French pupils resume school blockades with shopping carts and torched bins as a minister warns exams are at risk

French pupils have resumed blockades at schools and universities across the country, with students using shopping carts to barricade entrances and setting bins on fire in Lille and other cities. The education minister warned that weeks without lessons are putting students' own baccalaureate exams at risk. Unions have called a nationwide strike for Thursday, promising a fresh wave of disruption.

The protests, which began in mid-September over overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages, have spread to Germany, Italy, Belgium and Albania.

Student leader Pierre Sourzat dismissed the government's reform offers — including scrapping the Parcoursup admissions platform — as 'smoke and mirrors'.

President Macron urged pupils to return calmly, insisting 'young people have been heard'; Sourzat replied bluntly: 'He's given us almost nothing.'