As students call for 'act three', can France's school protests keep momentum?

"We're a bit disappointed," said Louis Letoublon, vice-president of high school student union Les Lycéens, after talks at the Education Ministry on Friday. 

He and representatives of other student unions, parents' associations and teachers unions met Education Minister Édouard Geffray as hundreds of schools remained closed or blockaded amid protests that have become increasingly violent.

Some 170 students have been injured since the start of the movement, Geffray said on Friday evening, while more than 100 secondary schools have suffered "severe damage". 

At least 65 staff members – including 40 head teachers – have also been injured. Police have arrested more than 5,000 people since protests began, most of them minors.

While Geffray said the student movement was being "held hostage" by violent instigators, the minister assured pupils he was listening to their demands. He announced a new platform to allow them to share their grievances with policy-makers, and promised to follow up on calls for absent teachers to be replaced, school buildings to be renovated and timetables reviewed.

"Dear high schoolers, I can assure you that you are being listened to, you are being heard and you are being taken seriously," Geffray said.

Letoublon acknowledged the minister had listened, but said he hadn't committed to any immediate measures to ease the protests.

"We haven't received any concrete commitments," he said. "Now we have to pursue in-depth discussions with the ministry and continue mobilising in schools to maintain our leverage and secure some action."

Student unions are urging pupils across France to turn out on 6 October for what they have dubbed "act three" of the movement.

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Student solidarity

Whether the high school movement will maintain momentum depends largely on whether it finds common ground with the higher education sector, according to Stéphane Sirot, a historian specialising in strikes and trade unionism.

"Will the movement take off significantly in universities? If they come together, it would mean trade unions would inevitably have to take a stance, even offer some form of support," he told RFI.

Sirot pointed to the example of 2006, when hundreds of thousands of young people took part in protests against government proposals to make it easier to fire employees under 26 in a bid to encourage hiring. 

The movement, which began in high schools before being joined by university students and trade unions, eventually forced the government to scrap the reform. 

The current protests could follow a similar trajectory, Sirot suggested, "although there is one major difference: this time there is a multitude of demands, and some of them could contribute to the search for a compromise".

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'We share the same demands'

While protests have taken place at some French universities, for now the movement remains biggest in high schools. 

On Thursday, one of the largest days of action so far, some 30 university campuses were blockaded compared to 222 secondary schools. Another 800 schools reported disruptions.

Eloïse Lefebvre Milon, one of the leaders of the Student Union which represents people in higher education, told RFI her group was calling on university students to stand with high schoolers. 

"We share the same demands, namely a bigger budget for young people, because today they represent the future of the country and we cannot leave them in such a state of underfunding," she said.

"Young people at secondary school and university are the ones who will be working tomorrow, the ones who will have to tackle the climate crisis and the social crisis... We have to give them an education that is equal to these challenges."

Several university student unions, as well as France's largest federation of parents' associations for public schools and at least six trade unions in the education sector, say they will join the demonstrations on 6 October. 

Meanwhile, in a sign the movement is also gaining ground with younger children, for the first time on Friday protests were also reported at around 100 middle schools.