The entrance to the Édouard-Herriot secondary school in Lyon was set alight on Friday whilst lessons were taking place inside the school building. Before the fire brigade arrived at the scene, young people outside the school cheered as the flames engulfed the entrance door.
In a post on X, the mayor of Lyon’s 6th arrondissement, Samuel Soulier, writes that he cannot find the words to express his fury.
Herriot is burning with pupils inside and some are rejoicing…. I have no words to express my deep indignation!
Thank you to the firefighters and the police who came to ensure the safety of the pupils and teaching staff pic.twitter.com/QCMsO8XzG9
— Samuel_Soulier (@Samuel_Soulier) 6 November 2026
“Herriot is on fire with pupils inside, and some people are celebrating,” writes Soulier, who thanks the police and fire service for ensuring the safety of both pupils and teachers inside the building.
That morning, some pupils had set up a barricade consisting of rubbish bins and electric bikes piled up in front of the school entrance, which was then set alight, according to Le Figaro.
Emmanuelle, a shopkeeper right next to the school, told the French newspaper that around thirty pupils had been involved in starting the fire. “They threw petrol and fireworks, and when the fire flared up in full force, they applauded.” The school’s entrance door was then ablaze, and thick plumes of smoke billowed out. Disturbed by the fire at the school where she herself had been a pupil, she says: “The flames reached all the way up to the ground floor. The fire was put out by the fire brigade, but the blackened and cracked door still bears the marks of it.”
Emmanuelle watched the arrival of the police and the fire brigade whilst serving two customers: “The youths were all dressed in black with hoods, and when the police arrived, they scattered along Rue de Saxe.”
The public prosecutor’s office in Lyon has launched an investigation into the incident with a view to identifying the perpetrators, reports Le Figaro.
Attempts to block access to the school had been ongoing since the start of term, according to Lyon Capitale, which reports that panic broke out inside the school on Friday morning. The fire had flared up shortly before the pupils were due to go out for a break, and they were therefore evacuated via the back entrance, according to the local news outlet.
VG was in contact on 3 October – two weeks before the mass protests on 17 October – in contact with Norwegian pupils at Édouard-Herriot High School, who shared video footage from the school and found the situation alarming even then.
