France: 400 schools closed as student protests continue
Deutsche Welle · LC · trust 69/100
Police have made around 2,000 arrests and dozens of people have been injured as student protests spread across France. Ministers have called for a "day of dialogue" but students have called for further strike action.
https://p.dw.com/p/5NctQ Hundreds of schools across France were closed on Friday as widespread youth protests continued Image: Laurent Cipriani/AP Photo/picture alliance Advertisement Over 400 schools and colleges across France remained closed on Friday as student protests over education-related grievances continued — with some turning violent.
Education Minister Edouard Geffray told reporters that 735 teaching establishments were "affected" in some way on Friday, "30% fewer than yesterday."
He said that three emergency services personnel had been injured responding, again an improvement on "31 yesterday," and condemned occasional "acts of extreme violence" among the wider protest movement.
The protests against teacher shortages, dilapidated school buildings and a lack of learning materials erupted at lycées (equivalent to US high schools) in the Paris region last month before spreading across the country this week.
Government ministers tried to strike a balance between empathetic messages to frustrated youth with presidential elections looming, and clear calls for calm in their public messaging.
"Calm must urgently return to high schools and universities," Europe and Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said online. "Yes, the right to demonstrate is inalienable. But the violence is inexcusable, and the cynical instrumentalization of youth for political ends is irresponsible."
Some of the roughly 400 schools or colleges that closed had sustained damage amid the demonstrations, with one of the worst hit being the Lycee Mandela in Nantes, which was expected to be out of action until mid-October after a fire in the entrance hall.
Police have made around 2,000 arrests and scores of people have been injured, including 40 high school principals, according to Geffray.
Fires were started in at least two high schools on Thursday, while teachers were reportedly inadvertently splashed with petrol at a third in the southern city of Marseille, according to officials.
At least one car was torched in the eastern city of Strasbourg while riot police clashed with youths in Toulouse in the southwest.
In the southeastern region of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, authorities claimed that "at least €25 million" of damage has been done in their jurisdiction alone. The Ile de France region that includes Paris estimated damages around €7 million on Friday.
But students have also criticized what they see as a heavy-handed police response.
"You don't want to hear our words; you just fire tear gas," one student wrote on a placard outside the Lycée Voltaire in central Paris.
Minister Geffray told broadcasters on Friday morning that "violent individuals" were "infiltrating groups of students" and "taking the movement hostage" and called on parents to prevent their children from joining the protests.
"What matters now is ensuring our children are no longer out on the streets, because they are in danger," he said.
Geffray met with student representatives and trade unions later on Friday. After this meeting, student group leaders renewed their call for "concrete" responses to their demands, said the protests should continue, but also appealed to demonstrators to refrain from any violence or vandalism.
"If I could address a clear message to high schoolers: be smart. We are giving, once again, cause to those who wish to instrumentalize and discredit our cause. Be non-violent," Nahanael Combary of the Renouveau Lycéen group said.
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According to Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, French domestic intelligence agencies told a crisis meeting on Thursday that the movement has been instrumentalized by politicians from the left-wing party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI) – who have denied the allegations.
Veteran LFI leader and 2027 presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has indeed supported the protests but called on students to use non-violent methods.
"Students, teachers and educational staff are facing the same state of neglect and their positions and claims should be respected," he wrote in a statement earlier this week, calling for "disciplined struggle, no panic, no irritation."
Meanwhile, student union bodies have called for a day of mass protest next Tuesday, October 6, under the slogan: "Police out of schools! No to the repression of student mobilization!"
"The police have no place in front of educational establishments," read a statement. "We support the ongoing mobilization and call for it to be reinforced."
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