A wave of high-school student protests over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into what the French government is calling "urban violence," prompting Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to convene an emergency cabinet meeting.

The demonstrations began in the Paris region last week and have since spread to cities including Dijon, Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille, Marseille, Toulouse and Caen, now stretching into their second week.

Lecornu ordered ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the crisis. His office said: "This upsurge in violence makes it virtually impossible to maintain the continuity of public education and is exposing staff and students to danger."

The education minister, Edouard Geffray, is scheduled to meet pupil representatives on Friday. The government has also announced that many schools will switch to online classes to protect teachers and students.

Police reported approximately 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents outside high schools across the country, with more than 160 schools shut down as a result. Access was also blocked to around 30 university campuses on Thursday, including in Paris and Marseille.

Nearly 3,000 lycee students, aged between 15 and 18, have been detained since the protests began. Of those, 1,949 were detained on Thursday alone, according to the interior ministry. More than 300 police officers and dozens of firefighters, teachers and pupils have been injured.

Injuries have been caused mainly by hurled objects, but also by police-fired riot-control projectiles. The interior ministry announced an internal police investigation following accusations of excessive force and brutality against three pupils.

Rubbish bins have been set on fire outside many schools, and more serious arson attempts have been reported inside some buildings. Fire damage at one school in Nantes was so extensive that authorities said it would remain closed for a month.

In Strasbourg, tram services were temporarily suspended to "restrict the movements of rioters and demonstrators," the regional prefect said, after protesting students obstructed tracks with crowd control barriers. In Lille, young people wearing black hoodies destroyed a bus stop. In Marseille, there were attempts to light fires inside two schools, and in one of them a teacher was splashed with petrol.

Students cited a range of grievances, including overloaded timetables, overcrowded classrooms, insufficient teachers, inadequate facilities and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves.

"There are 35 of us per classroom," one 17-year-old student in Strasbourg said. "There aren't enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms. The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There's zero budget, zero resources."

In the northern city of Caen, 16-year-old Maelle said she wished those setting bins on fire would protest "with words." Students were demonstrating "against this government that doesn't invest in heating, air conditioning, or teachers' salaries," she said.

Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests. While many teachers and headteachers have reported being physically threatened or attacked, some have expressed support for their students.

Juliette Estiville, a high-school Spanish teacher in Paris, said the police response had disgusted her. "I'm actually here just to provide protection, to form a barrier between the police and the students," she said. "Today went well, it's going well, but I think that the teachers who come to the blockades are really there to protect our young people."

The government has accused the radical-left La France Insoumise party of encouraging the protests. Several of the party's MPs and mayors, including Bally Bagayoko, the LFI mayor of the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, were cheered at demonstrations.

The party's candidate for the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Melenchon, insisted on Thursday that LFI backed "non-violent methods of struggle" and added that his "greatest worry is an unbearable level of police violence against these young people."