The French government has promised 3,000 extra supply teachers in the coming days, marking its first sign of giving ground to teenage protesters demanding more resources in secondary education.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray announced the offer in a television interview on Thursday evening, at the close of another day of sometimes violent demonstrations by high-school students.
The government says 6,877 people have been arrested since the protests began, 86% of them under the age of 18.
Some 71,000 people staged protests across the country on Thursday, in what unions called Act Four of the three-week movement. Of those, 24,000 gathered at the Bastille in Paris.
Police again used tear gas to disperse groups who attacked them with paving stones and homemade fireworks. In Bordeaux, a lycée, or high school, was ransacked by protesters, and in Marseille a deputy-head was beaten up.
On Friday, around 140 of France’s 3,500 lycées were totally or partially closed, a significant drop from previous days. Another day of action has been called for next Tuesday.
Geffray’s announcement was the first material concession to the protesters’ complaints. He said new software coming online at the ministry would make it possible to direct 3,000 supply teachers to the 500 or so lycées identified as being in the greatest need.
Many of those schools are likely to be in high-immigration city suburbs, where the shortage of teachers is most acute.
The minister also said more money would be made available under an existing scheme for teachers who want to work overtime hours to plug gaps, and he promised that students’ grievances would be taken into account in forthcoming discussions on the education section of the 2027 state budget.
However, the offer contained no major promise of new investment on a scale likely to appease protesters. The government is wary of appearing to buy social peace, as France’s precarious debt situation is being followed closely by international money markets.
It has long been recognised in French education that too many school hours are lost because of absent teachers and their non-replacement by available supply staff.
Reaction from student leaders was guarded. Nathanaël Combary, who represents the most moderate of the three main lycée unions, Renouveau Lycéen (Lycée Renewal), said students were waiting to see how the promise was carried out in practice.
“We’ve had some announcements which correspond to part of our demands. But obviously people want to see the money and more concrete results,” he said.
Sabrine Kharbach of the Union Etudiante (Student Union), which is close to the radical-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party of presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, struck a firmer tone.
“As long as we do not have €10bn on the table, we will continue our action,” she said.
Mélenchon praised Thursday’s demonstrations, writing on X that the students had “retaken the Bastille”.
At the other end of the political spectrum, a spokesman for the hard-right National Rally (RN) condemned the government’s concessions.
“The message is: if you break things, you get given stuff,” said Laurent Jacobelli. “When you burn cars, attack police, you gain something in return. It’s the legitimisation of violence.”
The movement is the most serious student unrest in France in many years, arriving against a backdrop of rising national tension, with anger over fuel prices and distress in the farming sector also liable to trigger protests.
Next Saturday, 17 October, has been earmarked as a day of demonstrations by a revived “yellow vest” movement. The approach of presidential elections in April and May – in which both hard right and hard left are expected to perform strongly – is also exacerbating the mood of confrontation.
The government is hoping that the approach of half-term holidays at the end of next week, as well as the arrival of colder and wetter weather, will take some of the sting out of the protests.
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