On October 6, France's prime minister suspended high school classes across the entire country for the rest of the week. It was a response to student protests that started in late September, in which teenagers have blocked the entrances to their own schools.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced the suspension as hundreds of thousands of people rallied in cities across France. Authorities counted about 250,000 protesters nationwide, while organizers put the number closer to 500,000, Al Jazeera and Reuters reported. A high school students' union said nearly 2,000 high schools were blockaded or closed that day.
The students' complaints are about the schools themselves: overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, absent teachers who are not replaced, and run-down buildings. They also want longer lunch breaks and changes to the length of the school day. The Associated Press described students venting about under-resourced schools and long hours.
The protests began in some of the poorest suburbs of Paris and spread from there. Some turned violent. France's Interior Ministry said 6,100 people had been arrested since the protests started, most of them under 18, and the Justice Ministry said more than 1,800 would be prosecuted, including 1,483 minors. Lecornu said at least 215 teenagers and 715 police officers had been wounded. In the northern city of Lens, a 15-year-old lost his hand after picking up a police grenade, the newspaper La Voix du Nord reported.
"Burning down a high school does not improve the state of high school buildings," Lecornu said as he announced the suspension. He said the days off are meant for discussions among principals, teachers, and students at each school, and he ordered his ministers to address the students' demands by the end of October. Education Minister Édouard Geffray had already allowed remote classes at schools hit by blockades or damage. "Violence will not deprive our students of their fundamental right to education," he wrote on X.
The timing is hard for the government. France's finances are under strain, and the government released a proposed cost-cutting budget for 2027 on October 1. The protests have also become an issue in the race to replace President Emmanuel Macron, who is barred from seeking a third straight term in the election next May, the AP reported.
Could it happen in America?
American students do walk out of school, and 2026 has been a busy year for it. On January 30, thousands of middle and high school students walked out as part of a "National Shutdown" against federal immigration enforcement, Education Week reported. On September 4, students at more than 200 Colorado schools walked out, according to the student organizers, Colorado Public Radio reported. Defending Education, a group critical of the walkouts, counted 334 student walkouts and protests in 2026 by early March, and 306 of them were against ICE, Fox News Digital reported.
The American protests look different from France's in three ways.
First, most of them are about something outside school. French students are protesting their own classrooms and buildings. More than 9 in 10 of the 2026 walkouts Defending Education tracked were about immigration enforcement.
Second, they are short. Colorado students walked out between 10:30 a.m. and noon on a Friday. Denver police reported no arrests that day. French students have blockaded school entrances for two weeks, and police have made thousands of arrests.
Third, there is no single place to aim a protest. In France, one decision by the prime minister closed high school classes nationwide. In the United States, "education is primarily a State and local responsibility," according to the U.S. Department of Education. The 50 states and Washington, D.C., have 100,119 public schools, including 16,967 high schools (schools that start at ninth or 10th grade and end at 12th) that serve 13.1 million students, according to allk12's analysis of federal data. In 2020-21, only 11% of public school revenue came from the federal government. States provided 46% and local sources 44%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. A student upset about crowded classes in Texas would have to take it up with a school board or the state, not Washington.
What U.S. students risk
U.S. students do have legal protection. In Tinker v. Des Moines in 1969, the Supreme Court said students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." But schools can step in when a protest causes substantial disruption, and students who leave class can be marked absent.
After the January walkouts, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into whether Austin schools "facilitated" the protests, and the Texas Education Agency warned districts they could face sanctions if they did not accurately record walkout absences, Education Week reported. A district in Plainfield, Indiana, warned students they could get three-day suspensions.
French ministers are due to present their proposals by the end of October.
Sources
Al Jazeera and Reuters: France suspends high school classes as protesters clash with police
Associated Press via AJC: France gripped by spreading student protests as PM calls crisis meeting
Education Week: Free Speech Debates Resurface With Student Walkouts Over ICE Raids
Colorado Public Radio: Colorado students across the state walk out of school to protest ICE crackdown
Fox News Digital via WFMD: Thousands of students ditch class as anti-ICE protests surge in 2026
U.S. Department of Education: Federal Role in Education
National Center for Education Statistics: Public School Revenue Sources
School counts from allk12's analysis of NCES Common Core of Data, 2024-25.
