EditCalls to ban La France Insoumise follow violent school protests
A government crisis meeting was told by intelligence services that the movement was “an operation organised by LFI and its proxies on the far left”
Bruno Retailleau, the leader of Les Républicains and a presidential candidate, said on 1 October that the question of banning La France Insoumise (LFI) now “arises.” He described the party as “seditious,” “fascinated by violence,” and trying to organise an insurrection through the high-school protest movement. He linked the scenes outside lycées to what he said could happen in 2027 if Marine Le Pen won the presidency.
The remarks came as protests over teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and run-down buildings, which began in the Paris region, spread nationwide and turned increasingly violent. Reuters reported that a government crisis meeting was told by intelligence services that the movement was “an operation organised by LFI and its proxies on the far left.” A person close to the prime minister said the assessment was that blockades had tipped into urban violence.
On the ground, officials said fires were started at at least two high schools and that teachers at Marseille’s Victor Hugo lycée were splashed with petrol when a student tried to throw gasoline into a bin. The prosecutor’s office had initially described the teachers as assaulted and “doused in petrol.” A fire engine was attacked in the city, a car was torched in Strasbourg, and police clashed with youths in Toulouse and elsewhere. Interior ministry figures cited by Reuters put arrests on Wednesday alone at 625, with 83 police officers and gendarmes injured. The education minister reported at least 119 pupils and staff injured since the protests began. By Thursday evening the government said about 400 schools would close the next day and prefects banned gatherings outside those sites.
High school students torch at least two schools as high school protests rage across France
Jean-Luc Mélenchon called Retailleau’s proposal “ridiculous” and said the right-wing candidate wanted to ban LFI because he disliked its ideas. LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard, speaking on LCI, urged students to keep mobilising but to do so peacefully and pointed to a planned demonstration the following Tuesday. Other figures on the right and centre, including Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, accused LFI of exploiting the pupils, though they stopped short of Retailleau’s call for a ban. The government has framed the violence as going beyond education grievances; LFI has rejected the charge of orchestration and accused the authorities of conspiracy thinking and of repressing a student movement.
Critics of La France Insoumise, including the CRIF (Representative association of the Jewish organisations in France), the interior minister and figures across the centre and right, argue that the party has treated the Israel–Palestine conflict as a domestic wedge since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks. LFI’s first statement described the attacks as an “armed offensive by Palestinian forces” in the context of Israeli occupation and did not condemn Hamas.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon later wrote that antisemitism remained “residual” in France and was “absent” from pro-Palestinian rallies, a claim rejected by the justice minister after the antisemitic rape of a Jewish teenager in Courbevoie and contradicted by official figures showing a sharp rise in antisemitic acts. He has also accused the CRIF of giving “orders” to ministers and of using antisemitism as a political weapon, language the interior minister and the CRIF’s president described as reviving the conspiracy trope of hidden Jewish influence. Mélenchon and LFI deny the charge, say criticism of Israeli policy is being mislabelled as antisemitism, and accuse opponents of using the allegation to isolate the party.
With Reuters and additional reporting by EUalive
Caption: Clashes occur between riot police and demonstrators during a high school students’ protest against education conditions in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, France, 01 October 2026. EPA/Firas Abdullah
Updated: October 2, 2026 - 05:55
