France’s student-led movement against austerity has been growing steadily for the past several weeks. October 17 marked another leap, with early reports indicating that at least 800,000 people mobilized across the country.

In Nantes and Lyon, the Interior Ministry reported 20,000 people; in Toulouse, tens of thousands demonstrated, and in Metz, over 5,000 protesters turned out. In Le Havre, thousands of people — Yellow Vests, union members, and young people — marched from the town hall in an unauthorized demonstration. In Rennes, police immediately kettled the more than 10,000 demonstrators who had gathered, while in Le Mans, between 10,000 and 15,000 protesters marched.

In Paris, workers across various
industries joined students in protests against Macron.

Over 800,000 people flooded the streets in the capital city, and thousands more joined demonstrations catching fire across the country and across Europe. pic.twitter.com/DIJnOJAuIy

— Left Voice (@left_voice) October 17, 2026

This latest day of mobilization was an advance not just because of its numerical weight. It was also marked by the support it received from broader sectors of society. The movement began with high school students in disproportionately immigrant and working class suburbs who denounced their underfunded education. They have since gained support from university students, sectors of the labor movement including teachers and railway workers, and broader sectors that have been outraged by the police repression. These allies converged with the high school students on October 17, despite the leadership of the labor movement delaying the call for a general strike until early November.

Most notable was the return of the Yellow Vests, the combative movement that confronted President Emmanuel Macron’s austerity in 2018. Its support for the student movement is the culmination of struggles which have shaped France for nearly a decade. The Yellow Vests protests from 2018 to 2020 were followed by the 2023 fight against Macron’s pension reform, the struggle against racism and police killings in the same year, and the “block everything” movement against austerity and militarism in 2025. These are the struggles that have shaped the consciousness of the high school students who are now leading a rebellion supported by nearly 70 percent of French society.

Reporting for Left Voice’s sister site, Révolution Permanente, youth activist Alexis Durey said,

This day needs to represent not the end of this chapter but the beginning of a movement that needs to grow larger… Students and workers need to take responsibility, to organize general assemblies from below, including in Paris… to call for a continuation of the movement into the return of the semester with full support from the working class and students.

French protests have an international reputation for creativity and combativeness, and this weekend’s actions were no exception. In Lyon, protesters occupied an area by city hall, taking bricks from a local construction site and using them to build a barricade. In Paris, the famous Marianne statue was draped in a yellow vest bearing the words “the police mutilate high school students,” alluding to incidents where police blew off one student’s hand with a “sting-ball grenade” and shot another at close range with tear gas, shattering his jaw and teeth. Smaller protests and confrontations with police carried on across the country late into the night.

Lyon : barricade impressionnante montée par des manifestants à proximité de l’hôtel de ville. Des pavés d’un chantier à proximité ont été utilisés pour dresser un mur. Certains assurent vouloir rester toute la nuit. @leprogreslyon pic.twitter.com/39XDhEQJEG

— Hugo Francés (@hugo__frances) October 17, 2026

Merci aux deux personnes qui ont mis ça sur la statue pic.twitter.com/z1hBepMUEA

— 𝒞𝒽𝓁ℴℯ́ (@chloerpr) October 17, 2026

As usual, Macron deployed the police to attack protests with water canons, batons, and mass arrests, taking to Twitter to call the movement “sowers of chaos” and claim that there is “no room for violence in our Republic.” But it is the state which carries out violence by forcing children in precarious neighborhoods to attend rats-infested schools with crumbling ceilings, while simultaneously pushing unprecedented military spending and putting students’ futures in jeopardy through climate change and austerity.

Macron is likely all the more desperate to crush this movement after the show of solidarity it received. And France is not alone: protests against austerity and militarism are developing throughout Europe, from education protests in neighboring Belgium to the housing justice encampments in the Spanish State, sparked by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen. In Germany, students are striking against military conscription. In Albania, the “Flamingo Revolution” is calling for Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation, and protests have emerged in Portugal and Italy.

While the protests in each country have their own context and demands, they share a composition: a new generation of students and workers who have borne the brunt of neoliberalism’s crises. After years of watching their conditions for housing, education, and decent work worsen, they are now being told by their governments to make more sacrifices so that billions can be spent preparing for war.

Austerity and militarism are two sides of the same coin, and France is showing that neither has to be tolerated. The latest convergence of the labor movement and broader sectors of society with the high school students offers inspiration for the struggles that are emerging throughout Europe, and in other parts of the world including Chile, Brazil, and India, to name a few.

As a rapper who traveled from Minneapolis to France to support the movement put it:

The oppressors, they share tactics with each other… And so it’s important that we are one step ahead of them… It’s important that we share our tactics with each other, so that we can learn from each other, grow from each other, and continue fighting, essentially, the same common enemy.

The post France: Students, Workers, and the Yellow Vests Converged to Protest Austerity and Militarism appeared first on Left Voice.

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