School blockades: more than 600 arrests in two days, two high-school students wounded in the face by police fire
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Launched on 21 September at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil (Val-de-Marne), the blockade movement against underfunding had spread to more than 400 high schools by Tuesday 29 September. In two days, more than 600 people, most of them minors, were arrested. Videos, legal complaints and an IGPN investigation implicate several police interventions.
A high-school student injured in the face, sitting on the ground, on the sidelines of the blockade of the Balzac high school. Tours, 30 September 2026. Blurred image taken from a video posted on Instagram.
Protesting against unreplaced teachers, overcrowded classes and the shortage of school nurses, social workers and teaching assistants, high-school students have been blockading their schools for more than a week, first in Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, then across France. According to the Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, 440 people were arrested on Tuesday 29 September, “mainly minors”, around two thirds of whom were placed in police custody. The day before, 164 arrests had been recorded near high schools. On Tuesday evening, the Ministry of Education still counted nearly 340 schools affected, 45 of them blockaded; the high-school students’ union USL (Union syndicale lycéenne) claimed 400. The Education Minister, Édouard Geffray, reported at least ten staff members injured and several pupils hurt, notably by firework mortars. No official count of students injured during police interventions has been released.
These interventions follow the framework set out in a telegram dated 26 September, sent by the two ministers to prefects and regional education authorities: in the event of a total blockade, police intervention “must be initiated after consultation with the head of the school”, with “a proportionate use of force”. The SNES-FSU, the main secondary teachers’ union, has condemned police interventions it considers violent.
Shots to the face, violence reported in police custody
On Monday 28 September, at around 10:30 a.m., outside the Château-d’Épluches vocational high school in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (Val-d’Oise), a 14-year-old student was hit in the face by a projectile fired at point-blank range by a police officer with a Cougar launcher, a weapon designed to fire grenades. Taken to hospital in Pontoise, he has several broken teeth, according to the Pontoise public prosecutor. In the video, as described by France 3, the teenager, facing three officers, is struck, then hit with a baton, responds with a kick, and is then hit in the jaw. The prosecutor’s office, quoted by franceinfo, states that he had come into contact with a female unit commander and that a second officer fired while he had fallen to the ground. The footage shows a direct, flat-trajectory shot hitting the teenager straight in the face. The prosecutor has opened two investigations: one, entrusted to the IGPN (the police oversight body), into the shot; the other into violence the student is accused of against a female officer.
The day before, six lawyers from the Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis bars had denounced violence committed during arrests and in police custody. According to their statement, a 15-year-old allegedly arrived at the Saint-Denis police station with his face covered in blood, was reportedly slapped several times there and did not see a doctor until six hours after his custody began; the proceedings against him were dropped, and he was hospitalised on his release with a suspected skull fracture. A 16-year-old pupil reports being punched in the liver during his arrest, then slapped at the police station. The lawyers have filed complaints and referred the matter to the IGPN.
In Grenoble, on 28 September, a video of the intervention outside the Emmanuel-Mounier high school, shared by a local elected official, shows a young person being violently pinned to the ground; the official, who describes two punches to a student’s face by a CRS riot police officer, has referred the matter to the public prosecutor under Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
On Wednesday morning, 30 September, in Tours, a high-school student was seriously injured in the face on the sidelines of the blockade of the Balzac high school. According to several witnesses interviewed by ICI Touraine, he was hit by a police LBD shot (a rubber-bullet launcher). In a widely shared video, he can be seen sitting on the ground, the area around his eye covered in blood. The Indre-et-Loire prefecture, which does not at this stage confirm the origin of the shot, says the officers’ body cameras were switched on and that their footage will be analysed. He was taken to the emergency department.
The USL and the Union étudiante are calling for new blockades on Thursday 1 October and a national demonstration on Tuesday 6 October.