A slowdown the government describes as a trend

The movement began about three weeks ago and brings together several youth groups, and the sociologist Vincent Tiberj told Ouest-France that youth mobilisations are not new, citing Parcoursup in 2019 and the pension reform as earlier examples. On Friday 9 October, a government source described a 'clear slowdown' in the mobilisation, saying it had been felt for several days and had become more localised, either through local politicisation or a genuine local problem. The ministry of Education said more than 96% of lycées were open on Friday morning, with 141 of 3,700 establishments closed, down from 157 at midday the previous day. According to the same source, the closed schools were mainly in the Paris region, in the north and west of the country, and near Lyon, and damage linked to protests and blockades cost at least 30 million euros.

2026-10-08, midday157

2026-10-09, morning141

2026-10-08, midday

157 establishments

2026-10-09, morning

141 establishments

Data from the article text

Three thousand replacement teachers

Education minister Édouard Geffray announced on TF1 on Thursday 8 October that 3,000 replacement teachers would be deployed in the schools where the situation is most critical, and he then visited a lycée in Cachan, in the Paris region, to detail the plan. Le Figaro's analysis concluded that these teachers were already part of the staffing but had not been assigned, which raised questions about how replacements are managed. Mediapart questioned whether such a pool was enough to address the shortage of replacements in schools. Higher education minister Philippe Baptiste told Franceinfo that the teachers would be essentially TZR, tenured teachers assigned to a replacement zone, and rejected any suggestion of 'bricolage'. The teachers will learn their assignments gradually by the start of next week.

Students plan a new blockade on Tuesday

Philémon Jouglet-Marcus, the USL federal representative in Paris, rejected the idea that the movement was losing momentum when he spoke on franceinfo on Friday.

“The motivation is still there.”

He said there had been no call to mobilise on Friday, that some schools were closed administratively, and that police were present from 6 a.m. at some establishments to prevent blockades. He described a shift towards more traditional demonstrations, partly in partnership with teachers, and called for broad public support for the mobilisation planned on Tuesday 13 October. A first-year pupil outside the Raymond-Naves lycée in Toulouse said students were keeping their strength for next week and would block the school again on Tuesday. The École nationale des chartes was blocked for the first time on Friday by rubbish bins piled up by about ten students and trainee civil servants, after the ENS Ulm and ENS Saclay.

Local incidents, a Nantes arrest and school grievances

In Lunel (Hérault), a fire near the Louis Feuillade lycée led to the evacuation of the school, the rectorate told AFP. In Nantes, Gaspard, a 15-year-old pupil in seconde at the Jean-Perrin lycée in Rezé, described his arrest by police at the end of a demonstration in the city centre on Tuesday 6 October 2026. A video on social media shows him receiving a blow to the chin from an object that is hard to identify, and he believed he had been hit by an electric stun gun, a claim the prefecture denies. He is considering filing a complaint, and teachers from his school protested outside the building on Thursday 8 October against police violence. At the Rosa-Parks lycée in Saint-Denis, the headteacher tried on Friday to structure dialogue with pupils, who raised timetable problems and inequalities between suburban schools and those in Paris. Vocational lycée pupils in Meaux and Lille say they have been at the front of the movement since it began, denouncing an orientation they did not choose, devalued courses and the contempt their track faces.