France's prime minister suspended high school classes across the country for the rest of the week as a student uprising over crumbling schools entered its third straight week of clashes, tear gas and arson. What began as a local blockade outside Paris has metastasized into the biggest youth unrest France has seen in years.

Tuesday, October 6, marked the movement's third nationwide "day of mobilization," with riot police firing tear gas at teenagers blockading school gates in cities including Lyon, Nantes and Marseille, according to Al Jazeera. Organizers claimed roughly 500,000 people turned out nationwide; authorities put the figure closer to 250,000.

A Movement Measured in Thousands of Arrests

The numbers behind the unrest have climbed almost daily. Nearly 2,000 high schools — out of France's roughly 3,700 — were blockaded or forced to close at some point, the education ministry said. Police have detained more than 6,000 people since the protests began in late September, the vast majority of them minors, with well over a thousand referred for prosecution. Hundreds on both sides have been hurt — education officials counted 215 injured students and 715 injured police officers by Tuesday.

The movement's darkest moment came October 5 in Lens, where a 15-year-old boy lost his hand after picking up a police dispersal grenade during a school blockade, an incident that has hardened both sides. The same week, masked youths set fire to entrances at a Paris trade school.

Students say they are rebelling against years of neglect: overcrowded classes of 32 to 35 pupils, chronic teacher shortages, decaying buildings never adapted for extreme heat, and punishing schedules compounded by the stress of France's university-admissions system, Parcoursup. The protests began September 21 at a single lycée in Créteil, east of Paris, and spread nationwide within days.

"When the answer is violence, it means democracy is no longer working," Hugo Vetzel, a recent graduate following the protests, told reporters.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who has governed for barely a month, called an emergency meeting with ministers and pushed back against the growing destruction even as he promised to listen. "Burning down a high school does not improve the state of high school buildings," he told parliament, according to Al Jazeera, while Education Minister Édouard Geffray reported that more than 1,200 schools had been disrupted or blocked at some point during the mobilization.

The government has leaned hard on security measures — prefects have banned gatherings around dozens of closed schools and prosecutors have been ordered to pursue a "firm penal response" — even as Lecornu's office set an end-of-October deadline for ministers to present concrete proposals addressing campus repairs, staffing and class sizes. Whether a government already squeezed by budget constraints can deliver fast enough to defuse the anger is now the central question hanging over the Élysée.

With university students now joining lycée pupils on the streets and no sign of blockades easing, France heads into the next mobilization day watching to see whether tear gas or concessions prevail first.