400 French schools closed on Friday as protests escalate into ‘urban violence’

Some 100 schools have been severely damaged during French high school protests that escalated this week into “urban violence,” with 40 headteachers injured, according to the latest figures from the French education ministry.

The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests.

Nearly 3,000 lycée students – aged between 15 and 18 – have been detained since the start of the protests, including 1,949 on Thursday alone, the interior ministry said.

During a call with local prosecutors last night, the justice minister Gérald Darmanin urged them to pursue civil liability claims so that parents are made financially responsible for damage caused by their children.

Meanwhile, education minister Édouard Geffray asked parents for help, warning that “children are in danger on the streets.”

But there are no signs of tensions going down, with first incidents reported near the Jean-Rostand high school in Strasbourg and the Simone-Veil high school in Marseille. Some 400 schools remain closed today.

Damages from this week’s protests are likely to go into hundreds of millions euros, with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region reporting 25 million in damages.

I will keep an eye on that for you, and bring you all the latest from Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, too.

It’s Friday, 2 October 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.