France's School Crisis: The Collapse of Republican Equality Amid Fiscal Austerity

Rats scurry through the corridors of a French state secondary school, rainwater leaks from the roof and the heating system is broken — these are the images that French students filmed on their phones and shared widely on social media, capturing the real starting point of nationwide protests now in their second week, according to Deutsche Welle. At the lycée Paul-Éluard in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris, students report that pest infestations and burst pipes are routine; in nearby Pantin, students have complained that classroom windows cannot be opened even when temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius. Overcrowded classrooms and frequent course cancellations are likewise central to students' grievances.

According to data cited by Deutsche Welle, more than 80% of French primary school buildings are over 50 years old, with an estimated 10% to 20% in urgent need of renovation. Yet by EU standards, France's investment in education is not low — 6.7% of GDP flows into the education system. That this spending has not translated proportionally into improved teaching conditions is a problem rooted deep within France's educational governance structure.

The central government is responsible for teachers' salaries and the curriculum, but the maintenance of school buildings has been devolved layer by layer: primary schools fall to the communes, middle schools (collèges) to the départements, and upper secondary schools (lycées) to the régions. Deutsche Welle notes that local governments' financial capacities vary widely, so renovation projects can only advance slowly and piecemeal, with more than two-thirds of budgets already locked up in personnel costs and pensions, leaving extremely limited room for infrastructure. The Île-de-France région approved a total of 6.6 billion euros in renovation and expansion plans between 2017 and 2027, with local authorities saying that two-thirds of upper secondary school students now attend newly built or renovated schools; but Deutsche Welle also points out that even after mold has been removed and roofs patched, these buildings rarely have effective facilities to withstand summer heatwaves. More poignantly, some of the schools that had been built or renovated at great expense have been damaged again during the recent protests.

French Education Minister Édouard Geffray has announced an emergency recruitment of more than 3,000 substitute teachers and the deployment of software to identify struggling schools — the first concrete government responses to the demands of the protesting students. Whether these short-term measures can truly improve teaching conditions remains to be seen.

Inequalities in education spending are equally stark. According to OECD data cited by Deutsche Welle, although France invests relatively generously at the upper secondary level, per-student spending on primary education is below the average for industrialized countries. Education researchers stress that it is in these early years that learning foundations are built. The Macron government has tried since 2017 to correct this imbalance — halving class sizes in the early primary grades in disadvantaged areas and creating around 16,000 teaching posts — but the latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results reveal the severity of the problem: more than one-third of fifteen-year-old French students fail to reach the baseline level of mathematical competence. Macron's reform of the upper secondary system has likewise drawn criticism: the original intent of abolishing academic tracking in favor of individual subject choices was to give students greater freedom, but the resulting jumble of subject combinations has made scheduling extremely difficult, and students complain of increased free periods and longer days at school.

Teacher staffing difficulties compound these contradictions. France's Cour des comptes (Court of Auditors) records show that in the 2023–2024 school year, 9% of courses in state middle schools were cancelled; research on the 2024–2025 school year indicates that only about 12% of courses cancelled at short notice could be covered by substitute teachers. OECD data further lays bare a striking fact: after 15 years of teaching, French middle school teachers earn roughly half the salary of their German counterparts.

Deutsche Welle notes that France's much-vaunted Republican model of education promises equal opportunity for every child regardless of background, but in reality academic success in France is more dependent on family socioeconomic conditions than in many other countries, and children from poorer families are more likely to bear the brunt of course cancellations. French public finances are currently stretched thin: the 2027 draft budget, while adding 1.2 billion euros to the education ministry's allocation, also plans to cut teaching posts on the grounds that the number of school-age children is falling. Under the logic of austerity, the operation of "adding on one hand while cutting on the other" exposes the dilemma facing public services.

Images circulating on social media show that the movement has now gone beyond the school gates themselves. Footage of burning barricades and clashes with police is spreading, and the police face accusations of disproportionate use of force. With a presidential election now just six months away, political slogans unrelated to education policy have surfaced in some of the demonstrations. Lawmakers from the far-left France Unbowed (La France insoumise) have appeared at school blockade sites, accused by the government of exploiting young people's anger for political gain — a charge the party denies. With the election clock ticking, the campus crisis is evolving into a political struggle over the future of France's public services.