French students maintain protests despite government appeals

O French government intensified calls for a peaceful return to class next Monday, after the fall break, while student organisations maintain the call for continued protests, including demonstrations today.

Both the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the Minister of Education, Édouard Geffray, have in recent days reinforced the calls for students to resume classes after more than a month of student mobilizations claiming improvements in educational conditions and secondary schools.

The associative leaders prepare, however, new actions for November, according to the Spanish news agency Efe.

Two days after his return to class, Geffray published on his social networks a letter to secondary school students in which he expressed his “deep confidence” in young people and defended the measures announced this week by the Executive to respond to his demands.

The minister presented Education as a tool for young people to progress, develop and become free and informed citizens.

“ My absolute priority is that students attend classes,” Geffray said last Tuesday in an interview with BFMTV.

A day later, Macron transmitted a similar message in a long interview with HugoDécrypte: “What I want, above all, is that — as young people have been heard — they can go back to class,” said the President on the channel for the young public, who has millions of followers on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

These messages arise in a week when student organisations have confirmed their intention to maintain pressure on the government because they consider the announced measures insufficient.

In his letter, Geffray points out that, among the main initiatives, there is the limitation of the number of students per class to 28 in the second year of Secondary Education, initially in the least favored schools, from September 2027, with the extension of the measure to all units in 2028.

More teachers are also expected to be hired.

The minister also highlighted changes this school year at Parcoursup — the critical platform for admission to higher education, which will be replaced in 2028.

The government will also study changes in school schedules, meal breaks and transportation conditions, in addition to reviewing the system of continuous secondary education evaluation, with the aim of adopting measures that come into force from the next school year.

Despite these announcements, student organizations do not consider the mobilization closed and maintain the demand for an investment of EUR 10 billion, aimed, among other objectives, at the creation of 250,000 vacancies in higher education, the hiring of more teachers and the renewal of schools. They also require the repeal of Parcoursup.

The Union Union of Secondary Education Students (USL), which has been ahead of the blockades in recent weeks, expects a “mass” resumption of protests from Monday.

The organization did not call for the blockade of schools on the first day of school, but the organization of assemblies to deliberate on the actions on Tuesday.

There are plans to intensify mobilizations next Thursday, coinciding with a day of trade union strike, in which they expect to coordinate their actions with those of teachers, forwards Efe.