Since late September, pupils have blockaded schools and marched through French cities to protest against teacher shortages, overcrowded classes, deteriorating buildings and the pressures created by the Parcoursup university admissions system. Their movement has gradually attracted teachers, trade unions, university students and members of the Yellow Vest movement. On 17 October, between 550,000 and 800,000 people reportedly participated in approximately 110 demonstrations across France.
The Protest Began in the Classroom
The students’ demands are neither abstract nor unreasonable. Photographs and videos from French schools show leaking roofs, mould, broken furniture, damaged toilets, missing doors, defective heating systems, rats and classrooms without adequate protection from increasingly severe summer heat.
Students in Seine-Saint-Denis have reported toilets without paper, soap or functioning doors, holes in walls and ceilings, leaking water and shortages of essential staff. An education union estimated that more than half of France’s public lower- and upper-secondary schools began the academic year without at least one teacher.
Marseille has struggled with especially serious problems. Earlier investigations documented unusable sanitary facilities, mould and overcrowding across numerous schools, while a 2023 investigation reported the presence of asbestos in at least 85 establishments. The city has since launched a substantial renovation programme, including maintenance work in 200 schools during the summer of 2026, but the scale of accumulated deterioration means that many problems remain unresolved.
These institutions are financed by the public. Students, parents and teachers are therefore entitled to ask why basic standards of hygiene, safety and dignity are still not guaranteed.
A Demonstration Is Not a Riot
The most important distinction in understanding the French crisis is the difference between a manifestation and the actions of the casseurs.
A demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern.
A manifestation is a public and constitutionally protected expression of political or social demands. Most participants march peacefully: students defend their right to study in acceptable conditions, teachers demand sufficient staffing, and working families protest against declining purchasing power and deteriorating public services.
Casseurs—literally “breakers” or “wreckers”—use the size and confusion of a demonstration as cover for destruction, confrontation or theft. They are not synonymous with students, trade unionists or Yellow Vest protesters. Nor do they represent a particular ethnicity, religion or migration status.
Reducing the violence to simplistic claims about immigrants, Africans, Muslims, the far left or the far right may be politically convenient, but it does not explain what happened. People involved in vandalism can come from different ethnic and social backgrounds. Some are politically motivated extremists; others are organised opportunists or individuals attracted by the possibility of looting.
Migrants without documentation or people in an insecure administrative position are, in fact, among those with the strongest reasons to avoid arrest, identity checks and violent confrontations. They are among the least protected members of society and should not automatically become scapegoats for every scene of urban disorder.
Stolen designer goods have no religion or political ideology. Looting a Chanel boutique does not become a geopolitical statement simply because propaganda accounts attach one to it afterwards.
When Legitimate Anger Is Hijacked
The violence of 17 October was nevertheless real and severe. Shops were looted, cars were damaged, public buildings were attacked and police lost control in parts of several cities. In Marseille, black-clad rioters broke into the city hall and covered it with anarchist graffiti. In Lyon, the tourist office was set on fire.
The most shocking destruction occurred in Limoges, where masked individuals set fire to the historic city hall after the demonstration. The roof partially collapsed, while much of the nineteenth-century façade was destroyed. This was not an act of educational protest. It was an attack on public heritage and on the citizens who will ultimately pay for its restoration.
The French government has responded by encouraging local and partial curfews, banning gatherings in some places and strengthening security measures. President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence, while Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu faced growing pressure over the authorities’ failure to anticipate its scale.
But restoring order will not, by itself, resolve the crisis. Police can disperse a crowd, protect a building and arrest looters. They cannot repair a leaking classroom, recruit a missing mathematics teacher or restore a young person’s belief in the future.
France and the New Misérables
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables remains relevant because it asks what happens when society sees disorder but refuses to examine despair. Hugo did not romanticise crime. He showed that punishment without understanding produces neither justice nor stability.
Modern France has its own misérables: people who feel excluded from prosperity, education and political influence. Some have grown up in deprived districts where schools, employment opportunities and public institutions appear weaker than elsewhere. Others have watched their families work hard without achieving security. Social media then compresses the world into a relentless display of wealth, status and apparent success.
None of this excuses burning a town hall or destroying another person’s business. Social disadvantage explains risk; it does not eliminate personal responsibility. Yet a society that examines only the final explosion and never the conditions preceding it will repeatedly confront the same crisis.
Economic stagnation, declining public services and a sense of political powerlessness create fertile ground for radicalisation. Social-media algorithms intensify resentment, while domestic and foreign propaganda transform every grievance into evidence that democratic government has failed completely.
The Political Danger
France is approaching the 2027 presidential election with confidence in its institutions under severe pressure. Images of burning buildings and looted shops strengthen calls for more radical government, harsher policing and restrictions on protest. At the same time, images of mouldy classrooms and police confronting teenagers reinforce the belief that the existing political system has abandoned ordinary citizens.
The far right and radical left will both attempt to convert the crisis into electoral momentum. One side will focus almost exclusively on immigration and public order; the other will present confrontation as the inevitable response to inequality. Both narratives risk erasing the complexity of the situation.
The central political challenge is therefore to defend two principles simultaneously: France must protect the right to protest, and it must protect citizens, businesses and public heritage from violence. Treating every demonstrator as a criminal would deepen the crisis. Treating destruction as a legitimate form of protest would destroy democratic confidence.
Order and Chaos Can Coexist
In many Parisian neighbourhoods, daily life continued while violence unfolded only a few streets away. Some businesses removed vehicles and valuable goods from their windows before the demonstrations. Cafés remained open elsewhere. Trains continued to run, families returned home and most demonstrators caused no damage.
That contrast captures the reality of contemporary France: order and chaos can occupy the same city at the same moment.
What happens next will depend on whether France invests only in controlling the consequences or finally addresses the causes. More police may be necessary to prevent immediate destruction. But more teachers, safer schools, functioning public services and credible opportunities for young people are necessary to prevent the next generation from losing faith.
The struggle unfolding in France is ultimately not a battle between students and the state. It is a test of whether a democratic society can hear legitimate anger before that anger is appropriated by those who prefer destruction to change.
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