Greta Thunberg joins French school protests as students demand functioning classrooms
SAINT-DENIS, FRANCE — Greta Thunberg joined protesting high-school students outside Paul Éluard lycée in the working-class Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Tuesday, October 13, as a revolt over deteriorating public education continued into its fourth week. The students are demanding enough teachers, decent school buildings and an end to conditions they say are undermining their chances of an education.
The Swedish climate campaigner appeared alongside hundreds of pupils and supporters. The Associated Press reported that students described neglected facilities, including rat infestations, while demonstrators continued to mobilize despite arrests, injuries and exhaustion. Her appearance drew international attention to a movement that began with students' own complaints, not a celebrity-led campaign.
Protests extended beyond Saint-Denis. According to reporting by El País on October 13, about 200 educational establishments were closed, some preventively, during the latest day of action. In France's schools, the disputes are not only about one damaged building: pupils have protested oversized classes, staff shortages, difficult timetables and an admissions system they consider unfair.
A public-service revolt
The mobilization traces back to grievances at a lycée in Créteil, east of Paris. Students have since drawn attention to the daily consequences of underinvestment: lessons disrupted because teachers are missing, rooms that cannot be used comfortably and additional pressure on working families already struggling to support their children.
After earlier demonstrations, the government announced a plan to bring in 3,000 qualified education staff. That concession did not end the movement. Students and some teachers and parents argue that a national hiring pledge has to translate into staffed classrooms, repairs and material improvements on the ground. A promised number is not the same as a working timetable.
The French authorities have also faced criticism for a forceful policing response. The Associated Press reported large numbers of arrests over the course of the protests and allegations of injuries. Those figures and allegations require careful attribution: not every arrest is a conviction, and disputed police actions should be investigated on their own evidence.
Budget politics enters the classroom
The school revolt arrives as France debates spending restraint and the future of public services. The question facing the government is whether its education commitments will be funded and delivered, or whether staffing and building failures will continue to fall most heavily on children without the means to seek alternatives.
For young protesters, educational inequality is physical and immediate. A class cancelled for lack of a teacher cannot be recovered by a public-relations statement. A neglected building cannot be repaired by telling students to wait for the next budget. Demonstrators say those conditions are precisely why they have refused to go home.
Thunberg's visit adds a recognizable international voice, but the test of success belongs to the pupils: safe facilities, adequate teaching and a clear answer from the state on how and when conditions will improve. With fresh protests on October 13, the movement has not accepted the government's partial concessions as the end of the dispute.
Lead photograph: ARCHIVE French student demonstration in Paris, October 6, 2026; FreCha / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Documentary photo presented in a 4:3 editorial crop. This is not a photograph of Greta Thunberg's October 13 appearance.
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