French students brave 40-degree heat to protest crumbling schools — and their anger runs deeper than long hours

That chant has echoed across France since high school students took to the streets in mid-September. The slogan may be hard to relate to for some, but the problems embedded in France's public education system run far deeper than complaints about long school days.

According to France 24, the protests are rooted in a broad set of grievances spanning the entire public education system — including excessively long school hours, overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, deteriorating facilities and a lack of transparency in the university admissions process.

The demonstrations, which began on the outskirts of Paris, spread nationwide as high school students vented their frustration over the state of public education. When large-scale protests were organized on Tuesday, rallies took place not only in the capital but also in Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nantes, Strasbourg, Rennes and Toulouse.

As the protests have grown increasingly confrontational, clashes with police have intensified. On Monday, a 15-year-old boy lost a hand during a demonstration in Lens. Videos circulating online show officers in helmets and protective gear using batons to subdue protesters.

While the immediate trigger for the unrest is the poor state of educational infrastructure, analysts say the protests also reflect broader social turmoil — including inflation driven by conflict in the Middle East, bond market instability fueled by fiscal uncertainty and the AI boom, and ongoing political instability.

A survey by a major union representing public school staff found that more than half of France's middle and high schools are short at least one teacher. Across all schools, 69 percent have at least one vacancy among teaching or support staff.

In response, students are calling for large-scale teacher recruitment to ensure every classroom has a dedicated instructor. Their core demands include at least one nurse, one counselor and one career adviser for every 500 students.

The teacher shortage has also contributed to overcrowding. Some classrooms are reported to hold as many as 35 students.

Aging school facilities have added to student frustration. Maintenance and renovation of school and university buildings topped the list of demands published by the student union. Discontent deepened after students endured a summer in which temperatures soared to 40 degrees Celsius in some classrooms.

Students are now calling for an "emergency plan" that would include renovating deteriorating school buildings, installing air conditioning and cooling systems, and improving insulation. Securing "clean, fully functional toilets" is also among their top demands.

As the protests spread, students began recirculating videos they had previously posted on social media to draw attention to the poor conditions inside their schools.

Students at Blaise Cendrars High School in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, posted footage showing a bathroom ceiling with a gaping hole and a classroom where students had to sit through lessons without desks. In the videos, they responded with sardonic humor: "I'm a student at this school. Obviously, there's no roof over my head when I'm in class."

France 24 reported that indoor temperatures in some classrooms reached 38 degrees Celsius during this past summer's heat waves, and noted that roughly two-thirds of France's primary, middle and high schools were built before 1970, making them ill-equipped to cope with extreme heat driven by climate change.

Criticism of the student selection process used by Parcoursup, France's university admissions platform, has also emerged as a central grievance driving the protests.

France traditionally used the baccalaureate as its university entrance system, but introduced Parcoursup in 2018. Under the new system, universities evaluate applicants not only on their final baccalaureate scores but also on their grades over three years of high school, teacher assessments and personal statements. Final-year high school students apply to universities and higher education programs through the platform, with admission decisions based on academic records and application materials.

Students, however, have criticized Parcoursup as opaque and arbitrary. Each university program ranks applicants using its own algorithms and criteria, but students have no way of knowing how they were evaluated or why they were rejected.

One student told France 24: "I wrote more than 10 personal statements without using ChatGPT, and it feels like my application was never even read. It makes no logical sense to me that a student with lower grades than mine got into the program I wanted."

The French government has moved to defuse tensions by promising to expand the education budget, improve school facilities and revise timetables, but the gap between the government and students has shown little sign of narrowing. Students continue to press for more teachers, smaller class sizes and school infrastructure upgrades capable of handling climate-driven heat. The student union leadership has also called on the government to invest an additional 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in high school and university education.

Anais Ella, a spokesperson for the student group Les Lycéens, told CNN that French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu had failed to adequately address the student union's core demands.