A French high school students’ group says blockades of lycées will restart from Monday 2 November, when pupils return from their two-week holiday. The group says the government’s response to their demands does not go far enough, The Local France reports.
What happened
Pierre Sourzat, head of the student group “Lycéens!”, told the broadcaster RMC on Sunday that some high schools would be blocked from Monday. A blockade is a protest where students block the entrances to their school to stop classes from running. “It will be more significant from Tuesday, but we know that some schools will be blocked as early as tomorrow,” he said, according to The Local France.
His comments came the day after a third weekend in a row of protests. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people, including high school and university students, marched in cities across France. The Local France reports that the wider movement against rising prices grew out of weeks of demonstrations by lycée students, who were protesting about worsening learning conditions and inequality. A lycée is the French state high school, covering the last three years of secondary education.
Last Monday, the government announced measures meant to answer the students’ demands. According to The Local France, these include:
- replacing the national university admissions platform, which has long been criticised for its lack of transparency;
- loans to pay for school renovations;
- smaller class sizes, but only for 10th-grade classes, the first year of lycée.
Students said this was not enough. On Saturday, Sabrine Kharbach, spokeswoman for the Union Etudiante (Student Union), said there would be blockades of universities and high schools on Tuesday and Thursday.
President Emmanuel Macron has called for classes to restart calmly, saying that “young people have been heard”. Sourzat disagreed: “the president hasn’t listened to us,” he said. “It’s smoke and mirrors. There’s a bit of polish on the surface, but once you scratch beneath it, there’s nothing there.”
Sourzat said the new admissions platform would not fix the shortage of places in higher education. He called the plan for smaller classes insufficient because it covers only one year group. “We were asking for all year groups,” he said.
What it means for you
If you have a child at a lycée, or you study at a French university, this week may be disrupted. Based on what the student groups have said, the dates to note are:
- Monday 2 November: the first day back after the two-week holiday. Lycéens! expects some high schools to be blockaded.
- Tuesday 3 November: Sourzat expects the blockades to be larger. The Union Etudiante has also called for action at universities and high schools on this day.
- Thursday 5 November: the Union Etudiante has called for a second day of blockades at universities and high schools.
The source does not list which schools or towns will be affected. Blockades are decided locally, so the situation can differ from one school to the next. Parents should look out for messages from their child’s school before each of these days and confirm whether classes are going ahead. University students should check notices from their faculty, especially if they have exams or compulsory classes this week.
This movement has also brought large weekend street protests in several French cities. If you live in a big city, you may run into marches or traffic disruption on Saturdays.
What to watch next
The scale of the blockades on Tuesday and Thursday will show how much support the student groups still have after the holiday. The Local France notes that the government has little room to offer more money: France, the eurozone’s second-largest economy, is close to recession and under pressure to reduce its debt. That limits how far ministers can go beyond the measures announced last week. Watch for any further government announcements on class sizes or university places, and for whether the weekend protests continue for a fourth week.
Source: The Local France
Sources
- The Local France: French school blockades to restart from Monday: student group, accessed 1 November 2026
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