The school calendar resumes this Monday, November 2 in France after weeks of demonstrations, blockades and riots in hundreds of educational centers throughout the country. Some 41 institutes were blocked during this day, a "residual" figure in the words of the Executive. However, several student unions called for new protests for Tuesday and urged support for the general strike on November 5.

First modification: 11/02/2026 - 17:02 Last modification: 11/02/2026 - 17:22

Secondary schools in France reopened this Monday, November 2, after two weeks of vacation, although some of them have only been able to try due to the blockades reported in some centers in Paris, Marseille and Rennes, which seek to reactivate the student protest movement that began in mid-September and lasted throughout October, despite some concessions from the Government during the vacation period.

"We have resumed the mobilization because they supposedly gave us answers, but it is clearly not enough," 16-year-old Meriem told the AFP news agency, sitting on one of the garbage containers stacked in front of the entrance to a secondary school in Marseille.

Some 41 institutes were blocked in the country, around 1% of the national total, as reported by the Ministry of Education early this Monday. Despite this, the Government highlights a slowdown in the mobilizations, taking into account the hundreds of institutes affected daily by the October mobilizations.

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"As far as blockades – or rather, attempted blockades – are concerned, the phenomenon is very residual. We are talking about just a handful of centres, a few individual schools," said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Monday in an interview with the radio station 'France Inter', in which he recalled that protests are permitted, but preventing access to schools is illegal.

In Paris, security forces intervened in front of the Condorcet institute, in the 9th arrondissement, to prevent the formation of a blockade, according to the newspaper 'Le Parisien', which reported the arrest of some students.

At the Saint Exupéry institute in the city of Créteil, near Paris, where the student protests began in September, around twenty students stood in front of the entrance turnstiles from early in the morning, determined to revive the blockades. Among them, Kevin, 17 years old, assured the EFE agency that they had the support of the majority of the students. "There is a small minority that does not support us because it seems to them that we will never win this fight. But we have to be optimistic and believe that we can win," he expressed.

Saint-Exupéry is an institute of about 1,500 students, attended mostly by families of Maghreb and sub-Saharan African origin, located in the old industrial belt of Paris, about 15 kilometers from the center of the capital.

Read alsoProtests in France and Germany: riots raise tension amid social demands

Insufficient measures for students

Students demand the remodeling of old schools, more teachers, more university places and the end of Parcoursup, a university admission system that they consider socially unfair.

The Government has tried to respond to these demands by limiting class sizes to 28 students, allocating 4 billion euros ($4.47 billion) to renovate schools, creating 15,000 new places for students in higher education and a new admission system by 2028.

"I don't see how, in the immediate term, we could do more," said Education Minister Edouard Geffray. But student representatives, who considered the measures a "first step," maintained that the announcements were not enough, so they would continue protesting. They demand, among other things, that the Executive allocate 10,000 million euros to improve educational conditions in the country and the absolute repeal of Parcoursup.

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The student protests, which began in mid-September in the suburbs of Paris, were joined by unionists and activists from across France, expanding the scope of demands beyond education to encompass the cost of living.

The protests sometimes ended in violent clashes with police and riots in several cities, with shops looted, providing a test for President Emmanuel Macron's minority government.

Some 779 people were arrested on October 31, during the third consecutive Saturday of mobilizations, which coincided with the Halloween celebration. Youth unions indicated that 500,000 citizens joined the protests, while the Ministry of the Interior estimated participation at 320,000 people.

In a new attempt to reduce the discomfort of the organizers, government officials told several local media on Sunday that the Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, has been asked to ensure that regional authorities respond quickly to the needs of the 200 centers with the most deficiencies in the country. To do this, the data collected on a digital platform launched by the Executive at the beginning of October will be taken into account for students to share their demands.

Read alsoAltercations in Paris and other French cities at the end of the protests; more than 290 detainees

One more week of concentrations

The most direct message in favor of restarting the student blockades this Monday was launched by the organization Les Lycéens, one of the student unions involved in the protests, whose leader, Pierre Sourzat, urged on Sunday to boycott the resumption of classes on the first day of returning to school after two weeks of vacation.

But the calls from the main high school student organizations have diverged in their degree of intensity. The National Union of Students of France (UNEF) called for the weekend to "organize in all universities" starting this Monday with a view to making Tuesday, November 3, "a black day for universities", with blockades of faculties and secondary schools throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the Union of Institutes (USL) and the Student Union called for blockades for Tuesday, but also for Thursday. "Our demands have not been addressed," Sabrine Kharbach, spokesperson for the Student Union, insisted on Sunday in statements to the public broadcaster Franceinfo.

In parallel to the calls to block the institutes, the main student organizations urged people to join the call for a general strike that the French unions have launched for Thursday, November 5, in which other groups, such as railway employees, will also participate. This is expected to be the busiest day of the week.

With this schedule ahead, some students doubt a slowdown in the mobilizations. Like Amaya, 16, a Spanish student at the Hélène Boucher public high school in Paris, who is among the 1% who kept their doors closed this Monday. "I have gone to several national assemblies and the black week has already been voted on, with pickets almost every day and, above all, the large mobilizations are tomorrow [Tuesday] and Thursday. It will really be seen there," he predicted.

With Reuters, EFE and AFP

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