The Uprising Spreads: Student Protests Move From France to Belgium, Italy and Greece

It began in mid-September as a local protest by high school students in the Paris region. Within three weeks it had become something larger: a wave of student walkouts, blockades and occupations crossing borders into Belgium, Italy and Greece. Students in each country say much the same thing. Their classrooms are overcrowded, their teachers are not replaced, their buildings are falling apart, and the cost of getting an education keeps rising.

This is the third HistorianSpeaks article on the movement. The first two followed France, where it started. This one follows its spread.

France: The Flashpoint

France remains the center of the movement and the source of its largest numbers. On October 10, the French Ministry of Justice reported 6,877 arrests since the protests began, 86 percent of them minors. Of those arrested, 2,376 face formal charges and 21 are being held in custody. The government estimates at least €30 million in damage.

Behind those figures is a set of grievances students have repeated from the first day: overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers who are never replaced, long school days, crumbling buildings and a widening gap between schools in wealthy areas and schools in poor ones. That last point matters to readers of this site. In France, the poorest schools are concentrated in the working-class suburbs where many Black and North African families live. When students talk about inequality between schools, they are also describing who goes to which school.

Teachers joined the students directly on October 6, when unions including UNSA, the CFDT and the CGT called a national teachers' strike that closed or disrupted hundreds of France's roughly 3,700 lycées. An Odoxa poll for Le Figaro found 62 percent of the French public supported the mobilization.

The movement is now drawing in the adults who run France's schools. On October 9, six teachers' unions — the FSU, UNSA Éducation, FNEC FP FO, CFDT Éducation Formation Recherche Publiques, CGT Educ'action and SUD Éducation — issued a joint call for school staff to strike on Tuesday, October 13. Their statement backs the students' demands on building conditions, inequality, university admissions, staff shortages and unmanageable schedules, and says the students are asking for "more equality and social justice." The unions say the government has still not answered the students, and that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced "nothing concrete" on October 7. Their own demands include canceling the job cuts planned in the 2027 budget, raising salaries, a national pay scale for school assistants, and a plan to renovate school buildings.

The violence of the response has become part of the story. A 15-year-old boy lost his hand to a stun grenade fired by police, an injury that has hardened opinion among students and parents alike.

Belgium: Liège Erupts

The first country to catch the French spark was its French-speaking neighbor. Belgian students began walking out on October 1, and the protests soon spread across the francophone south. In Charleroi, police administratively detained 49 people, 42 of them minors. In Tournai, 11 young people were arrested. In nearby Herstal, the mayor ordered 18 administrative arrests.

Liège became the center of the Belgian protests. By October 7, police had made at least 139 arrests in the city, and clashes included tear gas, fires and looted shops. Students rallied against overcrowded classrooms, poor access to resources and rising public transportation costs in the French-language school system.

"When we saw nothing was changing without protests, we decided we would start," said Amelia Di Salve, a 19-year-old studying to become a teacher. "France did influence us a little."

Belgian officials have told two different stories. Liège mayor Willy Demeyer said "dialogue can be established" and that he hoped young people could have their concerns heard. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin instead blamed an "Antifa-type" movement for "manipulating children." The Liège police chief said the share of minors among those detained had fallen from about 70 percent to around half by October 7, as more adults joined the street clashes. Those claims come from officials with a stake in the outcome, and they have not been independently confirmed.

On October 9, the protest reached the capital. A large student-led march, joined by trade unions, filled the streets of Brussels.

Teachers in Belgium have begun to move as well. On October 8, teachers at schools across Wallonia Picardy — Ath, Leuze, Kain, Tournai, Mouscron and Comines — held a one-hour work stoppage over education reforms, handing out leaflets to parents and students.

Italy: "Let's Do As in France"

In Italy, the movement took the form of school occupations. On October 5, high school students occupied schools in Turin and Rome under the slogan "Facciamo come in Francia" — "Let's do as in France." Italian students named the same grievances as their French counterparts: underfunded schools, decaying buildings and a rising cost of living. A student delegation traveled to Paris to show solidarity, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. No arrest counts from the Italian occupations had been reported at the time of writing.

Greece: A Call for Nationwide Action

Greek students called nationwide school actions for October 8, including assemblies, walkouts, demonstrations and possible occupations. Their demand was direct: more government money for public schools. As in Italy, no arrest figures had been published at the time of writing.

Not One Movement, but One Complaint

The protests are not being organized as a single European campaign. Each country has its own budget fight, its own government and its own history of student activism. What they share is a complaint that governments have spent years asking schools to do more with less, and that young people are the ones paying for it.

History offers a warning to officials who dismiss this as a passing outburst. Student movements have repeatedly forced governments to listen when other voices could not, from the Paris streets of May 1968 to the Soweto uprising of 1976. The Soweto students, too, were told they were being manipulated by outsiders. They were protesting the schools they actually sat in.

Whether this wave produces new funding or simply more arrests will depend on what governments do next. HistorianSpeaks will keep following it, and this article will be updated as the story develops.