Archive · Guardian World

‘We just want to be listened to’: student protests shut schools across France

Global Published 2 October 2026, 17:57 · archived 2 Oct 2026

Lack of investment, overcrowded classrooms, crumbling buildings and poor teacher pay among reasons for protests by school studentsEurope live – latest updatesAs dozens of school pupils sat on top of a pile of wheelie bins blocking a high school entrance in north-eastern Paris, Sophia, 17, was on the frontline of the barricade, when she would normally have been attending Spanish class.“We hope this grows into a massive youth protest movement,” said the final year baccalaureate student at Paris’s Lycée Voltaire, who did not want her real name published. She was on her second day of blocking the ...

ZAZTEK archives the headline, summary and publication date so the story stays findable. The full article remains the publisher's. Read it at Guardian World →