France freezes public-sector pay and high schools grind to a halt
The September 29, 2026 strike left 338 high schools still affected in the end-of-day tally and 440 arrests, with the eight civil-service federations out on the streets. The 2027 budget, the last of Emmanuel Macron’s term, freezes the index point (the reference unit used by the French state to calculate civil servants’ base pay) and leaves the new military spending increase outside the deficit target.
A high-school occupation in September is routine in France. What changed in 2026 was the clock. On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Ministry of Education counted 338 high schools still affected in the end-of-day tally, 45 of them blockaded and 46 under attempted blockade, and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced 440 arrests, most of them minors, with two-thirds of the cases taken into police custody, 48 security agents injured and seven hydrochloric acid attacks against law-enforcement forces. The eight civil-service federations called more than 170 demonstrations across the country for the same day, two days before the 2027 budget was to be presented to the Council of Ministers.
The injury figures do not reconcile across sources because each count measures a different side. The Interior Ministry, which counts law-enforcement forces, was reporting 48 agents injured on Tuesday; the Ministry of Education counted at least 10 education staff members injured — a teacher assaulted in Nord, a school principal hit by a pyrotechnic device shot in Hauts-de-Seine — and 31 injured among students and personnel in the end-of-day tally. The Île-de-France region, chaired by Valérie Pécresse, reported 75 high schools affected, 20 of them hit by clashes or vandalism, and 20 injured. On Wednesday the 30th, the Education Minister tallied 76 injured among students and staff on the days of mobilization, a figure that matches none of the others because it does not measure the same universe.
The movement was born in the outskirts of Paris and spread across the country. On Tuesday, the 29th, there were clashes with police in Lille, Rennes, Nantes, Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and Lyon, with garbage bins set on fire, bus shelters wrecked and tear gas aimed at students throwing bottles and stones. The high schools’ demands are material: overcrowded classes, teacher shortages, buildings unfit for use and schedules that take up the whole day. Teachers and firefighters walked out on the same day.
In the civil service, the strike was uneven and the two sides’ numbers do not match. The Ministry of Education registered 11.47% of its staff on strike and 13.71% among teachers; the primary-school union estimated 40% in that segment and the secondary-school union, 38%. In the streets, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) counted more than 300,000 demonstrators nationwide, with 70,000 in Paris, while the Interior Ministry counted 206,000 nationwide and 30,000 in the capital. The statement calling the day of action, signed by the eight federations on September 3, 2026, demands an across-the-board pay raise, indexation of the index point to inflation and budgetary resources matching the missions of public services.
On Monday, September 28, 2026, the Interior Minister counted 164 arrests and, among the day’s injured, 12 law-enforcement members, eight teachers (three of them school principals) and a dozen students. That same day, the Interior and Education ministers announced that law enforcement would intervene in cases of violence and total blockade, with “proportional use of force,” and began describing the blockades as “urban violence”, a term the French government uses for episodes of violence in working-class neighborhoods. Education Minister Édouard Geffray accused leftist deputies of La France Insoumise of “political instrumentalization of youth,” and Jean-Luc Mélenchon replied that the prime minister had “ordered the repression”; Sébastien Lecornu spoke of an irresponsible escalation.
The index point
The index point is the unit on which every French public servant’s salary is calculated. Freezing it for a year, as the government proposes for 2027, means no across-the-board raise will be granted. Lecornu announced the measure in an interview with Le Figaro published on September 17, 2026, estimating a €2 billion gain from the freeze and promising talks with unions so that the lowest salaries are not left exposed to inflation. The entire adjustment is a €54 billion effort, and the draft’s deficit target is 4.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) excluding the new military spending increase; with it, the target reaches 5%.
The deficit target the government presents is 4.8% of Gross Domestic Product excluding the new military spending increase — and 5% with it.
After the strike
The story does not end on the day of the strike. The Union syndicale lycéenne (USL), the leading organization of French secondary-school students, and the Union étudiante called for blockades to resume on Thursday, October 1, 2026 — the same day the Council of Ministers receives the budget — and for a national demonstration on October 6, 2026. The eight civil-service federations have not yet scheduled the next national day of action.
The draft the Council of Ministers receives on October 1, 2026 will show how much France intends to spend in each area; the deficit target that accompanies it already shows what is left out of the reckoning. Meanwhile, 338 high schools ended Tuesday, September 29, 2026, still affected and 440 people, most of them minors, were arrested — and the next national demonstration is already scheduled for October 6, 2026.