French pupils reignite lycée blockades as Macron braces for a national strike

Wheelie bins went back up in front of lycées across France on Monday morning. Students in Paris and its suburbs, plus Lille, Toulouse and Marseille, blockaded school entrances while police outside some sites tried to drag the barricades away and made arrests. It was the first day back after a two-week holiday, and the movement showed no sign of cooling.

Students' unions shrugged off Emmanuel Macron's appeal to end the blockades, which have been running since September and have grown into one of the biggest protest waves and social crises of his presidency. The education ministry counted 41 blocked high schools, roughly 1% of the national total, while students' unions put the figure at 150.

Education minister Édouard Geffray said the school year is now "at risk" for pupils in their final years, warning that hundreds of thousands have gone four or five weeks without classes once holidays are counted. He called the blockades "illegal" and said his priority is getting children back into classrooms. The headteachers' union SNPDEN-UNSA echoed the alarm, saying coursework, final-year exams and university applications are all under threat.

Nathanaël Combary of the school students' union Renouveau Lycéen, who also belongs to Macron's centrist Renaissance party, said pupils must keep up their "battle of strength" with the government. He told BFMTV that measures offered last week, including caps on some class sizes and a review of the university applications platform, fall short of what students need. Protests, he argued, remain the only way for schoolchildren to force a response.

In Montpellier, footage of a 53-year-old school nurse being forced face-down, handcuffed and taken into police custody near a barricade drew sharp criticism. Socialist senator Hussein Bourgi accused the government of "misconduct" and "provocation." The local prefect defended the arrest, saying the woman had insulted officers and resisted police.

The pressure isn't easing. University students' unions plan more barricades at faculties on Tuesday, and trade unions have called a large-scale strike for Thursday, with rail workers, teachers and private-sector employees expected to join demonstrations in cities nationwide over school conditions, the cost of living and low salaries. Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said he will meet school students' unions again next week.