In Paris, students and teachers marched together in a joint rally, demanding that the authorities increase funding for education, reduce class sizes, fill teacher shortages and repair school buildings.
Participants in the action carried flags and placards, set off flares and chanted slogans. According to the organizers, more than 250,000 people took part in the Paris demonstration; no official police estimate of the crowd size was available at the time of publication.
The protest movement began in late September with an action outside the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil, a Paris suburb, where teachers went on strike over a shortage of staff and resources. Blockades of educational institutions and rallies then quickly spread across the country. Students complain about overcrowded classes, canceled lessons due to the lack of substitutes for sick teachers, the poor condition of buildings and overloaded schedules.
Actions in a number of cities were accompanied by arson of trash containers, blocking of school entrances and clashes with police. Authorities reported injured law enforcement officers, and by early October the protests had disrupted the work of more than 1,200 high schools.
