Interior Ministry says more than 70,000 people took to the streets across France on Thursday.
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Protests have continued to roil France as high school students press on with demands for more education funding and better conditions, prompting the country’s education minister to pledge the urgent deployment of 3,000 additional teachers.
On Thursday, about 71,500 people took part in protests across the country, including 24,500 in Paris, the Interior Ministry said, adding that the police arrested more than 500 people.
Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said university students and more trade unions have joined the nationwide protests and that a large rally was expected in the capital on Thursday.
“They are moving around, trying to block off the streets,” Butler said from outside one school, where university students were barricading a large area.
“They are out, they say, in solidarity with high school students because they say it’s important that as many young people join in the protests as possible,” she added.
The wave of protests began in a high school in a deprived area of Paris on September 21.
Tens of thousands of students across the country have since marched with a range of demands, from renovated school buildings to fewer classroom hours.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray said in a television interview on Thursday evening: “Within the next hours, 3,000 teachers will be joining these institutions.”
He said they would be assigned to high-priority schools between Friday and Tuesday, and that he would authorise the recruitment of “a few hundred” more.
Student associations met Geffray and Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste on Thursday afternoon and have asked to meet Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu directly.
A coordinating committee of student and professional groups has called for a new day of action on Tuesday, October 13.
The unrest comes as France debates its 2027 budget, in which education gets the second-largest funding increase after defence, up 1.4 percent to 90.9 billion euros ($101.8bn).
Economy Minister Roland Lescure said this week there was room to meet demands for more school resources.
Rights groups have accused security officials of using disproportionate force against protesters.
Several demonstrators have been injured, including one teenager who lost a hand and another whose jaw was shattered by an exploding stun grenade. The grenades have since been banned from marches.
Police officers and teachers have also been injured, authorities say, accusing students of committing violent acts.
According to Lecornu, 215 students, 89 teachers and 761 police officers and gendarmes have been injured since September 28, and 6,629 people have been detained.
Police have opened 18 internal investigations into allegations against officers. In Paris, police said they fired tear gas to disperse protesters at the Place de la Bastille on Thursday.
Most of those detained are minors, according to the Interior Ministry.
Authorities said 375 schools were either fully or partially closed on Thursday, and that two dozen had been burned or destroyed.
The demonstrations are increasing pressure on the cash-strapped outgoing government of Emmanuel Macron ahead of April elections.
Lecornu condemned the violence in a TV address on Wednesday. He faulted “political leaders who use this anger to conduct their electoral battles”, after opposition leader Jean-Luc Melenchon called for protesters to keep marching.
Lecornu has ordered ministers to provide an action plan responding to students’ demands by the end of the month, but protesters remain unconvinced.
“As far as they are concerned, the government only talks about solutions but never actually comes up with concrete actions, so they say they are going to keep coming out onto the streets until their demands are met,” Butler said.
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