On Monday 5 October 2026, several hundred high-school students (about 300 to 400 according to the media) gather in front of the Dautet lycée in La Rochelle. From 8 a.m., metal barriers are dragged in front of the main entrance and a fire is lit in a bin on place de Reims (Sud Ouest). Law enforcement, stationed on rue Delayant, gradually push the protesters back toward rue des Écoles and place de Verdun (Sud Ouest, ICI); the police use tear gas when projectiles are thrown and, according to Sud Ouest, defence-ball launchers (see the linked case).
The Charente-Maritime prefecture tells Sud Ouest that three Molotov cocktails were thrown toward law enforcement and that a firefighters’ vehicle was the target of thrown stones. In its end-of-day tally, it also reports an attempted intrusion into the lycée and damage at its entrance; these facts are not described more precisely and are not counted here.
ICI writes that several bus shelters were broken, whereas Sud Ouest, at midday, notes “no damaged street furniture” (translated) around place de Verdun: the two pieces of information are not precisely dated, and neither is retained as a fact.
Follow-up
ICI counts four people in police custody in Charente-Maritime that day (the article’s lead announces three), including two in La Rochelle, without saying whether this is linked to the Molotov cocktails. No police injury or prosecution linked to these throws is reported in the articles read as of 2026-10-05.