to cities including Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Nantes, Bordeaux and Rennes.
Students say their complaints include missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms, run down buildings, long school days and unequal conditions between rich and poor areas. Official data backup part of the complaint. In 2024-25, 9.8% of teaching hours in public secondary schools were not delivered. Most of that, 7.5 percentage points, was because absent teachers were not replaced.
Violence and arrests
The protests have grown more violent in recent days , with blockades, clashes, fires and damage at schools. Geffray said 24 schools have been burned or ransacked since the movement began. The government reports 170 injured students and 78 injured education staff. Police say more than 600 police officers and gendarmes have been hurt.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said more than 5,000 people have been arrested since Monday, about 85% of them minors. An arrest doesnot mean a person has been charged or convicted. On October 2 the Education Ministry said 735 schools were affected by protests or disruption. The number covers all kinds of disruption, not only closures.
Paris police chief Patrice Faure called the movement out of control and urged demonstrators to return to peaceful action. Geffray has accused far-left activists of infiltrating the movement, which is the government's claim and has not been independently established. Many students have protested peacefully. Amnesty International has criticized what it sees as a disproportionate police response and said young protestors should be listened to.
Geffray met students representatives on Friday. Student groups said afterward that they wanted more concrete measures. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has asked ministers to get classes running again wherever possible and set up work on some of the students' concerns, with first decisions expected before the end of October.
Student organizations have called for another national day of action on Tuesday, October 6, and several unions including the CGT, support it.
The closures raise a harsh question. Students are protesting over lost teaching time, yet the unrest is now costing even more of it. Whether the closures stay a short term measure will depend largely on how big and how peaceful todays demonstrations turn out to be.
