Morning opening: French protests continue to escalate with 400 schools closed on Friday
Jakub Krupa
Some 100 schools have been severely damaged during French high school protests that escalated this week into “urban violence,” with 40 headteachers injured, according to the latest figures from the French education ministry.
The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests.
Nearly 3,000 lycée students – aged between 15 and 18 – have been detained since the start of the protests, including 1,949 on Thursday alone, the interior ministry said.
During a call with local prosecutors last night, the justice minister Gérald Darmanin urged them to pursue civil liability claims so that parents are made financially responsible for damage caused by their children.
Meanwhile, education minister Édouard Geffray asked parents for help, warning that “children are in danger on the streets.”
But there are no signs of tensions going down, with first incidents reported near the Jean-Rostand high school in Strasbourg and the Simone-Veil high school in Marseille. Some 400 schools remain closed today.
Damages from this week’s protests are likely to go into hundreds of millions euros, with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region reporting 25 million in damages.
I will keep an eye on that for you, and bring you all the latest from Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, too.
It’s Friday, 2 October 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Key events
Swedish Social Democratic leader Andersson gets second chance to form government
There are also big news lines emerging from Sweden, as the parliament speaker Andreas Norlén has asked Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson to have another go at forming the new Swedish government.
She will be given a week, starting on Monday, to see if she can build a government that would secure enough support in the new parliament. At the end of that period she will need to report back or ask for an extension.
The move comes just days after Andersson said on Monday she was unable to secure enough backing after a potential coalition partner backed Norlén, a centre-right politician, for the post of the speaker (Europe Live, Monday).
It’s worth remembering that Sweden runs on the principle of “negative parliamentarism,” meaning that any PM needs to see an absence of an absolute majority against them – instead of an absolute majority in favour – which creates a bit of breathing space as parties can still abstain (Europe Live, Swedish election night).
Let’s see what she can do in the next few days.
The prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France told BFMTV that the situation on the ground was “incomparable” to the riots on Thursday, with “far fewer demonstrators” joining the protests today.
11 schools in the region are affected, while 55 switched to e-learning, Jacques Witkowski told the broadcaster.
Morning opening: French protests continue to escalate with 400 schools closed on Friday
Jakub Krupa
Some 100 schools have been severely damaged during French high school protests that escalated this week into “urban violence,” with 40 headteachers injured, according to the latest figures from the French education ministry.
The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests.
Nearly 3,000 lycée students – aged between 15 and 18 – have been detained since the start of the protests, including 1,949 on Thursday alone, the interior ministry said.
During a call with local prosecutors last night, the justice minister Gérald Darmanin urged them to pursue civil liability claims so that parents are made financially responsible for damage caused by their children.
Meanwhile, education minister Édouard Geffray asked parents for help, warning that “children are in danger on the streets.”
But there are no signs of tensions going down, with first incidents reported near the Jean-Rostand high school in Strasbourg and the Simone-Veil high school in Marseille. Some 400 schools remain closed today.
Damages from this week’s protests are likely to go into hundreds of millions euros, with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region reporting 25 million in damages.
I will keep an eye on that for you, and bring you all the latest from Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, too.
It’s Friday, 2 October 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
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