After more than 50 hours manning a barricade at her university faculty building in northern Paris, Camille, 20, said she was tired but determined.

Night and day the humanities student had been keeping vigil at a lecture-hall sit-in, taking turns with another student to doze in a sleeping bag on the cold floor as they guarded the makeshift barricade made from piles of chairs.

Camille was one of scores of arts students protesting against the introduction of more selective entry requirements for universities by France's centrist president, Emmanuel Macron. The growing student protest movement has irked Macron's government, which is also grappling with strikes by rail staff in the first major test to his pro-business resolve to reshape the French economy and loosen labour rules in the state sector.