“We’re here to deliver a message,” one 16-year-old female student told the AFP news agency. “We’re not here to smash everything up for no reason. We’re here precisely to say that the education system is completely broken. There are 34 of us in each class, and it’s just not feasible. The teachers are overworked.”

Taking to X, French Education Minister Édouard Geffray said students have the right to protest, but condemned reports of violence as “indefensible”.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told BFMTV 440 people were detained, adding: “We don’t have the final tally yet, but I’m told two thirds led to police custody.”

French media reported that protesters hurled projectiles at police, who responded with batons and tear gas.

Speaking to AFP, Ryad Rani, president of Union Syndicale Lycéenne, which represents students, accused the French government of “repression” and police of using excessive force.

When pressed on the police response to the protests, which has been criticised by several French politicians, Nuñez said it had been “carried out in an extremely proportionate manner”.

Writing on social media on Tuesday evening, education minister Geffray said: “The right to demonstrate is a fundamental freedom that cannot serve as an excuse for such actions.

“To legitimise them or, in this context, to call for extending the blockades is to endanger our students as well as public employees. It is irresponsible.”