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

PARIS (AP) — 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.

Friday brought more of the scenes that have dominated streets this week: vandalism, garbage fires, teens confronting and taunting police. Officers charging, firing tear gas and making more arrests. By early afternoon, the education ministry reported protests impacting 560 schools.

Taking grievances to France’s streets has long been a rite of passage in the country that spawned the French Revolution of 1789. To name just a few, there were the student protests in 1968, weeks of suburban unrest in 2005 and demonstrations in 2023 against pension reforms.

The students now barricading high-school gates and demonstrating with placards have shown the know-how of veterans — down to wearing masks and goggles against police tear gas.

The timing of these protests — with France engaged in a presidential election race — sets them apart. Candidates campaigning to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in May have seized on the demonstrations as a hot political issue.

And although constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term, Macron also joined the fray, speaking out against protest violence and political manipulation of the young demonstrators.

Here is what you need to know:

Protests first erupted last week in the Paris region and spread nationwide like wildfire, even to smaller towns.

High schoolers are expressing broad grievances — mainly, schools are under-resourced, with dilapidated facilities and insufficient staff. Still, spending on education is one of the costliest items in the state budget that Macron's government proposed this week, with 65.5 billion euros ($74 billion) set aside for schools in the next year. That's more than the proposed 63.4 billion euros for defense.

Students also complain that school days, which often start at 8 a.m., are too exhausting and the university entrance system too complex. Some university students also joined the protests this week.

Macron's government has repeatedly said that it respects the right to peaceful protest. But it also issued written orders for police to break up protests that block access to schools and to rapidly put a stop to violence and vandalism.

Riot police have liberally used tear gas, wielded their batons and made arrests to disperse crowds.

Police and school staff have been targeted with explosive fireworks and other injury-causing projectiles. The interior ministry says acid has been hurled in some cases, and that those intent on destruction and looting have grafted themselves onto the high schoolers' movement and behaved like “criminals and vandals,” instead of “young people legitimately voicing their demands.”

Police made more than 1,900 arrests on Thursday, when 305 officers were hurt, the ministry said.

The protests and confrontations continued Friday, and unrest also spread to neighboring Belgium where about a dozen schools closed in Liege, a day after violence in the city and six arrests there.

There have been broader concerns in France that the schooling system is losing ground to those in other countries and failing in its mission to enable children from disadvantaged backgrounds to move up the social ladder.

Performance gaps are growing between highly advantaged and highly disadvantaged students, and overall scores in reading comprehension and mathematics have plunged, according to the latest PISA report, which evaluates students worldwide.

The government banned smartphones from high schools when the school year started in September, with officials arguing that banishing screens will improve learning. France this year also became the first country in the European Union to ban social media platforms for children under 15, but the country’s top court struck down that measure.

The unrest is sharpening political battle lines between presidential candidates.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has positioned himself firmly on the side of the students and has decried police actions as “savagery” and repressive. Police crowd-control projectiles are suspected in some of the injuries that protesters have suffered.

Mélenchon's critics are accusing his France Unbowed party of stoking violence and seeking to score political points from the protests.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for broader police powers against rioters. Conservative former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, one of Le Pen's main challengers for the presidency, has condemned those who “break things, burn things, or assault people.”

Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

Students hold a sign reading "Stop budget cuts" as they protest against under-resourced schools in front of a high school blockade, in Lyon, France, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Students block the entrance of the high school Arago as they protest against under-resourced schools in Paris, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Firefighters extinguish a fire as students protest against under-resourced schools in Lyon, France, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

French policemen stand in front of burning garbage as high school students protest to demand more resources, in Lille, France, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

Students burn garbage as they protest to demand more resources for school, in Lille, France, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

The Indian airline captain who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a FlyDubai flight said in a live video call that he knew he had to get back on his feet to save passengers after being stabbed by his co-pilot.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was running in Israel’s upcoming election is withdrawing his candidacy following comments over Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Friday. Full coverage is available here.

The FlyDubai captain told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he knew he had to get back on his feet to save everyone on board, after he was stabbed by his co-pilot and the aircraft plunged into a steep descent.

“I had so many wounds. I had fallen down,” Capt. Smit Machchhar said from a hospital in Abu Dhabi. “I was fighting for my life. At one point I realized that if I didn’t get up … then passengers would lose their lives.”

Machchhar was seriously injured in Wednesday’s attack but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to enter and restrain the attacker as the Boeing 737 descended sharply, witnesses and Israeli authorities said.

The flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, with 182 people on board, was diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker, an Omani national, was arrested in Saudi Arabia and was undergoing interrogation there. His motive for the attack was not immediately clear.

Israel was set to begin repatriation flights to bring back passengers stranded in the United Arab Emirates after commercial travel between the two countries was suspended following the attack.

— More coverage on the attempt to crash the plane is available here.

Sami Abou Shehadeh, the chairman of the left-wing Balad party, said he would withdraw from Israel’s upcoming election after the country’s Supreme Court president said a majority of justices were prepared to uphold his disqualification.

Abou Shehadeh’s candidacy was challenged over an editorial he wrote in the newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The article did not condemn Hamas and argued that it was surprising violence hadn’t erupted earlier given conditions in Gaza.

In a subsequent article, Abou Shehadeh, a former member of Israel’s Knesset, called Hamas’ attack both unacceptable and a crime. He said he hadn’t known the scale of the violence when he wrote the first article.

The court weighed whether his remarks violated an Israeli law barring candidates who reject Israel’s existence, incite racism or support armed struggle against Israel. His lawyers said that barring him would reinterpret the law and create a new threshold.

For Abou Shehadeh, who was running on the Arab parties’ Joint List, withdrawing avoids a court precedent that could be used to disqualify Palestinian candidates in future Israeli elections, his party said.

About 20% of Israel's citizens are of Palestinian descent.

Egypt has expelled a diplomat from the Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo in a reciprocal move after Addis Ababa declared an Egyptian diplomat there unwelcome, Egyptian state media reported, marking a further escalation in tensions between the two countries.

Egypt’s al-Qahera News said Egypt declared a counselor at the Ethiopian Embassy persona non grata, giving him 48 hours to leave the country. On Thursday, Ethiopia ordered an Egyptian Embassy staff member to leave the country, according to al-Qahera.

Tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt have recently intensified after Ethiopia accused Egypt of supporting rebel forces in renewed fighting in the Tigray region. At the heart of their longstanding tensions is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD, which aims to double Ethiopia’s electricity-generating capacity. However, Egypt fears it could significantly reduce Nile water flows.

This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

This screengrab from Narendra Modi YouTube Channel shows Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking with FlyDubai pilot Capt. Smit Machchhar on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. (Narendra Modi YouTube Channel via AP )