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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
John Leicester and Samuel Petrequin

What to know as France school protests morph into unrest and the streets are seething

France Protest - (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries, schools set on fire in France. When the summer vacation ended and the new term started just a month ago, few could have imagined that the academic year would so quickly descend into nationwide student protests — and turmoil.

In a country beset by crises — both foreign and domestic — the eruption and rapid spread of protests by unhappy teenage high schoolers caught France off guard.

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