Mass protests over decrepit schools and absent teachers are in their third week, with more planned. Officials have failed so far to quell a movement drawing many adult supporters.

Chanting, marching and clashing at times with the police, French students protested for the second day this week on Thursday as officials looked for ways to ease a crisis that has threatened to swell into a nationwide wave of grievance.

Although officials estimated that the protests were smaller than the ones on Tuesday, they were still large and boisterous, as thousands of young people railed against overcrowded classrooms, a shortage of teachers and decrepit facilities. The mass demonstrations, sometimes joined by labor unions, parents and teachers, began more than two weeks ago, forcing hundreds of schools to close, and more are scheduled for next week.

Thomas Droit, a 22-year-old law student, said that in his five years of study at CY Cergy Paris University, he had “never seen a protest of this magnitude.”The protest, he said, was about a “convergence of struggles” — a phrase that has gained traction in the protests — from all parts of society. He cited his own concerns about the government’s plan to freeze housing benefits for students and to make foreign students pay higher university fees. “And personally what angers me is that high school students have been severely repressed,” he said.

Many protesters said they were outraged by videos they had seen online of police violence against high schoolers, some of whom had thrown debris and launched fireworks at officers.

“We are used to seeing police in France beat people, but they are normally adults. These are kids,” said Kerra Underwood, 20, a psychology student who was among the protesters who flooded into the Place de la Bastille, a main square in Paris. The crowds chanted “justice nowhere, police everywhere,” and a demand of the current president: “Macron, resign.”