Some 40,000 students were on strike at 57 schools across Denmark, including 12,000 to 13,000 at the protest in Copenhagen, according to organizers. Under the banner “Enough is Enough,” 11 high school and university student associations marched from Copenhagen’s City Hall Square to parliament over the proposed cuts to free up funds for defense spending. In a draft budget bill, Denmark’s center-left government plans to abolish the student grant (SU) for students who live with their parents and whose parents’ total annual income exceeds 700,000 Danish kroner (US$104,000). According to the Higher Education Ministry, around 14,000 students are expected to lose their grant, and some 8,000 would see it reduced. Student protests that started in France have spread in recent weeks to other European countries.
Theme: Education
The British government is facing a legal challenge over its recommendation for schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, in a case filed on Monday by the Good Law Project. Seven of the definition’s 11 illustrations include references to Israel. The group’s executive director, Jo Maugham, said rules that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism could be among the drivers of antisemitism. British Jewish group Na’amod said that “Jewish pupils should be safe at school, and antisemitism has to be taken seriously. The IHRA definition doesn’t do that job”.
The Palestinian ministry said, according to TRT World, that Israeli attacks killed 22 students and education workers in Gaza in October. Damage to schools, fuel shortages and restrictions on supplies and travel are further disrupting education across the enclave, with officials warning that the system faces collapse.
French high school students resumed school blockades on Monday, and the country is bracing for more protests. President Emmanuel Macron called for classes to resume after the government announced new measures to address the education crisis, which student groups found insufficient. The head of a student union had said on Sunday that the blockades would restart on Monday.
French students blocked some high schools on Monday, November 2, as they returned from the autumn holidays, determined to reinvigorate the protest movement despite government concessions during the break. Turnout for the blockades is uncertain, and the students vow to “keep up pressure”.
France’s Interior Ministry counted 779 arrests on Saturday, “without major incident in the second part of the evening”, according to RFI. Pierre Sourzat, head of the “Lyceens!” student group, said that some high schools will be blockaded from Monday, November 2, 2026, when students return from a two-week holiday, according to The Hindu. The blockade campaign will restart on Monday, he said, adding that the government’s proposals did not go far enough.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters, most of them young, returned to the streets across France on Saturday in a third consecutive weekend of demonstrations over living costs and education, according to the Associated Press (AP). France’s government estimated 320,000 protesters nationwide on Saturday, fewer than in previous protests, and about 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed, with Paris marches rerouted to the edge of the capital.
More than 160,000 people are expected to join demonstrations across Germany on Saturday, organizers say, in a youth-led movement inspired by protests elsewhere in Europe to demand better education and lower living costs. The rallies, organized by the campaign group Gen Z regelt, are planned in 34 cities including Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. The group says it opposes compulsory military service and wants greater investment in education.
The Gen Z Regelt collective has called protests in German cities for October 31, with more than 150,000 people reportedly registered, according to TRT World. The group demands more education funding, stronger climate action and a fairer distribution of social costs, and in its demands to Chancellor Merz and his coalition government asks for “money for schools instead of cuts” and “an affordable life.”
About eight million children are outside the education system in Sudan, and public schooling is at risk of collapse, the Sudanese Teachers’ Committee said, according to AllAfrica. The teachers’ strike in Khartoum state entered its second consecutive day, with strong turnout in Karari, Bahri and East Nile, according to a committee statement issued on Tuesday.
New rules announced earlier in October by Syria's education ministry restrict certain courses at the two new defense and security colleges exclusively to men, and almost all of them at the security university, according to DW. The colleges are the National University of Defense Sciences and the Syrian University for Security Sciences. The decision has caused controversy inside and outside the country.
The United States Department of Defense designated Confucius Institutes, Chinese-funded cultural centers at universities, as a threat to national security, according to Al Jazeera. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said 80 new “propaganda cells” had appeared across 30 universities under different names and charters with “the same mission: to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students,” and that the Pentagon had systematically dismantled every one of these organizations over the past two months.
The US Defense Department designated Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses known as Confucius Institutes as a threat to US national security, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday. According to him, “80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities had popped up using different names and different charters, but with the same mission: to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students”. Hegseth said the department had “systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations” over the past two months, according to the Guardian.
Azerbaijan has barred 31 Turkish citizens from entering the country over social media remarks that authorities allege threatened the country’s national security and advocated the forcible overthrow of the government in Baku, according to the Middle East Eye. The decision deepens the dispute that began last month, when Azerbaijan banned headscarves in primary and high schools. The move sparked protests in Turkey and turned into a diplomatic crisis, according to the outlet.
The terms of reference for a review commissioned by the British government into antisemitism in schools, seen by the Middle East Eye, say the work will use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely criticised for allegedly being used to target criticism of Israel. According to widely reported accounts, teachers could be told not to wear pro-Palestine badges, including the watermelon symbol, although the report is not set to advise a blanket ban on badges, the Middle East Eye reported.
Thousands of students and teachers took to the streets across Greece on Wednesday to demand higher state funding for education, better facilities and less-crowded classrooms, according to Reuters. About 10,000 demonstrators, including school and university students, rallied peacefully in central Athens and its suburbs, according to police. G1 also reported protests by students, teachers and public servants in the country.
Iran unveiled advanced quantum labs at three academic centers, according to the Mehr News agency. The announcement did not specify which institutions are involved or the scope of the training.
United Nations (UN) experts called on Indian authorities to respect, protect and fulfil the right to peacefully protest and ensure justice for reported violations, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. According to reports cited by the experts, over 7,000 youths, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and party members were reportedly arbitrarily detained in New Delhi and taken to remote centres, where their phones were allegedly seized and protest-related material deleted. In recent months, hundreds of thousands of students and supporters have gathered peacefully against decisions on the education system and, more recently, against voter-roll deletions affecting 130 million people.
France's Interior Ministry said more than 2,300 people were arrested and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes were injured in Saturday's protests — when President Emmanuel Macron declined Interior Minister Laurent Nunez's offer to resign and Nunez admitted losing control in major cities after hundreds of shops were looted, according to Al Jazeera.
Thousands of students took to the streets on Friday (16) in Rome, Milan, Bologna and Turin to demand structural improvements in public education and protest against the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to Opera Mundi. Student groups denounced the progressive deterioration of school infrastructure and demanded that the 13 billion euros earmarked for military spending be redirected to education. Representatives of Opposizione Studentesca d’Alternativa announced a general strike for October 30, and organisers estimate that 400,000 people took part in protests across Italy. According to the police union Siulp, at least 18 officers were injured during the march outside the Education Ministry.
In Azerbaijan, girls wearing headscarves have been turned away from schools, triggering unusual protests involving children, according to DW. On October 12, the Interior Ministry said 37 people had been detained in connection with the protests. Students and teachers say they were turned away, and a primary school teacher was dismissed for refusing to remove her headscarf, according to a relative’s account.
France is set for nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, after weeks of student protests, France 24 reported. The Yellow Vest movement, which eight years ago staged street protests against President Emmanuel Macron, has appealed to teachers, workers, pensioners, farmers and students to join.
The roof of a school in Peshawar collapsed on Thursday, killing 27 pupils and a teacher and leaving more than 30 injured, six in critical condition, according to Lady Reading Hospital, cited by France 24. The Jerusalem Post reported at least 17 students and a teacher killed, citing a local hospital spokesperson.
Demonstrators broke into Albania's Ministry of Education building overnight and set fire to the interior, according to police, who counted 16 arrests. Hundreds of students gathered, threw rocks at the ministry and demanded better university conditions and the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, according to Al Jazeera. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of Tirana on Wednesday, setting fire to a government building and two banks and throwing rocks at police during a protest against rising education costs and corruption, according to Reuters, in a text published by Brasil 247.
More than 160,000 schoolchildren, students and trade unionists marched in cities across France as protests over high school education continued into a third week, according to The Guardian. France’s interior ministry said 161,500 people had turned out across the country on Tuesday, after more than 260,000 last Tuesday and 75,000 on Thursday. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined an early morning protest outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and said: “Young people are not being included in the conversation.” Riot police fired teargas at the end of Tuesday’s marches in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris, and an estimated 90% of France’s universities were disrupted, according to the newspaper.
France readied on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) for fresh nationwide demonstrations in support of students who have been protesting poor classroom conditions for weeks, with authorities and participants wary of further violence, according to The Hindu. Demonstrations on Thursday (October 8, 2026) saw more than 70,000 people take to the streets across the country, with about 500 people arrested. On Monday (October 12, 2026), only 130 of France’s 3,700 lycees were closed, according to the education ministry, which stated that “the number of school closures is falling... the violence is intensifying”.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a comprehensive government response at the end of October and rejected accusations of a police crackdown, as students press for more resources, building repairs and additional teachers. More than 6,000 people have been taken into police custody in recent weeks and hundreds of schools have closed, most of them minors with no previous criminal records. The Ministry of National Education said that 224 schools were completely closed and 151 were partially reopening, based on projected figures.
The French government has promised 3,000 supply teachers in the coming days for schools with the greatest need, its first sign of giving ground to the teenage protesters, according to the BBC. Education Minister Édouard Geffray pledged to deploy the 3,000 replacement teachers to address the crisis in French high schools, France 24 reported. The government says 6,877 people have been arrested since protests began, 86% of them under the age of 18.
In France, 141 high schools remain closed on Friday, on the fifth day of student protests, with Minister Edouard Geffray pledging 3,000 additional supply teachers, while officials count 71,500 demonstrators on Thursday, 24,500 in Paris, with 504 arrests and 48 officers injured, according to France 24.
Syria’s Islamist government barred women from several university and technical programs, excluding them from military engineering, legal and social sciences, management and economics at the National University for Defense Sciences, a move high-school graduate Israa Salloum rejected by telling AFP that no one has the right to force her to choose a field of study or exclude her from another, according to RT.
The French police have made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when students, most of them under 18, began protesting to demand more education funding, according to the Interior Ministry. On Thursday, students barricaded the Lycée Hélène Boucher in northeastern Paris with garbage bins before police moved in with tear gas, according to the Associated Press. The Education Ministry said 375 schools were fully or partially closed on Thursday. Al Jazeera recorded the use of tear gas and water cannons against students in Paris.
The Donald Trump administration opened a historic investigation into J-1 visa fraud at nine US universities, with subpoenas already issued, according to the Department of Labor, in a report by the South China Morning Post. The announcement was made on Thursday by Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito, at an event alongside Vice-President J.D. Vance, and names Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State University and MIT. The administration singled out China as the focus, warning that Beijing need not break into US research labs if institutions leave their doors open.
High school students across France were preparing for a fresh day of protests on Thursday, with entrances blocked at hundreds of schools since late September, according to AFP, in a text published by Pakistan TV. The protests, on a second day of mass mobilization in the week, denounce missing teachers, overloaded timetables and dilapidated classrooms. More than 6,500 people, mostly minors, have been arrested since the mobilization began, according to AFP, in a text republished by The Standard.