PARIS: French teenagers on Tuesday set fire to rubbish bins and threw projectiles at police who responded with batons and tear gas, as pupils kept up blockades and protests at hundreds of high schools, demanding better conditions.

The movement in the lycees, attended by students aged 15 to 18 for their final three years of secondary education in France, has angered the government. Since last week, students have staged protests outside schools over grievances including timetables, class sizes and a shortage of teachers as well as overheated classrooms during the recent heatwaves.

The protests started in the Ile-de-France region around Paris but have now spread to other cities nationwide. According to the education ministry, 400 schools were affected by protests or disruptions on Tuesday, out of some 3,700 across the country.

Some 40 were blockaded and 44 facing attempted blockades.

There were 40 arrests on Tuesday and 10 people — students and staff — were wounded. In one school in the Paris suburbs, teachers formed a line around protesting students in a bid to protect them from the police.

Masked pupils gathered outside the Lycee Cesar Baggio in Lille, in northern France, setting bins on fire, a photographer reported. Bus shelters and advertising billboards were vandalised, with bottles, paving stones and other missiles hurled at police, who responded by firing tear gas.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026