Roughly 3,000 people have been arrested since the protests began nearly two weeks ago outside of Paris, with nearly 2,000 being detained on Thursday alone, the French interior ministry announced.
And the protests showed no signs of abating on Friday, when roughly 900 demonstrations took place around France, according to police. More than 500 French schools remained closed as students set fires, blockaded schools, and clashed with riot police around the country.
Geffray met with education unions, student organizations, and parent associations on Friday morning in an attempt to temper the protests through dialogue.
He announced a platform students can use to submit proposals for education reform, which he said will be evaluated and used for a “national report.”
Here’s what you should know about the ongoing protests.
A protesting student feeds a burnt barrier during a blockading action outside the secondary school Le Corbusier, in Aubervilliers, northern Paris on October 1, 2026. —Lou Benoist—AFP/Getty ImagesA main complaint among demonstrators is the shortage of teachers and support staff in the country’s schools.
"Today our school is paralyzed due to a lack of resources, teachers, and not enough desks,” one student told the French outlet Agence France Presse (AFP). “We don't have nurses or supervisors, and all they do for us is take away our phones.”
"We are 35 per class, we don’t have enough chairs in classrooms,” a 15-year-old student told Reuters in the Paris suburb of Pantin as demonstrators clashed with police deploying tear gas in an effort to quell the protest.
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“We’re also protesting about the conditions in the heatwave,” the 19-year-old said. “Young people just want to study and learn in decent conditions. The French state seems surprised about worsening school results, but they’re doing nothing to remedy that.”
Student protesters have also expressed grievances with the country’s online university application system, Parcoursup, which they have described as a source of stress and mistrust in the education system.
Geffray characterized this as a complicating factor in addressing the roots of the unrest. "One of the difficulties of this movement is that there are no national demands. It all started with local demands,” the Education Minister said Friday morning.
A group of high school students leading a march with signs reading "Education Is Too Expensive / Try Ignorance Instead" at Place de Catalogne in Perpignan, in the Pyrenees-Orientales department in southern France, on September 29, 2026. —Jc Milhet—Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty ImagesWhere did the protests begin, and how have they expanded?
In the days that followed, protests spread throughout the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris and its surrounding metropolitan areas, as students attempted to set up blockades at dozens of schools.
By Monday, 180 schools were disrupted by the expanded demonstrations, according to the interior ministry. That number had risen to over 500 at week’s end.
Thursday marked the largest escalation of protests.
As of Friday night, the protests show no signs of stopping. Two student unions, the Student Union and the High School Trade Union, have jointly called for continued protests next week.
A student reacts by a burning barricade as highschool students demonstrate countrywide over what they denounce as poor learning conditions, near the Lycee Deodat high school in Toulouse, south-western France, on October 1, 2026. —Ed Jones—AFP/Getty Images
What French officials are saying
Several French officials have weighed in the student demonstrations as they have continued to escalate and expand around the country. Some have specifically addressed remarks toward protesters’ parents.
Meanwhile, Geffray cautioned against the dangers he said the increasingly violent protests pose to students.
As the protests intensified this week, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting on Thursday and canceled ministers’ travel plans to work on quelling the demonstrations.
"I hear and understand the anxieties and anger that our youth may have,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday while speaking in Madrid. “However, none of these debates, none of these fears legitimizes violence.”
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