French high school and university students returned to the streets on Thursday for a fourth day of nationwide protests, demanding increased education funding and improved school conditions as the government scrambled to contain the crisis.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Wednesday acknowledged the anger of young people “didn’t come out of nowhere” and pledged to present the government’s first policy responses by the end of October. He denied that police had been ordered to confront protesters, hours after Interior Minister Laurent Núñez suspended the use of stun grenades following the injury of a 15-year-old boy whose hand was blown off in Lens on Monday .
Student leaders, including Ryad Rani of the Union Syndicale Lycéenne, demanded a meeting with Lecornu to present detailed proposals, dismissing the government’s offer of half-day forums for dialogue as insufficient without concrete measures . Teacher unions joined the call for fresh demonstrations, while a 17-year-old boy suffered a head injury outside a Marseille school on Wednesday, prompting a new investigation .
Since mid-September, more than 6,500 people—most of them minors—have been arrested, and over 200 students injured, as protests spread from Paris to hundreds of schools across France. Demonstrators cite crumbling infrastructure, teacher shortages, and overcrowded classrooms, linking France’s declining PISA scores to worsening conditions .
