Oct 21, 2026 · 47 min · 10 segments
Curfews imposed calm to several French cities for the past two nights, and government officials announced that they will last as long as necessary. We hear the latest on France from NPR's Paris…
D. WatkinsHost
Christina TkacikGuest
Eleanor BeardsleyGuest
Today, France continues to face a wave of student-led protests that have spread across the country.
What started as demonstrations by high school students demanding better conditions in their classrooms has turned into a nationwide movement with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets with more strikes planned.
Police have fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and crowd control grenades at protesters.
and other teenagers have suffered serious injuries flames destroyed the roof of a historic 19th century city hall in la mouche and social video shows its clock tower collapsing now the french government has imposed curfews in paris and several several other cities saying they will continue as long as necessary so how did protests over school conditions turn into a national crisis Eleanor Barrett is NPR's Paris correspondent.
I know there's a curfew in many places now, but what has the atmosphere been like in these past few days?
Well, the last big protest was Saturday, and that's when all the violence started.
I was with tens of thousands of peaceful protesters because they're actually not the ones wreaking havoc.
So you could be with them and they most people say we're totally against the violence.
protest culture it's like right to protest i would compare it to the u.s with the right to bear arms i mean literally people get worked up about it you've got to have the right to protest and it's usually fine but you also see around many protests these groups usually from the far left small like they call them really extreme leftist anarchists who love to come in and fight with police So it can that happens around like a lot of protests.
And at the same time, and the government has even is looking at a theory that they were sort of linked up with youth from the suburbs.
Today, France continues to face a wave of student-led protests that have spread across the country.
What started as demonstrations by high school students demanding better conditions in their classrooms has turned into a nationwide movement with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets with more strikes planned.
Police have fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and crowd control grenades at protesters.
and other teenagers have suffered serious injuries flames destroyed the roof of a historic 19th century city hall in la mouche and social video shows its clock tower collapsing now the french government has imposed curfews in paris and several several other cities saying they will continue as long as necessary so how did protests over school conditions turn into a national crisis Eleanor Barrett is NPR's Paris correspondent.
I know there's a curfew in many places now, but what has the atmosphere been like in these past few days?
Well, the last big protest was Saturday, and that's when all the violence started.
I was with tens of thousands of peaceful protesters because they're actually not the ones wreaking havoc.
So you could be with them and they most people say we're totally against the violence.
protest culture it's like right to protest i would compare it to the u.s with the right to bear arms i mean literally people get worked up about it you've got to have the right to protest and it's usually fine but you also see around many protests these groups usually from the far left small like they call them really extreme leftist anarchists who love to come in and fight with police So it can that happens around like a lot of protests.
And at the same time, and the government has even is looking at a theory that they were sort of linked up with youth from the suburbs.
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