France Detains 625 in Escalating High School Protests as Dozens of Officers Injured

French authorities detained 625 people on Wednesday as a wave of high school protests sweeping the country intensified, with blockades of lycées and violent confrontations prompting Interior Minister Laurent Nunez to warn of an "expansion of the movement" and an "escalation of violence" outside certain schools.

Eighty-three police officers and gendarmes were wounded during the day's disturbances, which affected a total of 356 schools nationwide, the interior minister said. The scale of the detentions and injuries marks a sharp escalation from the early days of the movement, which began last week as scattered demonstrations in the Ile-de-France region surrounding Paris before spreading to cities across the country.

The protests involve students at lycées — the final three years of secondary education in France, attended by teenagers aged 15 to 18 — and have drawn an increasingly firm response from a government that has expressed open frustration with the disruption.

Since last week, students have staged demonstrations outside schools over a broad set of grievances. These range from complaints about timetables and oversized classes to a shortage of teachers and unbearably hot classrooms during this year's heatwaves. The diffuse nature of the demands has complicated efforts by officials to open a dialogue with protest leaders.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that since the unrest began last week, 119 students and school staff members have been injured. "It is imperative that our students be able to return to class — especially those who are currently prevented from doing so," Geffray said, underscoring the government's concern that the blockades are denying students access to education at a critical point in the school year.

The cities worst affected on Wednesday included Paris, Bordeaux in the southwest, Lyon in the southeast and the northern city of Lille, where police again deployed tear gas in clashes with demonstrators, according to AFP correspondents at the scene. The reoccurrence of confrontations in Lille and other urban centers suggests that police tactics and protester resolve are both hardening as the movement enters a second week.

Interior Minister Nunez condemned what he described as the "targeting of law enforcement officers, the throwing of projectiles, acts of violence, verbal abuse, attempted arson, and what amounts... to urban violence." His remarks reflect a government narrative that distinguishes between legitimate student grievance and what it characterizes as criminal behavior hijacking the protests.

The political dimension of the crisis sharpened on Wednesday when President Emmanuel Macron, speaking in Madrid, criticized hard-left politicians whom he accused of "legitimising violence" in the school protests. Macron's comments signal that the government views part of the unrest as politically driven rather than purely rooted in educational complaints.

From the students' perspective, the motivations appear more concrete. Juan, a student at the Montbello high school in Lille — which had been blockaded over the previous days — told AFP: "We don't condone vandalism; we came to defend our rights because we have horrendous schedules — we work 8:00 am to 6:00 pm and that's not right." The statement illustrates the tensions at the heart of the movement: participants insisting their cause is legitimate while authorities point to vandalism and violence they say is being committed under the same banner.

The unrest has also produced visible damage, with images from the scene showing destruction at protest sites. The combination of educational grievances, physical damage and injured officers and students has placed the government in a delicate position, caught between acknowledging legitimate concerns about school conditions and restoring order.

The blockades raise practical questions about how many students are being kept out of classrooms and for how long. Geffray's appeal for a return to class underscores the government's fear that prolonged disruption could damage students preparing for important examinations and deepen the sense of crisis around France's education system.

The protests also touch on long-standing issues in French education, including teacher shortages that have affected schools in various regions and infrastructure problems that leave some classrooms poorly equipped for extreme heat. The heatwave dimension is particularly notable, tying the school unrest to broader climate-related strains on public infrastructure.

For the government, the challenge is twofold: addressing the underlying complaints without appearing to reward disruption, and preventing the movement from expanding further. Nunez's assessment that the movement is expanding suggests those efforts have yet to succeed, and the coming days will test whether dialogue or tougher policing prevails.

With hundreds detained in a single day and dozens of officers wounded, Wednesday marked one of the most intense days of the protest wave so far. The coming days will determine whether the movement burns out or continues to spread beyond the school gates, and whether the government's dual message — condemning violence while acknowledging student concerns — can lower the temperature.