Rioters have set fire to the entrance of a Paris school, leaving teachers and pupils trapped inside, amid mass student protests across France that continue to cause chaos. 

Footage taken outside the Vauquelin High School in Paris this morning showed violent thugs setting fire to the school's entrance. 

Through smashed glass, flames were seen licking the front doors of the school. The flames appeared to be coming from a blockade. 

After several seconds, two men were seen trying in vain to douse the flames from inside the building with a pair of fire extinguishers. 

The fire instead carried on growing in size and ferocity. Behind it, young thugs were seen throwing things into the blockade, fuelling the flames. 

Local media reported that around 100 students needed to be evacuated from Vauquelin High School, adding that demonstrators were shooting fireworks at firefighters during the operation. 

The school is one of hundreds affected by violence that has plagued France since last week. 

Many educational institutes will begin a second week of closures as protests over dilapidated schools and classrooms, overcrowding and teacher shortages precede a nationwide day of demonstrations on Tuesday.

In Lille, the Gaston-Berger High School was blockaded early this morning. Students were seen gathering around a large bonfire that had been set. 

And over in Caen, the gate of Victor Hugo High School was set alight. Rioters appeared to have thrown large items like bins into a pile before setting it on fire. 

Maud Bregeon, a spokesperson for the French government, said this morning that Emmanuel Macron's administration is putting together a new law that would make the parents of young people who cause public damage liable to pay for it. 

The law, which will be put to the country's senate later this month, would allow 'drawing funds from family benefits if necessary'.

Ms Bregeon said: 'We need to establish a form of collective responsibility. If you are participating in a violent movement, and after being ordered to leave by the police, you remain in that violent movement, then joint responsibility may be engaged.'

The nationwide demonstrations and blockades underline a fraught social atmosphere as France's government embarks on trying to pass a deficit-narrowing 2027 budget. 

France's ten-year bond yield briefly topped 5 per cent last week, its highest since 2002, as the protests compounded investor concerns over the country's fiscal outlook.

Between 400 and 500 high schools are expected to remain completely or partially closed on Monday in France, out of a total of 3,700, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said on Sunday evening.

The protests began in late September at a high school in a Paris suburb over teacher shortages before spreading nationwide.

'Our priority is to restore order,' government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon told CNews television on Monday.

Mr Geffray said that 24 schools had been burned or ransacked and that 78 employees of the national education system had been injured since the beginning of the demonstrations.

On Monday, BFMTV showed images of police and student skirmishes in Lille in northern France.

Since last Monday, around 5,000 people, mostly teenagers, have been arrested nationwide and dozens injured. Teachers and members of the public have been attacked, while damage to property is estimated in the tens of millions of euros.

Paris police chief Patrice Faure, in an open letter published on X on Saturday, said those who had launched the protests no longer controlled them and called on students to abandon blockades in favour of peaceful protest.

Student unions have nevertheless called for a national day of demonstrations on Tuesday. Security officials fear that an organized protest in central Paris in particular could see further violence amid concerns that far-Left and anarchist groups could try to take over the protests.

CGT union head Sophie Binet told TF1 television on Monday that CGT union members will attend Tuesday's demonstrations 'to protect high school students'.

'We've been appalled by what we have seen over the past 10 days and by the unprecedented crackdown that the government has organised against the protests by high school students,' she said. 

At Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, students took turns expressing their grievances at an open-air meeting Sunday.

When you are a student from one of the deprived districts, said one student, 'The violence is unleashed.'

She referred in particular to one student who had lost his teeth to a police rubber bullet and another who had been hit in the eye.

One 16-year-old boy, Campion, held a placard that read: 'They say they are listening to us but prefer to gas us'.

'I don't understand why the government deploys so much force against a case that is valid: our education, our future,' he told AFP.

Mr Geffray, in his statement, spoke of far-Left infiltrators who had 'hijacked' the movement 'and engaged in extreme violence'.

'Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students,' he said, adding that 78 education staff members had been injured.

'They were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system,' Mr Geffray said.

Organisers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, citing a lack of 'concrete measures' from the government.

In a bid to address the protesters' concerns, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term absences and unfilled posts.

He also called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country's often-dilapidated school buildings.