French student protests have spread across the country, with fires lit outside schools, roads and tram lines blocked, and hundreds of people detained as pupils demand action over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and deteriorating buildings.
About 340 demonstrations were taking place outside high schools by mid-morning, police said, while more than 160 schools had been forced to close. University students also blocked access to around 30 campuses, including in Paris and Marseille.
Several high school principals were injured, harassed or assaulted during blockades, according to regional education authorities, prefectures and union representatives.
In Marseille, teachers at Victor Hugo high school were inadvertently splashed with petrol when a student tried to throw it into a rubbish bin, local authorities said. At Saint-Exupery high school, hundreds of people surrounded a fire engine responding to a blaze before forcing firefighters from the vehicle and setting it alight, police said.
Firefighters extinguished a fire at the entrance to a school in Nantes after a gathering that regional education officials said was marked by violence towards staff. In Strasbourg, trams were halted to restrict the movement of demonstrators, while students burned barriers on the tracks, authorities said.
Students cite overcrowding and poor facilities
Raphael, a 17-year-old who withheld his surname for fear of reprisals, said classrooms in Strasbourg were severely overcrowded and poorly equipped.
“There are 35 of us per classroom. With 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit] in summer, it’s unbearable. There aren’t enough toilets, and there are water leaks in some rooms,” he told the AFP news agency.
“The building is falling apart, the cafeteria is too small. There’s zero budget, zero resources, not enough supervisors.”
The demonstrations have been building since last week, with pupils’ concerns over school conditions developing into wider unrest. Authorities have reported many injuries, including some caused by thrown objects and others reportedly involving police riot-control projectiles.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said internal investigations had been opened into allegations of brutality involving three students.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu held a crisis meeting and asked ministers to cancel upcoming official travel so the government could concentrate on the protests. Education Minister Edouard Geffray is due to meet representative staff unions and parent and student associations on Friday.
The unrest has also become entangled in the contest to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next May. The government has accused the far-left France Unbowed party of encouraging the protests, while presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said his party had “called for nonviolent methods of struggle” and criticised the government’s response as repressive.
