Protests spread across France as ‘yellow vests’ set to join

Demonstrations began in mid-September at schools and have expanded, tapping into wider grievances.

Protesters rally in Paris on October 17, 2026 [AFP]

Paris, France – Saturday is a day of many unknowns. That was how the French newspaper Le Monde described it as France braced for possible nationwide demonstrations bringing together high school students, trade unions and “yellow vest” activists.

The protests began in mid-September at a high school in the Paris suburb of Creteil, where students took to the streets over dilapidated buildings, overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and what they see as a deeply unequal education system.

list 1 of 3 Presidential hopeful Melenchon joins France school protest march

list 2 of 3 France’s mounting debt: Is Europe next?

list 3 of 3 ‘Boiling point’: Why students are protesting against Albania’s Edi Rama

Since then, the mobilisation has spread to thousands of “lycees”, or upper secondary schools, across the country. It is now beginning to reflect broader anxieties in a country grappling with a combination of fiscal pressures, economic stagnation and mounting social discontent.

Teachers, trade unions and university students have joined the movement.

On Saturday, some “yellow vest” activists – remnants of the participants in the grassroots cost-of-living protests that shook President Emmanuel Macron’s first term in 2018 – have also called on supporters to join the students.

“High school students are fighting for their future. Workers are fighting to earn a living from their labour. Retirees are fighting to preserve their dignity. Our paths may differ, but our concerns can converge,” Jerome Rodrigues, a prominent “yellow vest” activist, said in a video message released last week that called on people to join Saturday’s demonstrations.

Now France is waiting to see whether those calls will translate into a large, coordinated mobilisation.

Authorities have described the unrest as among the most violent in decades, saying more than 900 police have been injured since the start of the protests. But critics argued that although some demonstrators have engaged in violence, they represent a minority and the actions of a few risk overshadowing the grievances of the wider movement.

The government has also faced criticism over its response to the protests, including the detention of thousands of minors and the use of force against young demonstrators.

More than 6,700 children had been taken into police custody since mid-September, according to reports published this week.

Protesters clash with police during a demonstration against the high cost of living, in Paris on October 17, 2026 [AFP]

Human rights lawyers said several teenage students have suffered warlike injuries.

Two cases have drawn particular attention: A 15-year-old lost his hand in the explosion of a stun grenade outside a school in the northern city of Lens, and a 16-year-old in western Tours lost his sight due to an injury caused by a rubber bullet.

There are fears of further clashes on Saturday.

“This is a moment of fatigue in the country,” Prime Minister Sebastian Lecornu said on Thursday. “We are in an atmosphere of perma-crisis: wars, inflation and issues surrounding purchasing power.”

The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of inflaming the protests. The party has rejected the accusation.

While France suspended the use of stun grenades for the student demonstrations, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday that he authorised police to use them in the event of what he called “urban violence”.

Nunez also said he is expecting a “fairly significant” turnout on Saturday.

Hundreds of protest sites

Calls on social media for members of past protest movements to join the current one have been made for weeks. The website 17octobregiletjaune.net , which tracks “yellow vest” actions, listed more than 1,750 planned protest locations across the country.

The government has tried to quell student anger by scrapping plans to increase some higher education registration fees and promising to deploy 3,000 substitute teachers to high schools. This week, it set up a national online survey for pupils to hear their concerns.

But Mathieu Roger-Lacan, a French literature teacher in a disadvantaged area and author of A Language of One’s Own, a book about the growing language gap, argued that these measures fail to address the deeper problem: an education system that struggles to provide equal opportunities.

“If you have a pool that is leaking, the answer should not be to put more water into it but to work on its structure – and that costs money too,” he said.

For Roger-Lacan, the problem is not simply how much France spends on education but how it distributes those resources.

A government report published this week said that 32 percent of the French education ministry’s budget for next year will go towards funding the pensions of retired civil servants.

Students are not only complaining about deteriorating school buildings and overcrowded classrooms but also expressing a deeper anxiety about their future.

For many, a diploma no longer feels like a guarantee of stable employment or social mobility. That concern is compounded by questions about the quality of education itself amid evidence of persistent weaknesses in French students’ academic performance.

In September, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said that French 15-year-olds’ results in mathematics and reading had fallen to among their lowest levels on record.

“There is a gap between the diploma we give at the end of school, which is given to a huge part of the population, and the reality around us, which is that many of these young students have great difficulties even in writing French,” Roger-Lacan said.

The protests come at a very difficult time for the government, which is caught between demands for better-funded public services and the need to rein in France’s debt.

The government recorded a deficit of 152.5 billion euros ($171.3bn) last year, equivalent to 5.1 percent of France’s gross domestic product (GDP). By contrast, the European Union average is 3.1 percent.

Meanwhile, public debt ballooned to 115.6 percent of GDP, the third highest in the EU after Greece and Italy.

Lecornu’s proposed 2027 budget seeks to reduce the deficit through spending restraint and tax measures, including a freeze on public sector pay and limits on pension increases.

Whether the government can make those savings without deepening public anger is another question.

The debate touches a nerve in France, where the welfare state and access to public services remain central political issues.

Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 triggered months of mass demonstrations in 2023, exposing deep opposition to reforms that many saw as unfairly burdening workers.

Now as the government prepares its next budget, it faces the challenge of persuading the public that spending cuts and other savings are necessary without further eroding confidence in public institutions.

The political stakes are high. The budget bill will be debated in a deeply divided parliament as parties position themselves before the 2027 presidential election, which will mark the end of Macron’s presidency.

示威活动从9月中旬开始在学校举行，并逐渐扩大，反映了更广泛的不满情绪。

2026年10月17日，抗议者在巴黎集会 [法新社]

法国巴黎——周六充满未知数。法国《世界报》如此形容这一天，因为法国正严阵以待，应对可能席卷全国的示威游行，届时高中生、工会成员和“黄背心”运动人士都将参与其中。

抗议活动始于 9 月中旬，地点是巴黎郊区克雷泰伊的一所高中。学生们走上街头，抗议破旧的校舍、拥挤的教室、教师短缺以及他们认为极度不平等的教育体系。

名单1/3：总统候选人梅朗雄加入法国学校抗议游行

列表 2/3：法国不断增长的债务：欧洲会是下一个吗？

列表 3/3 “沸点”：为什么学生抗议阿尔巴尼亚总统埃迪·拉马

此后，这场动员运动蔓延至全国数千所高中。如今，它开始反映出这个国家在财政压力、经济停滞和日益增长的社会不满情绪的多重困扰下，普遍存在的焦虑情绪。

教师、工会和大学生都加入了这场运动。

周六，一些“黄背心”运动的积极分子——他们是2018年撼动法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙第一任期的草根生活成本抗议活动的参与者——也呼吁支持者加入学生的行列。

“高中生们在为自己的未来而战。工人们在为靠自己的劳动谋生而战。退休人员在为维护自己的尊严而战。我们的道路或许不同，但我们的诉求却可以汇聚在一起。”著名“黄背心”运动人士杰罗姆·罗德里格斯在上周发布的一段视频信息中说道，该视频呼吁人们参加周六的示威活动。

现在法国正等待观察这些呼吁是否会转化为大规模、协调一致的动员。

当局称此次骚乱是数十年来最严重的暴力事件之一，并表示自抗议活动开始以来，已有超过900名警察受伤。但批评人士认为，尽管一些示威者参与了暴力活动，但他们只是少数，少数人的行为可能会掩盖整个运动的诉求。

政府对示威活动的应对措施也受到了批评，包括拘留数千名未成年人以及对年轻示威者使用武力。

据本周发布的报道，自9月中旬以来，已有超过6700名儿童被警方拘留。

2026年10月17日，巴黎，抗议者与警方发生冲突，他们举行示威活动，抗议高昂的生活成本。[法新社]

人权律师称，多名青少年学生遭受了类似战争的伤害。

有两起案件引起了特别关注：一名 15 岁的少年在北部城市朗斯的一所学校外被一枚眩晕弹炸断了一只手；一名 16 岁的少年在西部城市图尔被橡皮子弹击中而失明。

人们担心周六会发生进一步冲突。

“现在是国家疲惫不堪的时刻，”总理塞巴斯蒂安·莱科尔努周四表示。“我们身处一场永无休止的危机之中：战争、通货膨胀和购买力问题。”

政府指责极左翼政党“不屈法国”（LFI）煽动抗议活动。该党否认了这一指控。

尽管法国暂停了在学生示威活动中使用眩晕弹，但内政部长洛朗·努内斯周五表示，他已授权警方在发生他所谓的“城市暴力”事件时使用眩晕弹。

努涅斯还表示，他预计周六会有“相当多”的人参加。

数百个抗议地点

数周以来，社交媒体上不断有人呼吁以往抗议运动的成员加入当前的抗议活动。追踪“黄背心”运动的网站17octobregiletjaune.net列出了全国各地超过1750个计划中的抗议地点。

政府试图通过取消提高部分高等教育注册费的计划，并承诺向高中派遣3000名代课教师来平息学生的愤怒情绪。本周，政府还设立了一项全国性的在线调查，以了解学生的意见和建议。

但马蒂厄·罗杰-拉康（Mathieu Roger-Lacan）是一位在贫困地区任教的法国文学教师，也是《自己的语言》（一本关于日益扩大的语言差距的书）的作者。他认为，这些措施未能解决更深层次的问题：教育系统难以提供平等的机会。

“如果你的游泳池漏水，解决办法不应该是往里面加水，而是要修缮它的结构——而这也要花钱，”他说。

罗杰·拉康认为，问题不仅仅在于法国在教育上投入了多少资金，而在于它如何分配这些资源。

本周发布的一份政府报告称，法国教育部明年预算的 32% 将用于支付退休公务员的养老金。

学生们不仅抱怨校舍破旧、教室拥挤，还表达了对未来的更深层次的焦虑。

对许多人来说，文凭不再是稳定就业或社会流动的保障。而法国学生学业成绩持续低迷的迹象，更加剧了人们对教育质量本身的担忧。

9 月，经济合作与发展组织 (OECD) 表示，法国 15 岁学生的数学和阅读成绩已降至历史最低水平之一。

罗杰-拉康说：“我们在学校毕业时颁发的文凭（颁发给很大一部分人）与我们周围的现实之间存在差距，现实是，许多年轻学生甚至在法语写作方面都存在很大的困难。”

抗议活动发生之际，法国政府处境十分艰难，一方面要应对民众要求增加公共服务资金的呼声，另一方面又需要控制法国的债务。

去年，法国政府录得1525亿欧元（1713亿美元）的财政赤字，相当于法国国内生产总值（GDP）的5.1%。相比之下，欧盟平均水平为3.1%。

与此同时，公共债务飙升至GDP的115.6%，在欧盟国家中仅次于希腊和意大利，位列第三。

莱科尔努提出的 2027 年预算案旨在通过控制支出和税收措施来减少赤字，包括冻结公共部门工资和限制养老金增长。

政府能否在不加剧公众愤怒的情况下节省这些开支，则是另一个问题。

这场辩论触动了法国的敏感神经，因为福利国家和公共服务的可及性仍然是法国的核心政治议题。

马克龙决定将退休年龄从 62 岁提高到 64 岁，引发了 2023 年持续数月的大规模示威游行，暴露出民众对改革的强烈反对，许多人认为这些改革给工人带来了不公平的负担。

现在，政府正在准备下一份预算，面临的挑战是如何在不进一步削弱公众对公共机构信心的前提下，说服公众相信削减开支和其他节约措施是必要的。

政治风险很高。由于各党派都在为2027年总统大选做准备，而此次大选也将标志着马克龙总统任期的结束，因此，预算案将在一个严重分裂的议会中进行辩论。