Headteacher doused in petrol as student protests rage across France; PM holds crisis meeting

Attackers doused a headteacher in petrol and started fires at at least two schools on Thursday, officials said, as increasingly violent student protests against staff shortages and dilapidated buildings raged across France, Reuters reported.

The headteacher was attacked at Victor Hugo high school in Marseille and suffered injuries, the prosecutor’s office said, without giving further details. Earlier, hundreds of young people surrounded a fire truck that had arrived to put out a blaze at the city’s Saint-Exupéry high school; police said the attackers forced the firefighters to flee and then set the vehicle alight. In Nantes, the fire at Nelson Mandela high school was brought under control with no injuries, and the building was evacuated, deputy mayoral aide Olivier Chateau told broadcaster franceinfo.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office held a crisis meeting on Thursday afternoon. Dozens of people have been injured and hundreds arrested — most of them teenagers, officials said. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said troublemakers were moving from school to school inciting violence, while Education Minister Edouard Geffray said schools should hold classes remotely if protesters blocked the premises. “Violence will not keep our students from their fundamental right to an education,” Geffray posted on X.

The demonstrations and blockades, which began last week, have become a political flashpoint after the government announced deeply unpopular spending cuts in its 2027 budget on Thursday. Flip News has been following the unrest since the first blockades and the 440 detentions reported earlier this week.