Between Monday 26 and Wednesday 28 October 2026, the French government made its first real offer to the students who started the protests. In the same days, new reporting showed that the 24 October marches had a second group in the streets that the government had not planned for.
Lecornu's offer
On Monday 26 October, more than five weeks after the school blockades began, Sébastien Lecornu received the movement's representatives at Matignon to present the findings of a national consultation opened to high-school students in early October. The headline promise was the end of Parcoursup, the national university-admissions platform. Students blame it for unexplained rejections and constant stress. From the 2027 round, admission criteria are to be easier to understand, and every rejection must be explained and justified. After that, Parcoursup will be replaced in 2028 by a new system that has not yet been designed.
Why not scrap it straight away? Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste gave the legal answer: some parts of Parcoursup can only change if the law itself changes. The platform was created by a 2018 law, so getting rid of it needs a vote in Parliament, and a minister's decree is not enough.
The rest of the package deals with crowded classrooms. Year-10 classes (Seconde) will be capped at 28 pupils from 2027 in the less advantaged half of high schools, and in every public high school from 2028. The government also promised 500 extra teaching posts and 500 posts for psychologists, nurses and social workers from 2027, and 15,000 more places in higher education.
Why "crumbs"?
The students compare these numbers with their own demands. One Lille student put it plainly: they asked for 250,000 new university places and were offered 15,000. The Union étudiante added that 10,000 places were cut the previous year, which would leave a net gain of only about 5,000. Louis Letoublon of Les Lycéens! said "15,000 places is bordering on mockery".
How the offer was presented made things worse. Two content creators popular with young people, Mathilde Fouqué and Anna Baldy, presented the exit plan live on BFMTV before Lecornu met the student associations. Student leaders saw this as a sign of "contempt". Teachers are not satisfied either. The SE-Unsa union said that the announcements are not enough and that it now wants guarantees on funding and implementation.
On Wednesday 28 October, Lecornu took the issue to the National Assembly for a debate without a vote. He is trying to beat the calendar: the government hopes students return to class when the All Saints' holidays end on Monday 2 November. Some students say they won't, and are calling for marches on 31 October and 5 November.
The "shop guards"
The second story began with a reaction to the looting of 17 October. A fitness influencer known as Alpha Rise set up a website listing Telegram groups in 66 French cities. The project, called "Entraide citoyenne" (citizens' mutual aid), called for "zero violence, zero provocation". In several cities, things went differently. In Nice, a France 2 team that got into one of the groups found violence being planned in advance, with racist messages, and eleven of them were arrested after the clashes.
The investigative outlet Bon Pote then published chat logs and videos. In them, militia members claim they benefited from coordination with the police. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez denies this firmly. However, his ministry admitted to Bon Pote that these groups "were not systematically arrested", citing the "very tough context of public-order management". This matters because of the arrest numbers covered in the earlier post: 1,314 people were detained on 24 October, most of them pre-emptively. If people who said they were defending shops were left alone while protesters were rounded up, it calls into question whether the government's "firmness" was applied equally. Investigations are under way in Rouen and Montpellier.
Between Monday 26 and Wednesday 28 October 2026, the French government made its first real offer to the students who started the protests. In the same days, new reporting showed that the 24 October marches had a second group in the streets that the government had not planned for.
Lecornu's offer
On Monday 26 October, more than five weeks after the school blockades began, Sébastien Lecornu received the movement's representatives at Matignon to present the findings of a national consultation opened to high-school students in early October. The headline promise was the end of Parcoursup, the national university-admissions platform. Students blame it for unexplained rejections and constant stress. From the 2027 round, admission criteria are to be easier to understand, and every rejection must be explained and justified. After that, Parcoursup will be replaced in 2028 by a new system that has not yet been designed.
Why not scrap it straight away? Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste gave the legal answer: some parts of Parcoursup can only change if the law itself changes. The platform was created by a 2018 law, so getting rid of it needs a vote in Parliament, and a minister's decree is not enough.
The rest of the package deals with crowded classrooms. Year-10 classes (Seconde) will be capped at 28 pupils from 2027 in the less advantaged half of high schools, and in every public high school from 2028. The government also promised 500 extra teaching posts and 500 posts for psychologists, nurses and social workers from 2027, and 15,000 more places in higher education.
Why "crumbs"?
The students compare these numbers with their own demands. One Lille student put it plainly: they asked for 250,000 new university places and were offered 15,000. The Union étudiante added that 10,000 places were cut the previous year, which would leave a net gain of only about 5,000. Louis Letoublon of Les Lycéens! said "15,000 places is bordering on mockery".
How the offer was presented made things worse. Two content creators popular with young people, Mathilde Fouqué and Anna Baldy, presented the exit plan live on BFMTV before Lecornu met the student associations. Student leaders saw this as a sign of "contempt". Teachers are not satisfied either. The SE-Unsa union said that the announcements are not enough and that it now wants guarantees on funding and implementation.
On Wednesday 28 October, Lecornu took the issue to the National Assembly for a debate without a vote. He is trying to beat the calendar: the government hopes students return to class when the All Saints' holidays end on Monday 2 November. Some students say they won't, and are calling for marches on 31 October and 5 November.
The "shop guards"
The second story began with a reaction to the looting of 17 October. A fitness influencer known as Alpha Rise set up a website listing Telegram groups in 66 French cities. The project, called "Entraide citoyenne" (citizens' mutual aid), called for "zero violence, zero provocation". In several cities, things went differently. In Nice, a France 2 team that got into one of the groups found violence being planned in advance, with racist messages, and eleven of them were arrested after the clashes.
The investigative outlet Bon Pote then published chat logs and videos. In them, militia members claim they benefited from coordination with the police. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez denies this firmly. However, his ministry admitted to Bon Pote that these groups "were not systematically arrested", citing the "very tough context of public-order management". This matters because of the arrest numbers covered in the earlier post: 1,314 people were detained on 24 October, most of them pre-emptively. If people who said they were defending shops were left alone while protesters were rounded up, it calls into question whether the government's "firmness" was applied equally. Investigations are under way in Rouen and Montpellier.
Sources