Tens of thousands of French civil servants walked off the job on Tuesday in a one-day strike over pay and planned budget cuts, as separate student demonstrations outside hundreds of schools ended with hundreds of arrests and nearly 50 police officers injured, authorities said.
Two fronts before the budget
Major public-sector unions said roughly 300,000 workers joined marches from Paris to regional capitals, demanding higher wages and relief from a government proposal to freeze base salaries for state employees in 2027 to save about 2 billion euros. Police put the Paris turnout closer to 30,000. Teachers, firefighters and hospital staff were among those who stayed away or rallied, two days before the government is scheduled to present its draft budget and seven months before the presidential election.
At the same time, students staged protests at more than 400 schools over class sizes, teacher shortages and overheated classrooms after summer heatwaves. Officials said about 40 schools were blockaded and 44 faced attempted blockades. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFMTV that 440 people were in police custody after clashes in which students set fire to rubbish bins and threw projectiles; officers responded with batons and tear gas. Ten students or staff members were wounded, along with 48 law enforcement officials, the interior ministry said.
What the government is defending
The cabinet has framed the 2027 pay freeze as fiscal discipline at a moment when France, like much of Europe, faces weak growth, high borrowing costs and energy prices inflated by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Unions argue the savings would come out of workers who kept hospitals and schools running through the pandemic and now face inflation on groceries and rent. Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon joined the Paris march and urged a wider mobilization against the budget draft.
Student unions, meanwhile, say the education ministry has not hired enough teachers to match enrollment and has left campuses without reliable cooling during record heat. The demonstrations began in the Île-de-France region around Paris and spread to other cities this week, overlapping with the public-sector strike rather than merging into a single organized coalition.
The education ministry said just over 11 percent of teachers and other school staff joined the strike, while aviation regulators warned of possible flight disruptions at some airports. Professional firefighters, citing this summer’s large wildfires, marched in their own column in Paris before joining the wider union demonstration toward the Place de la Nation.
What happens next
Parliament will debate the budget after Thursday’s unveiling, and both labor federations and student groups have signaled further action if the pay freeze remains. Prosecutors will decide how many of those held Tuesday face charges; Nunez did not break down how many were minors. For President Emmanuel Macron’s camp, the twin unrest tests whether the government can pass austerity measures without reigniting the street politics that have disrupted French presidencies since the yellow-vest movement.